THE DOUBLE CHAMBER

A chamber that is like a reverie; a chamber truly _spiritual_, where the
stagnant atmosphere is lightly touched with rose and blue.

There the soul bathes itself in indolence made odorous with regret and
desire. There is some sense of the twilight, of things tinged with blue
and rose: a dream of delight during an eclipse. The shape of the
furniture is elongated, low, languishing; one would think it endowed
with the somnambulistic vitality of plants and minerals.

The tapestries speak an inarticulate language, like the flowers, the
skies, the dropping suns.

There are no artistic abominations upon the walls. Compared with the
pure dream, with an impression unanalysed, definite art, positive art,
is a blasphemy. Here all has the sufficing lucidity and the delicious
obscurity of music.

An infinitesimal odour of the most exquisite choice, mingled with a
floating humidity, swims in this atmosphere where the drowsing spirit is
lulled by the sensations one feels in a hothouse.

The abundant muslin flows before the windows and the couch, and spreads
out in snowy cascades. Upon the couch lies the Idol, ruler of my dreams.
But why is she here? -- who has brought her? -- what magical power has
installed her upon this throne of delight and reverie? What matter -- she
is there; and I recognise her.

These indeed are the eyes whose flame pierces the twilight; the subtle
and terrible mirrors that I recognise by their horrifying malice. They
attract, they dominate, they devour the sight of whomsoever is imprudent
enough to look at them. I have often studied them; these Black Stars
that compel curiosity and admiration.

To what benevolent demon, then, do I owe being thus surrounded with
mystery, with silence, with peace, and sweet odours? O beatitude! the
thing we name life, even in its most fortunate amplitude, has nothing in
common with this supreme life with which I am now acquainted, which I
taste minute by minute, second by second.

Not so! Minutes are no more; seconds are no more. Time has vanished, and
Eternity reigns -- an Eternity of delight.

A heavy and terrible knocking reverberates upon the door, and, as in a
hellish dream, it seems to me as though I had received a blow from a
mattock.

Then a Spectre enters: it is an usher who comes to torture me in the
name of the Law; an infamous concubine who comes to cry misery and to
add the trivialities of her life to the sorrow of mine; or it may be the
errand-boy of an editor who comes to implore the remainder of a
manuscript.

The chamber of paradise, the Idol, the ruler of dreams, the Sylphide, as
the great Rene said; all this magic has vanished at the brutal knocking
of the Spectre.

Horror; I remember, I remember! Yes, this kennel, this habitation of
eternal weariness, is indeed my own. Here is my senseless furniture,
dusty and tattered; the dirty fireplace without a flame or an ember; the
sad windows where the raindrops have traced runnels in the dust; the
manuscripts, erased or unfinished; the almanac with the sinister days
marked off with a pencil!

And this perfume of another world, whereof I intoxicated myself with a
so perfected sensitiveness; alas, its place is taken by an odour of
stale tobacco smoke, mingled with I know not what nauseating mustiness.
Now one breathes here the rankness of desolation.

In this narrow world, narrow and yet full of disgust, a single familiar
object smiles at me: the phial of laudanum: old and terrible love; like
all loves, alas! fruitful in caresses and treacheries.

Yes, Time has reappeared; Time reigns a monarch now; and with the
hideous Ancient has returned all his demoniacal following of Memories,
Regrets, Tremors, Fears, Dolours, Nightmares, and twittering nerves.

I assure you that the seconds are strongly and solemnly accentuated now;
and each, as it drips from the pendulum, says: "I am Life: intolerable,
implacable Life!"

There is not a second in mortal life whose mission it is to bear good
news: the good news that brings the inexplicable tear to the eye.

Yes, Time reigns; Time has regained his brutal mastery. And he goads me,
as though I were a steer, with his double goad: "Woa, thou fool! Sweat,
then, thou slave! Live on, thou damned! "

End of title

THE DOUBLE CHAMBER

Charles Pierre Baudelaire

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