The Dedalus Book of Decadence: (Moral Ruins) by Brian Stableford Page B
Authors: Brian Stableford
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confessions that we make,
We revel in the laxness of the path we take,
As though our paltry tears could wash us clean.
Cushioned by evil, Satan Trismegistus rests,
Ministering to our souls entranced,
Melting the metal of desire enhanced
By the vain sublimation of the alchemists.
The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance,
We find delight in the most loathsome things;
Some furtherance of hell each new day brings,
And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance.
Like some impoverished debauchee greedily teasing
The martyred breast of some ancient whore,
We steal what joy we can as we go before,
Though the fruit has shrivelled with the squeezing.
A great demonic host, a million parasites,
Swarms and seethes within our drunken brains,
With every breath we take, the mortifying pains
Descend invisibly to spread their fatal blights.
If rape and poison, cutting blade and fire,
Have not inscribed their tale upon our souls,
To display the banality of our appointed roles,
They fail because we find the thought too dire.
But among the jackals and the carrion-birds
The monkeys, the scorpions and the serpentine,
And the monsters which screech and howl and whine,
In the infamous chaos of our vicious words,
There is one more stained with evil than the rest.
Although it makes no signs or savage cries,
It cannot rest content until the whole world lies
In desolate ruins, and sorely distressed;
It is that tedious malaise of the tired mind
Which sheds a tear while lost in opium dreams.
You know him, reader, and all his stupid schemes,
For we, my brother hypocrite, are of the same sad kind.
**********
2.
THE GLASS OF BLOOD
by Jean Lorrain
She stands at a window beside a lilac curtain patterned with silver thistle. She is supporting herself upon the sill while looking out over the courtyard of the hotel, at the avenue lined with chestnut-trees, resplendent in their green autumn foliage. Her pose is business-like, but just a little theatrical: her face uplifted, her right arm carelessly dangling.
Behind her, the high wall of the vast hallway curves away into the distance; beneath her feet the polished parquet floor carries the reflected gleam of the early morning sun. On the opposite wall is a mirror which reflects the sumptuous and glacially pure interior, which is devoid of furniture and ornament save for a large wooden table with curved legs. On top of the table is an immense vase of Venetian glass, moulded in the shape of a conch-shell lightly patterned with flecks of gold; and in the vase is a sheaf of delicate flowers.
All the flowers are white: white irises, white tulips, white narcissi. Only the textures are different, some as glossy as pearls, others sparkling like frost, others as smooth as drifting snow; the petals seem as delicate as translucent porcelain, glazed with a chimerical beauty. The only hint of colour is the pale gold at the heart of each narcissus. The scent which the flowers exude is strangely ambivalent: ethereal, but with a certain sharpness somehow suggestive of cruelty, whose hardness threatens to transform the irises into iron pikes, the tulips into jagged-edged cups, the narcissi into shooting-stars fallen from the winter sky.
And the woman, whose shadow extends from where she stands at the window to the foot of the table – she too has something of that same ambivalent coldness and apparent cruelty. She is dressed as if to resemble the floral spray, in a long dress of white velvet trimmed with fine-spun lace; her gold-filligreed belt has slipped down to rest upon her hips. Her pale-skinned arms protrude from loose satin sleeves and the white nape of her neck is visible beneath her ash-blonde hair. Her profile is clean-cut; her eyes are steel-grey; her pallid face seems bloodless save for the faint pinkness of her thin, half-smiling lips. The overall effect is that the woman fits her surroundings perfectly; she is clearly from the north – a typical woman of the
We revel in the laxness of the path we take,
As though our paltry tears could wash us clean.
Cushioned by evil, Satan Trismegistus rests,
Ministering to our souls entranced,
Melting the metal of desire enhanced
By the vain sublimation of the alchemists.
The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance,
We find delight in the most loathsome things;
Some furtherance of hell each new day brings,
And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance.
Like some impoverished debauchee greedily teasing
The martyred breast of some ancient whore,
We steal what joy we can as we go before,
Though the fruit has shrivelled with the squeezing.
A great demonic host, a million parasites,
Swarms and seethes within our drunken brains,
With every breath we take, the mortifying pains
Descend invisibly to spread their fatal blights.
If rape and poison, cutting blade and fire,
Have not inscribed their tale upon our souls,
To display the banality of our appointed roles,
They fail because we find the thought too dire.
But among the jackals and the carrion-birds
The monkeys, the scorpions and the serpentine,
And the monsters which screech and howl and whine,
In the infamous chaos of our vicious words,
There is one more stained with evil than the rest.
Although it makes no signs or savage cries,
It cannot rest content until the whole world lies
In desolate ruins, and sorely distressed;
It is that tedious malaise of the tired mind
Which sheds a tear while lost in opium dreams.
You know him, reader, and all his stupid schemes,
For we, my brother hypocrite, are of the same sad kind.
**********
2.
THE GLASS OF BLOOD
by Jean Lorrain
She stands at a window beside a lilac curtain patterned with silver thistle. She is supporting herself upon the sill while looking out over the courtyard of the hotel, at the avenue lined with chestnut-trees, resplendent in their green autumn foliage. Her pose is business-like, but just a little theatrical: her face uplifted, her right arm carelessly dangling.
Behind her, the high wall of the vast hallway curves away into the distance; beneath her feet the polished parquet floor carries the reflected gleam of the early morning sun. On the opposite wall is a mirror which reflects the sumptuous and glacially pure interior, which is devoid of furniture and ornament save for a large wooden table with curved legs. On top of the table is an immense vase of Venetian glass, moulded in the shape of a conch-shell lightly patterned with flecks of gold; and in the vase is a sheaf of delicate flowers.
All the flowers are white: white irises, white tulips, white narcissi. Only the textures are different, some as glossy as pearls, others sparkling like frost, others as smooth as drifting snow; the petals seem as delicate as translucent porcelain, glazed with a chimerical beauty. The only hint of colour is the pale gold at the heart of each narcissus. The scent which the flowers exude is strangely ambivalent: ethereal, but with a certain sharpness somehow suggestive of cruelty, whose hardness threatens to transform the irises into iron pikes, the tulips into jagged-edged cups, the narcissi into shooting-stars fallen from the winter sky.
And the woman, whose shadow extends from where she stands at the window to the foot of the table – she too has something of that same ambivalent coldness and apparent cruelty. She is dressed as if to resemble the floral spray, in a long dress of white velvet trimmed with fine-spun lace; her gold-filligreed belt has slipped down to rest upon her hips. Her pale-skinned arms protrude from loose satin sleeves and the white nape of her neck is visible beneath her ash-blonde hair. Her profile is clean-cut; her eyes are steel-grey; her pallid face seems bloodless save for the faint pinkness of her thin, half-smiling lips. The overall effect is that the woman fits her surroundings perfectly; she is clearly from the north – a typical woman of the
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