The Arcades Project - Operi

Never, according to this witness, . .. was he more forbidding than when he wanted
to appear jovial; his voice took on a disquieting edge, while his vis comica, made
one shudder. On the pretext of exorcizing the evil spirits of his auditors, and with
bursts of' laughter piercing as sobs, he told them outrageous tales of trysts beyond
the grave which froze the blood in their veins." Ernest Seilliere, Baudelaire
(Paris, 1931), p. 150. [JIBa,7]
Where in Ovid is the passage in which it is said that the human face was made to
mirror the stars?"' [JIBa,B]
Seilliere notes that the poems attributed apocryphally to Baudelaire were all
necrophilic in character (p. 152). [JIBa,9]
"Finally, as we know, the passional anomaly has a place in the art of Baudelaire, at
least Wlder one of its aspects, that of Lesbos; the other has not yet been made
admissible by the progress of moral naturism." Ernest Seilliere, Baudelaire
(Paris, 1931), p. 154. [JIBa,IO]
The sonnet "Qyant a moi, sij'avais un beau pare plante d'ifs" ,"'which Baudelaire apparently addressed to
a young lady of Lyons some time around 1839-1840, is reminiscent, in its closing
line-"And you know that too, my beauty, whose eyes are too shrewd"-of the
last line of "A Une Passante." [J19,1]
The piece "Vocations;' in Spleen de Paris, is of great interest-particularly the
account of the third child, who "lowered his voice: 'It certainly gives you a funny
feeling not to be sleeping alone, and to be in bed with your nurse, and in the
dark . ... If you ever get the chance, try to do the same-you'll see!' I While he
was talking, the eyes of the young author of this revelation had widened with a
sort of stupefaction at what he was still feeling, and the light of the setting sun
playing in his untidy red curls seemed to be lighting up a sulfurous aureole of
passion;' 97 The passage is as notable for Baudelaire's conception of the sinful as
for the aura of public coriffssio. [J19,2]
Baudelaire to his mother on January 11, 1858 (cited in Charles Baudelaire, Vel's
latins, ed. Mouquet [Paris, 1933], p. 130): You haven't noticed that in Les Fleurs
du mal there are two poems concerning you, or at least alluding to intimate details
of our former life, going back to that time of your widowhood which left me with
such strange and sad memories-one: Je n'ai pas oubHe, voisine de la ville'
(Neuilly), and the other, which follows it: La servante au grand coeur dont
VOllS etiez jalouse' (Mariette)? I left these poems without titles and without any
further clarification, because I have a horror of prostituting intimate family
matters . . . . "'.Ill [j19,3]