The Arcades Project - Operi

Trade and traffic are the two components of the street. Now, in the arcade the first of these
has all but died out: the traffic there is TIldimentaTY. The
arcade is a street of lascivious commerce only; it is wholly adapted to arousing desires.
Thus, there is no mystery in the fact that whores feel spontaneously drawn there. Because
in this street all the juices slow to a standstill, the commodity proliferates along the house
fronts and enters into new and fantastic combinations, like the tissue in tUmors.
The will turns down the wide street into the teeth of pleasure and, as lust, drags
with it into its gloomy bed whatever it finds in the way of fetish, talisman, and
gage of fate across its path, drags with it the rotting debris of letters, kisses, and
names. Love presses forward with the inquisitive fingers of desire down the
winding street. Its way leads through the interior of the lover, which opens up to
him in the inlage of the beloved who passes lightly before him. 11ns inlage opens
up his interior to him for the first time. For, as the voice of the truly beloved
awakens in his heart an answering voice which he has never before heard in
himself, the words which she speaks awaken in him thoughts of tlns new, much
more hidden ego that reveals to him her mage, willie the touch of her hand
awakens