How do you know that a Jewish woman has had an orgasm?The punchline muddies up the lede. You know that a Jewish woman has had an orgasm because you see her drop her emery board.
[…]
Oh, and you know about the Jewish woman climaxing because she drops her emery board.
Deshon Marman, 20, a University of New Mexico football player who was in the city to attend the funeral of a close friend, former Lincoln High School standout David Henderson, was being held at San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of trespassing, battery and resisting arrest.
Marman grew up a block from Henderson in the Bayview neighborhood, and the two were teammates at Lincoln High School and City College of San Francisco before they transferred to separate four-year universities. Henderson was shot May 26 on Kirkwood Avenue and died 11 days later.
On Wednesday, San Francisco police got a call about 9 a.m. that someone was exposing himself outside a US Airways gate, Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.
An airline employee spotted Marman before he boarded Flight 488, bound for Albuquerque, and complained that Marman’s pants “were below his buttocks but above the knees, and that much of his boxer shorts were exposed,” Rodriguez said.
The employee asked Marman to pull up his pants before he boarded the plane, but he refused, Rodriguez said. Marman allegedly repeated his refusal after taking his seat on the plane.
“At that point he was asked to leave the plane,” Rodriguez said. "“It took 15 to 20 minutes of talking to get him to leave the plane, and he was arrested for trespassing.” Marman allegedly resisted officers as he was being led away.—Justin Berton, “Grieving Passenger’s Sagging Pants Lead to Arrest”,
The San Francisco Chronicle, 16 June 2011
The fashion actually transitioned from prison culture, said author-youth advocate Judge Greg Mathis of the “Judge Mathis” show.
“In prison you aren’t allowed to wear belts to prevent self-hanging or the hanging of others,” said Mathis, who at 17 once served eight months in jail. “They take the belt and sometimes your pants hang down. The same with no shoestrings in your shoes. You aren’t allowed to have shoestrings. Many cultures of the prison have overflowed into the community unfortunately.”
Saggin’ also has sexual connotations in prison.
“Those who pulled their pants down the lowest and showed their behind a little more raw, that was an invitation,” said Mathis. “[The youth] don’t know this part about it. I always tease and tell them that they better be careful because some man who has been in prison 30 years who comes home and doesn’t know any different may think it’s an open invitation.”—Margena A. Christian, “The Facts Behind The Saggin’ Pants Craze”,
Jet, Vol. 111, No. 18, 7 May 2007, pp 16-18
Hogamus, higamus,
God is polygynous.
Higamus, hogamus,
Christ was androgynous.
| La fête Le but de la fête est de nous faire oublier que nous sommes solitaires, misérables et promis à la mort. Autrement dit, de nous transformer en animaux. C’est pourquoi le primitif a un sens de la fête très développé. Une bonne flambée de plantes hallucinogènes, trois tambourins, et le tour est joué: un rien l’amuse. A l’opposé, l’Occidental moyen n’aboutit à une extase insuffisante qu’à l’issue de raves interminables dont il ressort sourd et drogué: il n’a pas du tout le sens de la fête. Profondément conscient de lui-même, radicalement étranger aux autres, terrorisé par l’idée de la mort, il est bien incapable d’accéder à une quelconque fusion. Cependant, il s’obstine. La perte de sa condition animale l’attriste, il en conçoit honte et dépit ; il aimerait être un fêtard, ou du moins passer pour tel. Il est dans une sale situation. QU’EST-CE QUE JE FOUS AVEC CES CONS ? « Lorsque deux d’entre vous seront réunis en mon nom, je serai au milieu d’eux » (Matthieu, 17, 13 [18: 20]). C’est bien là tout le problème: réunis au nom de quoi ? Qu’est qui pourrait bien, au fond, justifier d’être réunis ? Réunis pour s’amuser. C’est la pire des hypothèses. Dans ce genre de circonstances (boîtes de nuit, bals populaires, boums) qui n’ont visiblement rien d’amusant, une seule solution: draguer. On sort alors du registre de la fête pour rentrer dans celui d’une féroce compétition narcissique, avec ou sans option pénétration (on considère classiquement que l’homme a besoin de la pénétration pour obtenir la gratification narcissique souhaitée ; il ressent alors quelque chose d’analogue au claquement de la partie gratuite sur les anciens flippers. La femme, le plus souvent, se contente de la certitude qu’on désire la pénétrer). Si ce genre de jeux vous dégoûte, ou que vous ne vous sentez pas en mesure d’y faire bonne figure, une seule solution: partir au plus vite. Réunis pour lutter (manifestations étudiantes, rassemblements écologistes, talk-shows sur la banlieue). L’idée, a priori, est ingénieuse : en effet, le joyeux ciment d’une cause commune peut provoquer un effet de groupe, un sentiment d’appartenance, voire une authentique ivresse collective. Malheureusement, la psychologie des foules suit des lois invariables : on aboutit toujours à une domination des éléments les plus stupides et les plus agressifs. On se retrouve donc au milieu d’une bande de braillards bruyants, voire dangereux. Le choix est donc le même que dans la boîte de nuit : partir avant que ça cogne, ou draguer (dans un contexte ici plus favorable : la présence de convictions communes, les sentiments divers provoqués par le déroulement de la protestation ont pu légèrement ébranler la carapace narcissique). Réunis pour baiser (boîtes à partouzes, orgies privées, certains groupes New Age). Une des formules les plus simples et les plus anciennes : réunir l’humanité sur ce qu’elle a, en effet, de plus commun. Des actes sexuels ont lieu, même si le plaisir n’est pas toujours au rendez-vous. C’est déjà ça ; mais c’est à peu près tout. Réunis pour célébrer (messes, pèlerinages). La religion propose une formule tout à fait originale : nier audacieusement la séparation et la mort en affirmant que, contrairement aux apparences, nous baignons dans l’amour divin tout en nous dirigeant vers une éternité bienheureuse. Une cérémonie religieuse dont les participants auraient la foi offrirait donc l’exemple unique d’une fête réussie. Certains participants agnostiques peuvent même, durant le temps da la cérémonie, se sentir gagnés par un sentiment de croyance ; mais ils risquent ensuite une descente pénible (un peu comme pour le sexe, mais pire). Une solution : être touché par la grâce. Le pèlerinage, combinant des avantages de la manifestation étudiante et ceux du voyage Nouvelles Frontières, le tout dans une ambiance de spiritualité aggravée par la fatigue, offre en outre des conditions idéales pour la drague, qui en devient presque involontaire, voire sincère. Hypothèse haute en sortie de pèlerinage : mariage + conversion. A l’opposé, la descente peut être terrible. Prévoir d’enchaîner sur un séjour UCPA « sports de glisse », qu’il sera toujours temps d’annuler (renseignez-vous au préalable sur les conditions d’annulation). LA FÊTE SANS LARMES. En réalité, il suffit d’avoir prévu de s’amuser pour être certain de s’emmerder. L’idéal serait donc de renoncer totalement aux fêtes. Malheureusement, le fêtard est un personnage si respecté que cette renonciation entraîne une dégradation forte de l’image sociale. Les quelques conseils suivants devraient permettre d’éviter le pire (rester seul jusqu’au bout, dans un état d’ennui évoluant vers le désespoir, avec l’impression erronée que les autres s’amusent).
—Michel Houellebecq, Rester vivant, Flammarion, 1997, pp. 70-73 |
Celebration The aim of celebration is to make us forget that we are lonely, miserable, and promised to death. In other words, to transform us into animals. That is why the savage has a very well developed sense of celebration. A sound puff of hallucinogenic plants, three tambourines, and he is all done: amused by a trifle. By contrast, the average Westerner achieves a meager ecstasy only in the wake of endless raves, which leave him stupefied and intoxicated: he has no sense of celebration whatsoever. Deeply conscious of himself, radically foreign to others, terrified by the idea of death, he is unable to achieve any synthesis. However, he persists. The loss of his animal condition saddens him; it consigns him to shame and vexation; he would be a celebrator, or at least pass for such. He is in a lousy situation. WHAT AM I DOING WITH THESE IDIOTS? “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew, 17:13 [18:20]). This is indeed the entire problem: gathered together in the name of what? What could suffice, in the final analysis, to justify such gatherings? Gathered together for fun. This is the worst case scenario. In such circumstances (night clubs, village dances, parties) which obviously fail to foment fun, there is only one solution: a pickup. One then abandons the mindset of celebration to return to that of a fierce narcissistic competition, with or without an option of penetration (typically considering that man needs penetration to achieve the desired narcissistic gratification, whereupon he feels something analogous to the chimes of the bonus game on old pinball machines. The woman, most often, satisfies herself with the certainty of being desired as the object of penetration). If this kind of game turns you off, or you do not feel up to winning it, there remains only one solution: to leave at the earliest opportunity. Gathered together to fight (student protests, environmentalist rallies, town hall meetings). At first blush, the idea is ingenious: in fact, the happy joining in a common cause can produce a group effect, a sense of belonging, even a genuine collective drunkenness. Unfortunately, the psychology of crowds follows rigid laws: it always leads to domination of the most stupid and most aggressive. So we end up in the midst of a rowdy, even dangerous band of blowhards. The choice is therefore the same as in the nightclub: leaving before it all busts out, or trolling for a pickup (here in a more favorable context: the presence of common convictions, the range of feelings brought forth in the course of the protest being liable to slightly displace the narcissistic shell). Gathered together to fuck (sex clubs, private orgies, certain New Age groups). One of the simplest and oldest formulas: uniting mankind in its most common aspect. Sexual acts take place, even if pleasure is not always present. That’s already something, but that’s about all there is to it. Gathered together to celebrate (masses, pilgrimages). Religion offers a completely original formula: boldly deny the separation and death by affirming that, contrary to appearances, we are immersed in divine love, while advancing towards a blissful eternity. A religious ceremony in which participants have faith would therefore offer a unique example of a successful celebration. Some agnostic participants may even, during the ceremony, feel overwhelmed by a sense belief; but they risk a painful descent (a bit like sex, but worse). One solution: to be touched by grace. The pilgrimage, combining the benefits of student demonstration with those of packaged holidays by Nouvelles Frontieres, all in an atmosphere of spirituality aggravated by fatigue, also provides ideal conditions to troll for a pickup, which becomes almost involuntary, even sincere. The charitable assumption at the end of the pilgrimage: marriage + conversion. Otherwise, the descent can be terrible. Plan to follow up on a water-sporting vacation by UCPA, which could be cancelled at the last minute (ask in advance about the cancellation policy). CELEBRATE WITHOUT TEARS. In fact, just planning to have fun is enough to ensure getting bored. The ideal would therefore be to renounce all celebrations. Unfortunately, the party animal is a figure so well respected that this renunciation would result in a severe weakening of the social image. The following tips should help to avoid the worst (staying alone until the end, in a state of boredom evolving into despair, with the mistaken impression that the others are having fun).
—translated by MZ |
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larvatus and ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
mhouellebecq.This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.For my part, the road ahead is so bright, I gotta tint my windshield. Unremitting financial hegemony of the smartest guys in the room doing “God’s work”, compounded by the executive arrogance of the καλοὶ κἀγαθοὶ extolling their likes as “very savvy businessmen”, have precipitated popular hatred of public intellectuals who have concluded that their responsibilities are to power alone. This hatred cannot be quelled by appeals to reason. As a result of universal suffrage, American politics needs rationality like a fish needs a bicycle. Its proper remedy is homeopathic, a dosage of President Palin galvanizing resentment against empowering stupid people, in a welcome reversal of the instant scenario.
Some people think only hierarchical forms of the right to respect should be called “honor.” There’s a reason for this, beyond the insistence of a committed defender of social hierarchy like Edmund Burke: many of the most noticeable forms of honor from the Iliad to the Pashtunwali are, indeed, hierarchical. The issue here is not just a matter of a terminological stipulation, though: I think that much is to be gained by thinking about hierarchical and non-hierarchical codes that assign the right to respect together. The argument for that view is this book.A fundamental problem with this approach to honor stems from the fact that honoring rational beings entails a recognition of their beliefs about God and life, right and wrong, good and bad. In our current democratic culture, this recognition involves an accommodation of what John Rawls calls the citizen’s comprehensive moral doctrine. One such doctrine subsumes the Christian articles of faith spelled out by Paul of Tarsus in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which counts homosexuals amongst the unrighteous (adikoi), debarred from inheriting the Kingdom of God. Elsewhere Appiah boasts of having reconciled with his homosexuality as a Christian before he eventually stopped being a Christian. But a Pauline Christian needs must discount this reconciliation of an arsenokoites with the Christian doctrine, as proceeding pursuant to a honor code of a congenital contortionist. Notably, Appiah makes an effort to acknowledge some congenital attributes as “relevant bases for partiality”, while altogether disclaiming their suitability as grounds for moral and social superiority:
What is democratic about our current culture, then, is that we now presuppose all normal human beings, not just those who are especially elevated, to be entitled to respect. But granting everyone recognition respect is perfectly consistent with granting greater appraisal respect to some than to others, because these are different forms of respect. From now, I’ll reserve the term dignity for one species of honor, namely, the right to recognition respect. So now we can say: Honoring some especially is consistent with recognizing the dignity of everyone else. Such dignity does not require the comparative forms of appraisal that go with more competitive forms of honor. It’s not something you earn, and the appropriate response to your dignity is not pride so much as self-respect; after all, if your humanity entitles you to respect, then it entitles you to respect even from yourself!—Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, p. 130
The struggle to break the tight connection between honor and birth is nearly as old as the connection itself. Recall Horace—son of a freed slave—addressing Maecenas, the richest and noblest of the private patrons of the arts in Augustan Rome, some two millennia ago. Maecenas “says it’s no matter who your parents are, so long as you’re worthy,” but Horace complains that most Romans take the opposite view.6[6. Horace, Sermones, I.6, II.7-8.] Anyone who offers himself for public office, the poet grumbles, gets asked “from what father he may be descended, whether he is dishonorable because of the obscurity of his mother.”7[7. Ibid., II.34-37.] This is the feature of the old system of honor that we have rejected, as we have grown suspicious of the idea that some people deserve better (or worse) treatment on account of identities they did not choose. Social status—class, if you like—should grant you no moral rights, people think; nor should your race or gender or sexual orientation.8[8. Ascriptive identities to which one is assigned by birth, such as family membership, can, I should insist, be relevant bases for partiality. You are entitled (indeed, sometimes required) to treat A better than B solely because A is your sister and B is unrelated to you. But recognizing something as a form of partiality is recognizing that there is nothing intrinsically superior about those to whom one is partial: if there were, one's reasons for favoring them could be impartial. See Appiah, The Ethics of Identity, Chapter 6.]For the purposes of Appiah’s argument, his moral gerrymandering is impotent in its extravagance. It is extravagant because rejecting the old system of honor based on the idea that some people deserve better (or worse) treatment on account of identities they did not choose, would leave our society with no means of legitimately honoring the fast runner or the brilliant mathematician. It is impotent in virtue of leaving room for the Christian pastoral policy of requiring that “homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society”, while asserting “the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of”. And notwithstanding Appiah’s insistence on “granting everyone recognition respect” irrespectively of their sexual orientation, no such granting can take place between himself and and his fellow citizens of the Pauline Christian persuasion. Within the liberal bounds of Rawlsian reasonable pluralism, these latter cannot advocate the use of coercive political power to impose conformity with their views upon non-believers. But they have every right, not only to withhold respect from their fellow citizens whom they find morally wanting, but also to subject them to public displays of contempt.—Op. cit., pp. 185, 245
larvatus and philosophy.| Les Tentations, ou Éros, Plutus et la Gloire | The Temptations: or, Eros, Plutus, and Glory | Искушения, или Эрос, Плутос и Слава |
| Deux superbes Satans et une Diablesse, non moins extraordinaire, ont la nuit dernière monté l’escalier mystérieux par où l’Enfer donne assaut à la faiblesse de l’homme qui dort, et communique en secret avec lui. Et ils sont venus se poser glorieusement devant moi, debout comme sur une estrade. Une splendeur sulfureuse émanait de ces trois personnages, qui se détachaient ainsi du fond opaque de la nuit. Ils avaient l’air si fier et si plein de domination, que je les pris d’abord tous les trois pour de vrais Dieux. Le visage du premier Satan était d’un sexe ambigu, et il avait aussi, dans les lignes de son corps, la mollesse des anciens Bacchus. Ses beaux yeux languissants, d’une couleur ténébreuse et indécise, ressemblaient à des violettes chargées encore des lourds pleurs de l’orage, et ses lèvres entr’ouvertes à des cassolettes chaudes, d’où s’exhalait la bonne odeur d’une parfumerie; et à chaque fois qu’il soupirait, des insectes musqués s’illuminaient, en voletant, aux ardeurs de son souffle. Autour de sa tunique de pourpre était roulé, en manière de ceinture, un serpent chatoyant qui, la tête relevée, tournait langoureusement vers lui ses yeux de braise. A cette ceinture vivante étaient suspendus, alternant avec des fioles pleines de liqueurs sinistres, de brillants couteaux et des instruments de chirurgie. Dans sa main droite il tenait une autre fiole dont le contenu était d’un rouge lumineux, et qui portait pour étiquette ces mots bizarres: « Buvez, ceci est mon sang, un parfait cordial » ; dans la gauche, un violon qui lui servait sans doute à chanter ses plaisirs et ses douleurs, et à répandre la contagion de sa folie dans les nuits de sabbat. A ses chevilles délicates traînaient quelques anneaux d’une chaîne d’or rompue, et quand la gêne qui en résultait le forçait à baisser les yeux vers la terre, il contemplait vaniteusement les ongles de ses pieds, brillants et polis comme des pierres bien travaillées. Il me regarda avec ses yeux inconsolablement navrés, d’où s’écoulait une insidieuse ivresse, et il me dit d’une voix chantante : « Si tu veux, si tu veux, je te ferai le seigneur des âmes, et tu seras le maître de la matière vivante, plus encore que le sculpteur peut l’être de l’argile ; et tu connaîtras le plaisir, sans cesse renaissant, de sortir de toi-même pour t’oublier dans autrui, et d’attirer les autres âmes jusqu’à les confondre avec la tienne. » Et je lui répondis : « Grand merci ! je n’ai que faire de cette pacotille d’êtres qui, sans doute, ne valent pas mieux que mon pauvre moi. Bien que j’aie quelque honte à me souvenir, je ne veux rien oublier; et quand même je ne te connaîtrais pas, vieux monstre, ta mystérieuse coutellerie, tes fioles équivoques, les chaînes dont tes pieds sont empêtrés, sont des symboles qui expliquent assez clairement les inconvénients de ton amitié. Garde tes présents. » Le second Satan n’avait ni cet air à la fois tragique et souriant, ni ces belles manières insinuantes, ni cette beauté délicate et parfumée. C’était un homme vaste, à gros visage sans yeux, dont la lourde bedaine surplombait les cuisses, et dont toute la peau était dorée et illustrée, comme d’un tatouage, d’une foule de petites figures mouvantes représentant les formes nombreuses de la misère universelle. Il y avait de petits hommes efflanqués qui se suspendaient volontairement à un clou; il y avait de petits gnomes difformes, maigres, dont les yeux suppliants réclamaient l’aumône mieux encore que leurs mains tremblantes; et puis de vieilles mères portant des avortons accrochés à leurs mamelles exténuées. Il y en avait encore bien d’autres. Le gros Satan tapait avec son poing sur son immense ventre, d’où sortait alors un long et retentissant cliquetis de métal, qui se terminait en un vague gémissement fait de nombreuses voix humaines. Et il riait, en montrant impudemment ses dents gâtées, d’un énorme rire imbécile, comme certains hommes de tous les pays quand ils ont trop bien dîné. Et celui-là me dit: « Je puis te donner ce qui obtient tout, ce qui vaut tout, ce qui remplace tout ! » Et il tapa sur son ventre monstrueux, dont l’écho sonore fit le commentaire de sa grossière parole. Je me détournai avec dégoût, et je répondis: « Je n’ai besoin, pour ma jouissance, de la misère de personne ; et je ne veux pas d’une richesse attristée, comme un papier de tenture, de tous les malheurs représentés sur ta peau. » Quant à la Diablesse, je mentirais si je n’avouais pas qu’à première vue je lui trouvai un bizarre charme. Pour définir ce charme, je ne saurais le comparer à rien de mieux qu’à celui des très-belles femmes sur le retour, qui cependant ne vieillissent plus, et dont la beauté garde la magie pénétrante des ruines. Elle avait l’air à la fois impérieux et dégingandé, et ses yeux, quoique battus, contenaient une force fascinatrice. Ce qui me frappa le plus, ce fut le mystère de sa voix, dans laquelle je retrouvais le souvenir des contralti les plus délicieux et aussi un peu de l’enrouement des gosiers incessamment lavés par l’eau-de-vie. « Veux-tu connaître ma puissance ? » dit la fausse déesse avec sa voix charmante et paradoxale. « Écoute. » Et elle emboucha alors une gigantesque trompette, enrubannée, comme un mirliton, des titres de tous les journaux de l’univers, et à travers cette trompette elle cria mon nom, qui roula ainsi à travers l’espace avec le bruit de cent mille tonnerres, et me revint répercuté par l’écho de la plus lointaine planète. « Diable ! » fis-je, à moitié subjugué, « voilà qui est précieux ! » Mais en examinant plus attentivement la séduisante virago, il me sembla vaguement que je la reconnaissais pour l’avoir vue trinquant avec quelques drôles de ma connaissance ; et le son rauque du cuivre apporta à mes oreilles je ne sais quel souvenir d’une trompette prostituée. Aussi je répondis, avec tout mon dédain: « Va-t’en ! Je ne suis pas fait pour épouser la maîtresse de certains que je ne veux pas nommer. » Certes, d’une si courageuse abnégation j’avais le droit d’être fier. Mais malheureusement je me réveillai, et toute ma force m’abandonna. « En vérité, me dis-je, il fallait que je fusse bien lourdement assoupi pour montrer de tels scrupules. Ah ! s’ils pouvaient revenir pendant que je suis éveillé, je ne ferais pas tant le délicat ! » Et je les invoquai à haute voix, les suppliant de me pardonner, leur offrant de me déshonorer aussi souvent qu’il le faudrait pour mériter leurs faveurs; mais je les avais sans doute fortement offensés, car ils ne sont jamais revenus. |
Two superb Satans and a Deviless no less extraordinary ascended last night the mysterious stairway by which Hell assails the frailty of sleeping man, and converses with him covertly. And they poses gloriously before me, as though having mounted a stage. A sulphurous splendor emanated from these three beings who thus disengaged themselves from the opaque heart of the night. They bore with them a presence so proud and so full of mastery, that at first I took all three of them for true Gods. The first Satan had a countenance of doubtful sex, and the softness of ancient Bacchants in the lines of his body. His beautiful languorous eyes, of a shadowy and indefinite color, were like violets still laden with the heavy tears of the storm; and his slightly parted lips were like heated censers, from whence exhaled the sweet odor of many perfumes; and each time he breathed, exotic insects drew, as they fluttered, strength from the ardours of his breath. Twined about his tunic of purple stuff, in the manner of a cincture, was an iridescent Serpent with lifted head and eyes like embers turned sleepily towards him. Phials full of sinister fluids, alternating with shining knives and instruments of surgery, hung from this living girdle. He held in his right hand a flagon containing a luminous red fluid, and inscribed with a legend in these singular words: “Drink of this my blood: a perfect restorative”; and in his left hand held a violin that without doubt served to sing his pleasures and pains, and to spread abroad the contagion of his folly upon the nights of the Sabbath. From rings upon his delicate ankles trailed a broken chain of gold, and when the burden of this caused him to bend his eyes towards the earth, he would contemplate with vanity the nails of his feet, as brilliant and polished as well-wrought jewels. He looked at me with eyes inconsolably heartbroken and giving forth an insidious intoxication, and cried in a chanting voice: “If thou wilt, if thou wilt, I will make thee an overlord of souls; thou shalt be master of living matter more perfectly than the sculptor is master of his clay; thou shalt taste the pleasure, reborn without end, of obliterating thyself in the self of another, and of luring other souls to lose themselves in thine.” But I replied to him: “I thank thee. I only gain from this venture, then, beings of no more worth than my poor self? Though remembrance brings me shame indeed, I would forget nothing; and even before I recognized thee, thou ancient monster, thy mysterious cutlery, thy equivocal phials, and the chain that imprisons thy feet, were symbols showing clearly enough the inconvenience of thy friendship. Keep thy gifts.” The second Satan had neither the air at once tragical and smiling, the lovely insinuating ways, nor the delicate and scented beauty of the first. A gigantic man, with a coarse, eyeless face, his heavy paunch overhung his hips and was gilded and pictured, like a tattooing, with a crowd of little moving figures which represented the unnumbered forms of universal misery. There were little sinew-shrunken men who hung themselves willingly from nails; there were meager gnomes, deformed and undersized, whose beseeching eyes solicited alms even more eloquently than their trembling hands; there were old mothers who nursed clinging abortuses at their drooping breasts. And many others, even more surprising. This heavy Satan beat with his fist upon his immense belly, from whence came a loud and resounding metallic clangour, which died away in a sighing made by many human voices. And he smiled unrestrainedly, showing his broken teeth—the imbecile smile of a man who has dined too freely. Then the creature said to me: “I can give thee that which gets all, which is worth all, which takes the place of all.” And he tapped his monstrous paunch, whence came a sonorous echo as the commentary to his obscene speech. I turned away with disgust and replied: “I need no man’s misery to bring me happiness; nor will I have the sad wealth of all the misfortunes pictured upon thy skin as upon a tapestry.” As for the She-devil, I should lie if I denied that at first I found in her a certain strange charm, which to define I can but compare to the charm of certain beautiful women past their first youth, who yet seem to age no more, whose beauty keeps something of the penetrating magic of ruins. She had an air at once imperious and sordid, and her eyes, though heavy, held a certain power of fascination. I was struck most by her voice, wherein I found the remembrance of the most delicious contralti, as well as a little of the hoarseness of a throat continually laved with brandy. “Wouldst thou know my power?” said the charming and paradoxical voice of the false goddess. “Then listen.” And she put to her mouth a gigantic trumpet, enribboned, like a mirliton, with the titles of all the newspapers in the world; and through this trumpet she cried my name so that it rolled through, space with the sound of a hundred thousand thunders, and came re-echoing back to me from the farthest planet. “Devil!” cried I, half tempted, that at least is worth something.” But it vaguely struck me, upon examining the seductive virago more attentively, that I had seen her clinking glasses with certain drolls of my acquaintance, and her blare of brass carried to my ears I know not what memory of a fanfare prostituted. So I replied, with all disdain: “Get thee hence! I know better than wed the light o’ love of them that 1 will not name.” Truly, I had the right to be proud of a so courageous renunciation. But unfortunately I awoke, and all my courage left me. “ In truth,” I said, “I must have been very deeply asleep indeed to have had such scruples. Ah, if they would but return while I am awake, I would not be so delicate.” So I invoked the three in a loud voice, offering to dishonour myself as often as necessary to obtain their favours; but I had without doubt too deeply offended them, for they have never returned. |
Два великолепных Дьявола и не менее замечательная Дьяволица поднялись прошлой ночью по той таинственной лестнице, через которую Ад атакует немощь спящего человека, и вступает с ним в тайные сношения. И вот они возвысились передо мной во всем блеске, словно бы выйдя на подмостки. Серное сияние исходило из этих трёх личностей, отделяя их от смутной глубины ночи. В их облике было столько гордости и господства, что поначалу я принял всех трёх за настоящих богов. Лицо первого дьявола было и мужским и женским, и во всех линиях его тела проявлялась изнеженность античных Бахусов. Его прекрасные томные глаза мрачного и неясного цвета, походили на фиалки всё ещё наполненные тяжелыми слезами грозы, а его полуоткрытые губы, на горячие курильницы, изливающие благовонный дым; и при каждом его вздохе мускусные мошки кружились рядом, вспыхивая от его горячего дыхания. Вокруг его пурпурной туники обвилась, подобно поясу, сверкающая змея, которая, приподнимая голову, томно обращала к нему свои искрящиеся глаза. К этому живому поясу были подвешены, чередуясь с флаконами наполненными роковыми зельями, блистающие кинжалы и хирургические инструменты. В правой руке он держал ещё один сосуд, наполненный красной светящейся жидкостью, на котором виднелась странная надпись: «Вкусите, сие есть кровь моя, что полностью укрепит ваши силы»; а в левой—скрипку, которая, без сомнения, служила ему, дабы воспевать свои радости и горести и распространять заразу безумия на полуночных шабашах. От его изящных лодыжкек тащились обрывки золотой цепи, и каждый раз, когда вызываемое ими стеснение принуждало его опускать глаза, он бросал тщеславные взгляды на свои ногти, отполированные и сверкающие, словно тщательно отделанные камни. Он посмотрел на меня полными безутешной скорби глазами, откуда исходил коварный дурман, и сказал мне певучим голосом: «Стоит тебе захотеть, стоит захотеть, и я сделаю тебя владыкою душ, и ты станешь повелителем живой материи, более властным, чем скульптор способен властвовать над глиной; и ты познаешь непрестанно возрождающееся наслаждение выходить за пределы самого себя, чтобы забыться в другом, и притягивать другие души, вплоть до их смешения с твоею собственной». И я отвечал ему: «Благодарю покорно! мне нечего делать с этим хламом чужих существ, которые, без сомнения, не стоят более, чем моя бедная душа. Хотя я и стыжусь некоторых своих воспоминаний, я не хочу ничего забывать; и даже если бы я не знал тебя, древнее чудовище, то твои странные ножи, твои двусмысленные зелья, цепи стесняющие твои ноги, обозначают достаточно ясно те неудобства, что причиняет твоя дружба. Оставь свои дары при себе». Второй дьявол не обладал ни подобной наружностью, одновременно трагической и ласковой, ни замечательно вкрадчивыми повадками, ни этой утонченной и благоухающей красотой. Это был огромный мужчина с широким безглазым лицом, чьё тяжелое брюхо нависало над бёдрами, и чья кожа была сплошь позолочена и испещрена, словно татуировками, сборищем крошечных движущихся фигурок, представляющих собой всевозможные разновидности вселенского несчастья. Тут были высохшие человечки, добровольно вешавшиесь на гвозде; тощие уродливые карлики, чьи умоляющие глаза просили милостыни ещё настойчивее, чем дрожащие руки; состарившиеся матери, державшие на руках недоносков, льнувших к их истощённым грудям. И было еще великое множество других. Тучный дьявол бил кулаком своё непомерное брюхо, и каждый раз оттуда доносилось бряцанье металла, заканчивающееся слабым стоном, издавашимся множеством человеческих голосов. И он хохотал, бесстыдно обнажая свои гнилые зубы, громким идиотским хохотом, как это делают во всех странах света некоторые люди после чересчур плотного обеда. И он сказал мне: «Я могу дать тебе то, что получает всё, что стоит всего, что заменяет всё». И он похлопал по своей чудовищной утробе, ответившей на его грубые слова гулким эхом. Я отвернулся от него с отвращением и ответил: «Для моего удовольствия не нужно чужого несчастья; и я не хочу богатства опечаленного всеми бедами отпечатанными на твоей коже, как на обоях». Что же до Дьяволицы, то я солгал бы, не сознавшись, что на первый взгляд я нашел в ней некое странное очарование. Чтобы определить это очарование, я не мог бы найти лучшего сравнения, чем с очарованием, присущим очень красивым зрелым женщинам, которые словно бы перестали стареть, и чья красота хранит пронизывающее обаяние руин. У неё был вид одновременно повелительный и нескладный, а ее глаза, даже окружённые синевой, содержали чарующую силу. Но сильнее всего поразил меня её таинственный голос, в котором я нашёл ноты нежнейших контральто заодно с хрипотцой глоток, регулярно промываемых водкой. «Хочешь узнать моё могущество?»—спросила лжебогиня чарующим и парадоксальным голосом. «Слушай». И она приложила к губам гигантскую трубу, обвутую лентами, словно сельская дудочка, с заголовками всех газет, какие только есть в мире, и сквозь эту трубу прокричала мое имя, которое прокатилось по всей вселенной с грохотом, подобным сотне тысяч громовых раскатов, и вернулось ко мне от самых дальних планет, отраженное эхом. «Чёрт подери!»—воскликнул я, уже наполовину сдавшись.—«Вот это и вправду стоящее дело!» Но пока я разглядывал повнимательнее эту мужеподобную искусительницу, мне смутно припомнилось, что как-то раз видел её в пьяной компании известных пройдох; и её медное рычание напомнило мне некую продажную трубы. И я ответил со всем презрением, на какое был способен: «Изыди! Я не собираюсь жениться на любовнице неких лиц, которых даже не взялся бы назвать». Разумеется, после такого мужественного самоотречения я имел полное право гордиться собой. Но тут, к несчастью, я пробудился, и вся моя сила оставила меня. «Воистину»,—сказал я себе,—«я должен был заснуть слишком крепко, чтобы проявить столько щепетильности. Ах! если бы они могли вернуться сейчас, когда я бодрствую, я не был бы таким разборчивым!» И я громко взывал к ним, умоляя простить меня, предлагая им унижать меня всё чаще, пока я заново не удостоюсь их милости; но, должно быть, я жестоко оскорбил их, поскольку они никогда не вернулись. |
| —Charles Baudelaire, Œuvres Complètes, V. I, Gallimard, 1975, pp. 307-310 | —translated by MZ | —перевёл МЗ |
larvatus and againstnature.
| Ray: Then I do know a Belgian joke. What’s Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse. And they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids! —Martin McDonagh, In Bruges |
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