The Temptations; or, Eros, Plutus, and Glory

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of the Little Poems and Prose by Charles Baudelaire.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Temptations
or Eros, Plutus and Glory. Last night, two superb Satans
and a she devil not less extraordinary, ascended the mysterious

(00:21):
stairway by which Hell gains access to the frailty of
sleeping man and communes with him in secret. These three
postured gloriously before me, as though they had been upon
a stage, And a sulfurous splendor emanated from these beings,
who so disengaged themselves from the opaque heart of the night.

(00:41):
They bore with them, so proud of presence and so
full of mastery, that at first I took them for
three of the true gods. The first Satan, by his face,
was a creature of doubtful sex, the softness of an
ancient bacchus shown in the lines of his body, His beautiful,
languorous eyes of a tenebrous and indefinite color, where like

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violets still laden with the heavy tears of the storm.
His slightly parted lips were like heated censers. From whence
exhaled the sweet savor of many perfumes, and each time
he breathed, exotic insects drew as they fluttered strength from
the ardors of his breath. Twined about his tunic of

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purple stuff in the manner of a cincture, was an
iridescent serpent, with lifted head and eyes like embers, turned
sleepily towards him. Files full of sinister fluids, alternating with
shining knives and instruments of surgery hung from this living girdle.
He held in his right hand a flagon containing a
luminous red fluid, and inscribed with a legend in these

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singular words, drink of this my blood, a perfect restorative.
And in his left hand held a violin that, without
doubt served to sing his pleasures and pains, and to
spread abroad the contagion of his folly upon the knights
of the Sabbath. From rings upon his delicate ankles trailed

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a broken chain of gold. And when the burden of
this caused him to bend his eyes towards the earth,
he would contemplate with vanity the nails of his feet
as brilliant and polished, as well wrought jewels. He looked
at me with eyes inconsolably heartbroken and giving forth an
insidious intoxication, and cried in a chanting voice. If thou wilt,

(02:31):
if thou wilt, I will make THEE an overlord of souls.
Thou shalt be master of living matter more perfectly than
the sculptor is master of his clay. Thou shalt taste
the pleasure reborn without end of obliterating thyself in the
self of another, and of luring other souls to lose
themselves in thine. But I replied to him, I think

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THEE I only gain from this venture, then, beings of
no more worth than my poor self. Though remembrance brings
me shame, Indeed, I would forget nothing. And even before
I recognized THEE, thou ancient monster, Thy mysterious cutlery, thy
equivocal files, and the chain that imprisons thy feet were
symbols showing clearly enough the inconvenience of thy friendship, keep

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thy gifts. The second Satan had neither the air, at
once tragical and smiling, the lovely insinuating ways, nor the
delicate and scented beauty of the first. A gigantic man
with a coarse, eyeless face, his heavy paunch overhung his hips,
and was gilded and pictured like a tattooing with a

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crowd of little moving figures, which represented the unnumbered forms
of universal misery. There were little, sinew shrunken men who
hung themselves willingly from nails. There were meager gnomes, deformed
and undersized, whose beseeching eyes begged in alms even more
eloquently than their trembling hands. There are old mothers who

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nursed clinging abortions at their pendent breasts, and many others
even more surprising. This heavy satan beat with his fist
upon his immense belly from whence came a loud and
resounding metallic clangor, which died away in a sighing made
by many human voices. And he smiled unrestrainedly, showing his

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broken teeth, the imbecile smile of a man who has
dined too freely. Then the creature said to me, I
can give thee that which gets all, which is worth all,
which takes the place of all, And he tapped his
monstrous paunch. Whence came a sonorous echo as the commentary
to his obscene speech. I turned away with disgust and replied,

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I need no man's misery to bring me happiness, nor
will I have the sad wealth of all the misfortunes
pictured upon thy skin, as upon a tapestry. As for
the she devil I should lie, I denied that at
first I found in her a certain strange charm, which
to define I can but compare to the charm of
certain beautiful women past their first youth, who yet seemed

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to age no more, whose beauty keeps something of the
penetrating magic of ruins. She had an air, at once
imperious and sordid, and her eyes, though heavy, held a
certain power of fascination. I was struck most by her voice,
wherein I found the remembrance of the most delicious contralti,
as well as a little of the hoarseness of a

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throat continually laved with brandy. Wouldst thou know my power?
Said the charming and paradoxical voice of the false goddess.
Then listen, and she put to her mouth a gigantic
trumpet and ribband like a merliton with the titles of
all the newspapers in the world. And through this trumpet

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she cried my name, so that it rolled through space
with the sound of a hundred thousand thunders and came
re echoing back to me from the farthest planet. Devil, cried,
I half till that at least is worth something. But
it vaguely struck me, upon examining the seductive virago more attentively,
that I had seen her clinking glasses with certain drolls

(06:10):
of my acquaintance, and her blare of brass carried to
my ears. I know not what memory of a fanfare prostituted,
so I replied, with all disdain, get thee. Hence I
know better than wed the light O love of them
that I will not name. Truly, I had the right
to be proud of a so courageous renunciation, But unfortunately

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I awoke, and all my courage left me. In truth,
I said, I must have been very deeply asleep, indeed
to have had such scruples. Ah, they would but return
while I am awake. I would not be so delicate.
So I invoked the three in a loud voice, offering
to dishonor myself as often as necessary to obtain their favors.

(06:52):
But I had, without doubt too deeply offended them, for
they have never returned end of Section eighteen. An end
of Little Poems in Prose by Charles Baudelaire, read by
Ben Tucker,