Anywhere Out of the World
This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to
change beds; one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and another
believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not,
and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my soul.
‘Tell me, my soul, poor chilled soul, what do you think of going to live in
Lisbon? It must be warm there, and there you would invigorate yourself like a
lizard. This city is on the sea-shore; they say that it is built of marble
and that the people there have such a hatred of vegetation that they uproot
all the trees. There you have a landscape that corresponds to your taste! a
landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!’
My soul does not reply.
‘Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show of movement, would
you like to settle in Holland, that beatifying country? Perhaps you would
find some diversion in that land whose image you have so often admired in the
art galleries. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts,
and ships moored at the foot of houses?’
My soul remains silent.
‘Perhaps Batavia attracts you more? There we should find, amongst other
things, the spirit of Europe married to tropical beauty.’
Not a word. Could my soul be dead?
‘Is it then that you have reached such a degree of lethargy that you
acquiesce in your sickness? If so, let us flee to lands that are analogues of
death. I see how it is, poor soul! We shall pack our trunks for Tornio. Let
us go farther still to the extreme end of the Baltic; or farther still from
life, if that is possible; let us settle at the Pole. There the sun only
grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness
suppresses variety and increases monotony, that half-nothingness. There we
shall be able to take long baths of darkness, while for our amusement the
aurora borealis shall send us its rose-coloured rays that are like the
reflection of Hell’s own fireworks!’
At last my soul explodes, and wisely cries out to me: ‘No matter where! No
matter where! As long as it’s out of the world!’
N’importe où hors du
monde
Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de
lit. Celui-ci voudrait souffrir en face du poêle, et celui-là croit qu’il
guérirait à côté de la fenêtre.
Il me semble que je serais toujours bien là où je ne suis pas, et cette
question de déménagement en est une que je discute sans cesse avec mon âme.
” Dis-moi mon âme, pauvre âme refroidie, que penserais-tu d’habiter
Lisbonne ? Il doit y faire chaud et tu t’y ragaillardirais comme un lézard.
Cette ville est au bord de l’eau ; on dit qu’elle est bâtie en marbre et que
le peuple y a une telle haine du végétal, qu’il arrache tous les arbres. Voilà
un paysage fait selon ton goût, un paysage fait avec la lumière et le minéral
et le liquide pour les réfléchir !
Mon âme ne répond pas.
” Puisque tu aimes tant le repos, avec le spectacle du mouvement, veux –
tu venir habiter la Hollande, cette terre béatifiante ? Peut-être te
divertiras-tu dans cette contrée dont tu as souvent admiré l’image dans les
musées. Que penserais-tu de Rotterdam, toi qui aimes les forêts de mats et
les navires amarrés au pied des maisons.
Mon âme reste muette.
” Batavia te sourirait peut-être davantage, nous y trouverions l’esprit
de l’Europe marié à la beauté tropicale. “
Pas un mot. – Mon âme serait-elle morte ?
” En es-tu donc venue à ce point d’engourdissement que tu ne te plaises
que dans ton mal ? S’il en est ainsi, fuyons vers les pays qui sont les
analogies de la Mort. – Je tiens notre affaire, pauvre âme ! nous ferons nos
malles pour Tornéo. Allons plus loin encore, à l’extrême bout de la Baltique
; encore plus loin de la vie, si c’est possible ; installons-nous au pôle. Là
le soleil ne frise qu’obliquement la terre, et les lentes alternatives de la
lumière et de la nuit suppriment la variété et augmentent la monotonie, cette
moitié du néant… Là, nous pourrons prendre de longs bains de ténèbres
cependant que, pour nous divertir les aurores boréales nous enverrons de
temps en temps leurs gerbes roses, comme des reflets d’un feu d’artifice de
l’enfer!
Enfin, mon âme fait explosion et sagement elle me crie : ” N’importe où
! n’importe où ! pourvu que ce soit hors de ce monde ! “
Originally, a hospital was a waystation for travelers on pilgrimage. The religious wayfarers would stop at a “hospital” in order to recharge for the next part
of the journey. “Hospitality” was the watch-word for these way
stations. In stark and rank contrast, the individuals who want to “suffer
in front of the stove” or “get healed” next the window, have
lost sight of the real reason for hospital: recuperate and return to the
journey.
In contrast to the origin of hospitals, Baudelaire’s sickened nightmare of
depression and malaise suggest that men and women have stopped moving on. There
is nothing to find in this world, no destination to reach.
The poet is sickened and alone, contemplating the move that he must make in
order to improve his state. “It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I
am not, and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my
soul,” he comments, summing up the “Mal de Siècle” of the 19th
Century. Technological and economic innovations were opening a world of
opportunity for millions, and yet individuals enjoyed material prosperity
without reveling in any spiritual fulfillment. In an oblique allusion to the parable of the
rich man in Luke 12, in which the rich man has so much stuff to store for his
houses, that he decides to tear down the old barns, expand them, and then sit
back and enjoy everything. Then Jesus, who is narrating that parable to his
disciples, chides the rich man as a “fool” whose soul will be taken
from him that very evening.”For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
(Matthew 16: 26)
The poet in “Anywhere Out of the World” has not lost his soul, or has he? He
discovers in the midst of languished prodding, dreaming of the places where he
can go.
He presses his inner self with three possible locales. The first is Lisbon, the
established port town of a slow and lazy empire which once waxed great, but had
fallen into steady decline and political atrophy. There, the poet’s soul could “be warm there”, and “invigorate
like a lizard. ” Lizards are cold-blooded creatures, who respond in turn
to their environment. The lizard reminds the reader of the slow and
lackadaisical life of modern man, lounging around, changing his skin, moving
from one venue to another, reacting to his environment instead of taking any
meaningful charge over his own life. Lisbon sits along a sea-shore, but has exquisite
foundations of marble, a symbol of the old-world refinement that used to
characterize the once global empire. “There you have a landscape that
corresponds to your taste! A landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to
reflect them!’
The second location, Holland, brings the poem to
Northern Europe, to a more liberal, thriving, market economy.
‘Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show
of movement, would you like to settle in Holland, that beatifying country?”The land of Rembrandt, tulips, economic booms
and busts, Holland today is the land where man can do whatever he plans to do. For
the poet, the land is teeming with sights to see, with wonders that keep
getting more wonderful, yet the soul seemsInstead of doing nothing, the poet suggests a world where
people can see everything, a place filled with “diversion in that land”. The
speaker considers his soul to be “fond of stillness”, yet the world of the Low
Countries gives the impression of moving. Artistic endeavors inspire man with
lofty thoughts, towering like the very masts which thrive in Rotterdam harbor,
still one of the largest ports in the world. There, nature and civilization
have merged in a burgeoning mass, “the forests of masts”, a world at one’s
doorstep, ready for man to depart wherever he wishes. Yet for the power and scope of this country, the poet has
only an inferential knowledge of the place, “whose image you have so often
admired in the art galleries,” he says to his soul. The sense of movement is
just that, a sense and not the substance. Attempting a third destination, the speaker offers Batavia,
the chief former colony of the Netherlands, an extension of the Dutch East
India Company.
“‘Perhaps Batavia attracts you more? There we should find,
amongst other things, the spirit of Europe married to tropical beauty.'”Still harping on the theme of beauty, now pushed to exotic
extravagance, the speaker wants to go beyond Europe, beyond modern
civilization, to a foreign land full of foreign people. The poem’s first
mention of “spirit” emerges in this description, yet the “spirit of Europe”
has offered nothing up to now for the forlorn, bed-ridden man, so why visit a
locale which marries European commerce to more primitive culture? His soul
still does not respond.
Putting aside bright and beauty, luscious and luxury, the
poet offers the most natural, yet the most penetrating, the darkest and the shiniest,
the most distant, the most removed place imaginable on earth:
“‘Is it then that you have reached such a degree of lethargy
that you acquiesce in your sickness? If so, let us flee to lands that are
analogues of death.”Life does not interest the soul, so thinks the poet. In
fact, the man has not described life at all. The torpor of Portugal, the picturesque
impasses of Holland, the fanciful idealizations of Batavia, nothing stirs up
any sense or tense of “real” or “life.” Modern man has been dazzled with images
for so long, yet the substance is still so lacking
“I see how it is,
poor soul! We shall pack our trunks for Tornio. Let us go farther still to the
extreme end of the Baltic; or farther still from life, if that is possible; let
us settle at the Pole.”To the furthest extremity on earth the speaker seems ready
to pack his bags. He wants to go “farther still from life,” yet what is life to
this man? Not getting better in a hospital, having nowhere to go, no purpose
beyond convalescing in style.
“There the sun only
grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness
suppresses variety and increases monotony, that half-nothingness. There we
shall be able to take long baths of darkness, while for our amusement the
aurora borealis shall send us its rose-coloured rays that are like the
reflection of Hell’s own fireworks!'”Hell on earth is already in place for the bed-ridden poet, a
man who wants to go somewhere, who cannot communicate with his own soul, who is
trying to go somewhere, when he has no idea what to be. For an American, the
North Pole is Santa Claus, Christmas, presents, and making merry. For this cold
European, the North Pole is the furthest extreme from color and life and spontaneity,
aside from the infrequent “aurora borealis”, the most supernatural of
natural phenomena yet described in this
prose poem. For once, an inkling of what the soul needs, the world beyond, the spontaneity
beyond perception, yet even the darkest region of the world cannot suffice.
“At last my soul explodes, and wisely cries out to me: ‘No matter where! No
matter where! As long as it’s out of the world!’
“Enfin, mon âme fait explosion et sagement elle me crie : ” N’importe
où ! n’importe où ! pourvu que ce soit hors de ce monde ! “”
The French is more vivid. The soul does not “explode”, but literally
“makes an explosion”, like trying to spark some life in his bearer.
The original also indicates that the soul has grand disdain for
“this” world, not just the world in general. The soul of this poet,
like the soul of man, longs to be somewhere else, not here in this dying world
where man has grown accustomed to being sick and waiting for death.
Modern man is sick because no matter what he events, no matter how perceptive
his erudition or convincing his persuasion, no matter how invasive his
innovations, he simply cannot touch the spiritual element which animates
everything else. The world, for all its enticements, is emoluments, is
procurements, cannot give life to a soul which has been convinced that this
life is nothing by exotic visitation. That a soul ministers its ache in man
demands that man demand more than merely what he can see, something ethereal,
eternal, “out of this world.”
Source — http://www. translatum. gr/forum/index. php? PHPSESSID=ef552365596dbfccf64565dcbade82c8&topic=1061.0#ixzz1s9bGijPR