The daily worker., 1926-01-23
THE BEYOND By HENRI BARBUssEi
| throw myself from one to the other.

proper Englishman, the smutty gesture OF that 1
exotic around whom, in drawing-rooms, heads /
used to bow like wheat in the wind. The pros
porous merchant fondling youth-and bank
notes on the table. Those women whose moist
smiles meet-one incredibly rich, with gray, |
untidy hair and teeth so new that they make
white spot The thin hips of the little whip |
ped girl stretched out like vivisection expert
ment on the carpet!
Lord and Lady Melborune-that old couple |
of legendary espectibility-hairy, tipsy, un-
buttoned, as alike as two old witches, threaten |
each other with bruises on their faces. And
the gentleman with the historic French name, |
locked and bolted in his room, looks with burn |
ing eyes at the famous ring in his hand, stolen |
two weeks ago from the Marquise de Palermo. |
And that reputed prince of the blood, impris-
Honed in isolation writing a check. And the |
jeweled and sparkling hand of the pretty young
poet with the blond vanished hair has just |
written clearly: 81 warn you, my dear girl, |
that in that case l shall make the facts pub |
lie. :" His head is lifted over the paper. |
He stares blindly at me with great long-lashed
eyes whose brilliance is a little tarnished |
whose pupils are a little dimmed. He takes me
as witness to his right to plunder.
To see ALL Something comes to my aid as
grope toward totality a growing repulson.
Horror clutches me and pushes me onward.
They are ugly. l cannot rid myself of the
impression of their dreadful ugliness, all of
them
know they are much uglier than'l believed
L surprise them in an ugliness that soils my
eyes, in it's morning nakedness. They are
crude. They are still-most of them-shape-
less, swollen with sleep and age. They need
cleaning, the action of water and razors, soap
the industrious activities of the toilet Others
need the dose of cocaine, or some other hide
GUS remedy, to pull them together W Only the
very very young are not, in the state of ma
ture, caricatures of themselves.
! Another ugliness, another ugliness.s
On my face laugh begins, but breaks:
The old general in his flannel undershirt but
with his brilliant kept on his head, is playing
with lead soldiers. his coagulated eye,
his eye of painted iron, englobes the metal in
sects. For several years his retirement has
prevented his playing with living flesh. But
during the war he made tragic history with dis
astrous unprepared assaults, and inexorable
orders given to his council of war-and car
ried out. The first time | saw him l though
he was like the Devil then later / said: Hes
only an old clown!' But | look at the old
maniac with his toy soldiers, and l think of
the soldiers swallowed up through his incom-
petent mania, and say again. yes, ne is the
Devil
The rich American at his neat and
polished desk, his scraped face of high-class
has more money than all the rest put together.
He is blond. The thin golden calf frightens
me half out of my senses.
Everything escapes me? No. not every
thing .
was sorry for them little while ago, at
every step grieved at each ruin said: "How
terrible! Destroyed forces, lost possibilities.
|. Who knows but they might have done
something good, something beautiful, some
3
Something good, something great.
go on repeating, groaning that endless prayer.
But answer myself: Something good! Not
now / begin to understand,
dreadfully to understand things and people
But also begin to feel exhausted. Fatigue
cramps my belly and climbs up my legs, from
running from niche to niche in this enormous
museum where the statues wait for the end of
time re te8 l
/ become hardened. Is 1t because safety
fills my head and breast? Isn't it rather be-