The daily worker., 1926-01-23


afraid. These ordinary tragedies-he whose
gayety nourished a secret gnawing, those who
were too skillful in life to be able to stand up
to it, he to whom old age had shown the secret
strings of his being-these daily tragedies, that
l. touch because wind tore loose the wells that
covered them are more than beautiful and
more than moving, only because of that un-
covering.
They bare my eyes to an abyss Beings
struggle as they can, playthings of their de-
sires and of their passions, of the inclination of
their hearts, ever since the multitude has been
passing pell nell before the thin line of sages. |
! They are unlike, but in the depths OF each one
alike weighs the anguish of the living thing.
One glmpses this, but one does not see it.
One has pity, but one can give only scraps of
pity, because one does not know. Know, who?
II? No. l thought was inside the cages but
there are other cages around the real secret of
each one. In reality l am-confronted with
the petrifed surface of tragedy blind man.
Dead love, dead suffering have only the
beginning or the end. The crowd that pass
| by is as fiat as picture
Tfeel this deeply before the splendor of an
unclothed woman standing before the mirror
White and bending back, this admirable thing
bends its arms like the handles of vase. The
splendid body curves itself, the humid thres-
hold of its nudity half revealed
In the bewilderment of the moment, touch
| her. My hands WONDER is she still warm?
My hands weigh upon her shoulders, and she
comes toward me. She seems to lean upon mel
| thrust her back feel the ribs the full cage of
this heavy spectre Her sight, rigid line COM
ing from her pale eyes, lance that blinds me,
crosses mine, and passes to one side There is
a supernatural barrier between this magnif-
3ence and myself. / cry it aloud, and with
burning ardor l push away from myself this
flesh of anothep world she falls across the
efbed rigid, ,aif oneosolid black, without having
even told me whether she is yet cold, and !
flee from the terrible idol. / cannot peer thru
single mystery, and | cannot read death.
Everything escapes my understanding!
NO. no, not quite everything escapes me. :.
do not know why, but for some obscure
reason l continue by sheer force of will, with
squared shoulders, in my labor of looking.
Some rooms are empty. In others, see. =. :.
l see. l must seq more, and my drunken
rage for knowledge grows and grows. / break
doors that will not open, / enter, come out,
violate all privacy
OF this fotsam heaped up in their sepulchral
shells after the ebbing of the sea, there are
some who sleep, or dress themselves, or eat
with one eye on newspaper, or do nothing
at all, with all their might | am acquainted
{ with almost all of them; have elbowed them
at parties, or chatted with them, while they
were yet actors and actresses of life.
But the immobility, that infinite immobility,
ItormentS me When look even Few moments
at one of. these bodies, with all its gestures
stopped like a clock. The immobility throws
over these stupidites a solemn horror truly
it is the climax of this masterpiece of desola-
Ition.
l laughed the other day when heard that
! a grand duke, stuck in bed in his room, made
a duty of absorbing bottle of sherry brandy
! every morning, that had been left on his night
table. But here he is and the contact is ter
) rifying. At sight of the haggard eyes and the
scar-like grin of this parsonage of the imperial
species-sallow as the picture post cards of
himself contemplating the ruby of his wine
r glass on the stained sheet, / am narrowed by
. the weight of the reality.
But / think desperately that am not profit
: ing by the power which is mine at this mo-
] ment: To see in the large, in numbers, to see
4 ALTO be the first man who has done So
l. the aviator who is used to seeing my vision
r enlarge itself in world waves the pieces of the