Issue

The young girl—it is my soul—has been brought into my room by the four winged demons, her arms bound. They are going to saw her wrists. She faints. But Our Lord says: "Come this way for there are among the saints many children who resemble you." This way, it is snow! snow! snow! for Paradise is snow.

The Breton—it is I—seated in the midst of the flags of the world. The moon carries a star in its hollow. The Breton pursues his studies among the flags of the world and an angel has come down towards him. "Stop your reading if God is still willing to visit you." God! You know my sufferings! What is that written beside your arm, angel with a woman’s arms? Three Hebrew letters that I cannot read. When I have the Holy Spirit will he give me the gift of tongues?—

The angel is furious to see me so stupid.

. . .

Heavy fruit on a dwarf tree, much too heavy for the tree.

. . .

The archangel struck by lightning had only time to loosen his tie; one would have said he was still praying.

. . .

. . .

I saw my former professor of rhetoric, with a woman. I saw only their heads eating chocolate éclairs, with no pleasure: the big head of boredom and the little commandant’s head. Oh! Oh! Revenge of humanity on the humanities. Well, I could hardly keep from laughing in revenge: Revenge of the humanities on humanity.

. . .

Mystery in this life, reality in the other; if you love me, if you love me, I’ll make you see reality.

. . .

Paradise, I imagine, because of the number of dead, is like a mid-lent day in Paris, and hell like the distracted crowd of families in a port on the day of a storm.

. . .

In a madman’s hat, the knife-grinder (it is Death) opens a mantle lined with cherry-red silk to draw forth a big sword. A butterfly on the wheel stops him.

. . .

I dreamed that nuns set out garden plots in the church of the Sacred Heart, because God loves the earth, and sowed them with confetti because He loves joy.

. . .

On the road to the racetrack there was a beggar who looked like a servant. "Pity me," he would say, "I am vicious. I’ll go and gamble away the money you are going to give me." And he would continue his confession.

He was very successful and he deserved it.

In the forest of silence the night is not yet come and the storm of sadness has not yet injured the leaves. In the forest of silence, whence the Dryads have fled, the Dryads shall return no more.

In the forest of silence the brook has no more waves for the current runs nearly without water and changes course.

In the forest of silence there is a tree black as black and behind it a bush that has the form of a head and which is in flame, and which is in flame with the flames of blood and of gold.

In the forest of silence where the Dryads shall return no more there are three black horses; these are the three horses of the wise kings and the wise kings are no longer on their horses, nor elsewhere, and these horses speak like men.

The balloon is ascending. It is shining and is shaped to a point still more brilliant. Neither the oblique sun which directs its rays as an evil monster throws dice, nor the cries of the crowd—nothing will keep it from going up! No! The heavens and it are but a single soul; the heavens open only for it. But, balloon, take care! There are shadows in your car and they are moving, unhappy balloon! The aeronauts are drunk!