29.

creatures soft as crabs, when changing their shells?"

to think
or of Tristan Tzara poet TOTO-VACA

"i
"Katangi té Kivi
"Ki vi
"Ka Tangi té moho
"hi hi e
"ha ha e
"pipi ee
"ta ta e
"ta kou ta ka jou"

or yet again "Suspended fluids" - Snakes no longer wear gloves,
my dear Izara!

have just left

You are about to leave for Roumania, you will go through
Switzerland, Italy, Pontoise - all is Pontoise, all is Paris,
all is me, all is you, all is nothing, likewise without suffering.

The priest's voice
Spreads itself out
Like a lawn of poor grass,
Bordered with rank;
A long while, a long while.

I know the day 8% coming.

Tomorrow

WHO IS WITH ME
IS AGAINST ME.

Jesus said the contrary only because he was rastaquouère.
Really is it only the Jews who are energetic.

30.

CHAPTER VI.

A TRANQUILLIZING ASPECT.

You are happy? Realize that there is no tomorrow, life is
to-day, and to-day does not exist.

"OH! THE CHARM OF LOVE AT ITS COMPLET BEGINNING."

Love does not begin, say rather that it ends from the time
that you meet the man with the attractive eyes, the man whose
brain reflects a little of heaven, and a little of earth, and a
lot of your dear! in short the moon, or half-moon, as you please.

Alfred de Musset and Fanny walking side by side, greeted
by peasants . . . .

Ah! hide yourselves in order to eat, but make love in the
trees, in winter, and in summer, when you can get out of the bath,
by the seaside.

The male friend of a very united ménage always becomes
madame's lover, just as the women's friend of a very united
ménage always becomes monsieur's mistress. I know of no explanation to give; it is more comic than sad to think that novelty
has a value which equals value itself, and that is why there is no
difference between a dentist and an artist.

33.

"They were 'Marie-Louises', those light-infantry of the
young guard who, at Craonne, held their ground for three hours
on the top of a plateau under the enemy batteries, of which the
fire mowed down 650 men out of 920!"

Poor beings, fallen by hundreds for a ventriloquist's glory!
And to think that the thing still goes on! The men who lead the
world do it by means of passions that are of the vilest or the
emptiest. Napoleon is the perfect type of the conjunctive cell ......
Forgive me for speaking to you of such idiotic things.

NEAR THE UNATTAINABLE.

There in the North, in the South, in the East, and in the West, birds
fly round and round to catch the sun in the air.

34.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAW OF PROBABILITIES.

It is not certain that our thoughts are the product of chemical
reactions. In admitting that there are several problems to solve,
the Universe that you think you know is the mask of solitude, you
are placed under the domination of generally prevailing values;
the neurosis of Love, the neurosis of art, the neurosis of beliefs
in a god.

A taste for the ancient is nothing but a sceptical and occult
synthesis which makes you believe in the profundity of men, new
evolutions are nothing but enigmas for sight or ear.

Music is made for the ears and not for the eyes, now I do
not say that the contrary affirmation is not truer of non-
intoxicants.

Artists are the result of the stinginess of nature. The
little wit they have is given them in spitefulness; Degas,
perfect type of the "successful", is an example of the state-
ment I am putting forward. Besides I have heard it said by an
artist of some worth that Degas is a miss-fire.

THE SATYR
WITH A RAT'S TAIL.

Noon-day naked, like a parchment, armed with a single hope,
memories transformed. A single hope more vast than two mouths
one against the other; you guess my thought, it must find its

35.

path, and paths lead nowhere!

You look at life with an artist's brush and you need a gas-mask; but there, only money has genius; one must choose either to live with genius or with the opportune moment.

I am an immobile traveller, and countries pass before me with their mobile enigmas.

I fly from happiness so that it shall not escape.

OUR HEAD HAS TWO NEEDS LIKE THE BELLY.

By a green light your actions are lit below the sermons of decorum; it is the music of taste that gesticulates with indelicacy. Sing, sing. The rule has unmindful eyes, there is nothing but refined violence, violence marks out the moralists, the moralists yawns; our heart is barbarous and our stomach domestic, all is different, it is marvellous, moral or immoral; death signifies life as much as life signifies death.

THE BITES OF SNAILS.

In no single work, be it painting, literature or music, is there a superior creation; all these works are alike. The most ideal work is that answering most to certain conventions that

36.

seem new to you because you do not know them, or because they
have been more or less forgotten. There is neither error nor
deviation. Our brain is a sponge that imbibes suggestions, that
is all.

All the works of men make part of the great tradition -
or of the little, as you will - there is no work that does not
make part of the tradition, even those of the copyists in the
Louvre, imitating as well as possible the pictures of the masters,
as Chardin imitates, as well as possible, a boiled egg or a
coffee mill.

You would do better, gentlemen, to paint the cliffs of Dieppe
in blue and red, truly nature is not modern enough!

So that no one shall be mistaken over this book I end by
this little poem:

FRANCIS PICABIA.

Ended in Paris the 10th July 1920.