The Widows

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section seventeen of Little Poems and Prose by Charles Baudelaire.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Widows
Vauvenard says that in public gardens there are alleys haunted
principally by thwarted ambition, by unfortunate inventors, by aborted glories

(00:22):
and broken hearts, and by all those tumultuous and contracted souls,
in whom the last size of the storm mutter yet again,
and who thus betake themselves far from the insolent and
joyous eyes of the well. To do these shadowy retreats
are the rendezvous of life's cripples. To such places, above

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all others do the poet and philosopher direct their avid conjectures.
They find there an unfailing pasturage. For if there is
one place they disdain to visit, it is, as I
have already hinted, the place of the joy of the rich.
A turmoil in the void has no attraction for them.
On the contrary, they feel themselves irresistibly drawn towards all

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that is feeble, ruined, sorrowing, and bereft. An experienced eye
is never deceived in these rigid and dejected lineaments, in
these eyes wan and hollow, or bright with the last
fading gleams of the combat against fate, in these numerous
profound wrinkles, and in the slow and troubled gait the

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eye of experienced decipher's unnumbered legends of mistaken devotion, of
unrewarded effort, of hunger, and cold, humbly and silently supported.
Have you not at times seen widows sitting on the
deserted benches? Poor widows, I mean, whether in mourning or not,
they are easily recognized. Moreover, there is always something wanting

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in the mourning of the poor, a lack of harmony,
which but renders it the more heart breaking. It is
forced to be niggardly in its show of grief. They
are the rich who exhibit a full complement of sorrow.
Who is the saddest and most saddening of widows, She
who leads by the hand a child who cannot share

(02:14):
her reveries, or she who is quite alone? I do
not know. It happened that I once followed for several
long hours an aged and afflicted woman of this kind,
rigid and erect, wrapt in a little worn shawl, she
carried in all her being the pride of Stoicism. She
was evidently condemned by her absolute loneliness to the habits

(02:37):
of an ancient celibacy, and the masculine characters of her
habits added to their austerity of piquant mysteriousness. In what
miserable cafe she dines, I know not, nor in what manner.
I followed her to a reading room, and for a
long time watched her reading the papers, her active eyes

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that once burned with tears, seeking for news of a
powerful and personal interest. At length, in the afternoon, under
a charming autumnal sky, one of those skies that let
fall hosts of memories and regrets, she seated herself remotely
in a garden to listen, far from the crowd, to
one of the regimental bands whose music gratifies the people

(03:21):
of Paris. This was, without doubt, the small debauch of
the innocent old woman, or the purified old woman, the
well earned consolation for another of the burdensome days without
a friend, without conversation, without joy, without a confidant, that
God had allowed to fall upon her, perhaps for many

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years past three hundred and sixty five times a year,
Yet one more, I could never prevent myself from throwing
a glance, if not sympathetic, at least full of curiosity,
over the crowd of outcasts who press around the enclosure
of a public concert. From the orchestra across the night

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float songs of fete, of triumph, or of pleasure. The
dresses of the women sweep and shimmer glances pass the
well to do, tired with doing nothing, saunter about and
make indolent pretense of listening to the music. Here are
only the rich, the happy. Here is nothing that does
not inspire or exhale the pleasure of being alive, except

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the aspect of the mob that presses against the outer barrier. Yonder,
catching gratis at the will of the wind, a tatter
of music, and watching the glittering furnace within there is
a reflection of the joy of the rich deep in
the eyes of the poor. That is always interesting. But
to day, beyond this, people dressed in blouses and calico,

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I saw one whose nobility was in striking contrast with
all the surrounding triviality. She was a tall, majestic woman,
and so imperious in all her air that I cannot
remember having seen the like in the collections of the
aristocratic beauties of the past. A perfume of exalted virtue
emanated from all her being. Her face, sad and worn,

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was in perfect keeping with the deep mourning in which
she was dressed. She also, like the plebeians she mingled
with and did not see, looked upon the luminous world
with a profound eye, and listened with a toss of
her head. It was a strange vision, most certainly, I
said to myself, this poverty. If poverty it be ought

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not to admit of any sordid economy, so noble a
face answers for that. Why then does she remain in
surroundings with which she is so strikingly in contrast, but
in curiously passing near her, I was able to divine
the reason. The tall widow held by the hand a
child dressed like herself in black modest as was the

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price of entry. This price perhaps sufficed to pay for
some of the needs of the little being, or even
more for a superfluity, a toy. She will return on foot,
dreaming and meditating, and alone, always alone, For the child
is turbulent and selfish, without gentleness, or patience, and cannot

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become any more than another animal, a dog or a cat,
the confidant of solitary griefs End of Section seventeen