There are certain natures, purely contemplative and unsuited for action, that nevertheless are compelled by mysterious and unfamiliar impulses into acting with a speed they would never have previously dreamed possible.
I mean the sort of man who fearing some bad news from the doorman prowls cravenly for an hour in front of his building without daring to enter—the kind who holds a letter for fifteen days without opening it, who resigns himself to doing something after six months that has urgently needed doing for a year. This type of man despite endless procrastinations sometimes finds himself hurled into action as if by an irresistible force, like an arrow launched from a bow.
The moralist and the doctor (who pretend to know everything) cannot explain the source of this manic energy in souls so latently voluptuous and indolent or furthermore how these decadent men, incapable of accomplishing even the simplest necessary things, find at moments abundant courage for performing the most absurd and dangerous stunts.
One of my friends, an inoffensive dreamer, set fire to a forest, he explained, in order to see if the flames would really spread as quickly as people said! Ten times in a row his efforts knew defeat; the eleventh time he achieved victory only too well!
Another friend would light a cigar beside a keg of gunpowder—to see, to know, to tempt destiny—either to show he has the nerve to play the gambler and feel anxiety’s pleasure, or for no reason, because of caprice, or laziness.
This is a species of energy born of ennui and fantasy. Those who manifest it unexpectedly are as I have said the most indolent and dream-ridden people who ever lived.
Another fellow timid to the point that, embarrassed, he lowers his eyes when men look at him, that it takes all of the poor soul’s effort to walk by a café or pass in front of a theater where the ticket sellers are invested with the majesty of Minos, Aeacus, and Radamanthus, will before a stunned crowd of people passing suddenly clasp his arms around an old man and embrace him with wild enthusiasm.
Why? Because that… because a certain face was irresistible? Maybe, but one is more honest in supposing that he himself does not know why.
I have more than once been a victim of these attacks, these outbursts that justify our believing a malicious demon slips into us, forcing us against our will to act on the most absurd desires.
One morning I got up feeling sullen, sad, disconcerted, and fatigued by idleness, with what seemed to be a desire to do some grand and radiant deed! And then I opened my window, alas!
(Observe, I entreat you, that the need in people to perform such acts is not the result of a conscious plan but rather of fortuitous inspiration in its ardent fervor not unlike that called hysterical by doctors—Satanic by those who know more than doctors—which urges us without resistance into a host of actions both inappropriate and dangerous.)
The first person I noticed on looking out my window was a glazier, a glass-seller, the sharp discordance of his cries drifting up to me through the stale and heavy Parisian smog. It’s not possible for me to say why I was filled with such a sudden and tyrannical hatred for this poor man.
“Hey, hey!” I cried, motioning for him to come up. Not without pleasure did I reflect that my room was on the sixth floor and that he would climb those flights with difficulty, lest his fragile goods be damaged.
At last he appeared. With great curiosity I examined all of his panes and finally said: “What? You have no colored glass? No pinks, no reds, no blues, no magical panes? No panes of the gods? Impudent creature! You sell your wares to the poor, and yet you have no panes that are able to make life beautiful!” And I abruptly pushed him, groaning and stumbling, out to the stairs.
I then went out on my balcony and grabbed a small flowerpot; when the man reappeared at the door I let my engine of war fall right on the back of his pack, the reverberations from the impact sending him reeling. Falling on his back he managed to break all of his poor, portable merchandise with a crash akin to lightning striking a crystal palace!
And intoxicated by madness I screamed furiously: “Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!”
Though such capricious endeavors are not without peril, and one must often pay dearly for them, what does an eternity of damnation compare with an infinity of pleasure in a single second?
