Castle of Memory
(Théophile Gautier, 1811-72)

One hand to my face, one foot in the hearth, I return,
across the grey and distant past, to the Castle of Memory.

A foggy haze blurs the trees, the houses, the plains and hillocks,
and at the crossroads I scan the lying posts in vain.

I walk straight on through the debris of a shrouded, buried, world,
in mysterious twilight, over limbs of the forgotten.

But here, diaphanous and white, Memory stands by the road,
holding out, like Ariadne, a ball of wool in her hand.

From here on the way is clear; the veiled sun slips through,
and above the forest a distant tower appears.

Under the leafy canopy where the daylight blunts, leaves fall;
the old path still traces its ribbon through the moss.

But the brambles crowd; the creepers tighten their net,
and the branch that I push away slaps back in my face.

Finally, at a clearing, I reach the old manor house
its turrets like pepper-pots, pointed roofs like candle-snuffers.

Not a breath of smoke stripes its furrow across the sky;
not a window is lit with either candlelight or face.

The chains of the bridge are broken; and in the moat the duckweed
spreads a greenish curtain, like the spots on old copper.

Twisting strands of ivy penetrate every nook and fissure,
holding up the hospital tower, or slowly suffocating it.

Moonlight has corroded the porch, time carves it in its own way,
and the rain has sponged away the colour from my coat of arms.

Up from every cranny the stinging nettles burst,
broad-leaved burdocks throng in the shade of the drains.

A tree that has grown in my absence throws patterns of shade
on two marble chimeras who guard the cracked stone steps.

Motionless each stands, one lions’ paw held in the air,
their silent gaze puts a question; I say the word, and pass in.

Choking with emotion I push the door; it grinds on its hinges;
a puff of cold air escapes, the breath of cellars.

An old dog raises its head and drops again to the floor.
My ringing steps worry an echo out from the corner.

The shaky, doubtful daylight slips from the yellow windows
where, in shining colour, the stories of Apollo appear.

The nymph Daphne, hips in the bark, holds out her bunched fingers
as from the arms of the god, she slips away into death.

Apollo guards a flock of sheep who transform into moths;
The nine Muses, a haggard troop, weep as Mount Pindos fades;

and Solitude in a nightgown traces the word "Abandon"
in the dust which has gathered upon the round marble table.

Further along the hangings I find, like sleeping hosts,
wan pastels, sombre oils, young beauties and old friends.

My trembling hand draws back a sheet, and I see my late love,
petticoats swelling, wasp-waisted, la Cydalise as Pompadour!

A rosebud opens on her ribboned corset,
whose lace only half covers a snowy breast, veined with azure.

Her eyes are moist spangles, vulnerable leaves, and purple rises
to her cheekbones in false splendour, the make-up of death!

She shudders at my approach, and her gaze, charming and sad,
fixes upon mine a look of painful reproach.

And though life has carried me far away, her name is etched in my heart,
pastel flower, beautiful corpse, dressed up for a masked ball!

Hot orange tints gild her cheek with vermilion paint;
her fringed jet eyelids filter the rays of the sun.

Between her scarlet lips a silver light flashes,
and her splendid beauty bursts, like a pomegranate in summer.

For long my voice has thrilled to the sound of Spanish guitars.
She came one day to me alone, and my tiny room was the Alhambra.

Robust from afar, strong arms hooped with heavy rings,
the marble of her bust draped in velvet and pearls.

With the air of a queen bored among her kneeling courtiers,
superb and distracted, she presses one hand on a jewelled trunk.

Her moist and sensual mouth seems red with the blood of hearts,
and, full of cruel pleasure, her eyes are victorious champions.

Closer, her grace is more touching, but it is dizzying too.
She looks like the lying goddess who presides over savage loves.

Venus, that wicked mother, who beat her own son Cupid.
O you, who was my bitter joy, farewell forever... forgive me!

Within its frame of watered silk, instead of reflecting my features,
a mirror sketches the memory of my earliest portrait.

The ghost who gazes back was never unobtrusive,
he leaves the depths of the troubled mirror and the darkness of the past.

In his pink satin waistcoat, his tastes are bold,
he seems to be striking a pose for Boulanger or Devéria.

Terror of the clean-shaven, bald-crowned bourgeoisie, his mane
pours like a lion’s or a Frankish king’s, in a torrent down to his kidneys.

Opinionated Romantic, a soldier for Art, he still fights,
he turned his step to the theatre when Hernani sounded the horn…

The night falls and casts its shades into the sleeping corners.
The unknown, dark machinist assembles his deadly terrors.

Candles burst suddenly into flame upon the walls!
Their widened aureoles seem like the lamps of tombs.

A shadowy hand opens the door without a squeak from the key.
A breath of wind brings pale hosts and the salon is suddenly full.

The portraits step down from the wall, rubbing their yellow kerchiefs,
wiping the fawn-coloured varnish from their bloodshot faces.

Illuminated in red, the crowd all gather in a circle
to warm their fingers by the chimney where a log-fire suddenly blazes.

The image ravished from the grave loses its frozen look;
the crimson heat of life rises through the veins of the past.

Their wan masks are now coloured as they were when I knew them.
O friends whom I have mourned, thank you for having come!

O valiant boys of eighteen thirty, I see you just as you were.
Like the pirates of Otranto, we were a hundred, but now are ten.

One spreads out his russet beard like Frederick on his rock,
another curls the handlebars of his fine moustache.

And cloaking his secret suffering beneath the splendour of his coat,
Pétrus smokes a cigarette, which he baptizes papelito.

This one tells me his dreams, alas! —never realized,
Icarus fallen on the rocks, where the broken dreamers lie.

Another entrusts a drama to me, modelled on the new landlord,
in which, mingling all in his plot, Molière chats with Calderon.

And Tom, with scandalous abandon, recites "Love's labours lost",
while Fritz explains to la Cydalise, Faust’s "Walpurgis night’s dream".

But day breaks at the window; and the spectres turn and fade,
objects in the room begin to show right through them.

The candles are all burnt out; the fire dies into ashes,
wisps of smoke rise from the floor; Castle of Memory, farewell!

Once more the month of December turns over the hour-glass.
The present day creeps into my room, tells me in vain to forget.

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