Folly, error, sin and parsimony
Preoccupy our spirits and work on our bodies
Feeding our consciences
Like beggars nourishing their lice.

Our sins are stubborn, our repentance weak
We make ourselves pay handsomely for each confession
And happily rejoin the muddy path
Believing our base tears can wash away the stains.

On the pillow of evil, Satan Trismegistus
Cradles at length our enchanted soul
And the rich metal of our will
Is boiled away by that artful chemist.

It is the Devil who holds the threads that move us!
It is in hateful objects that we find peace;
Each day, one step further towards Hell
Without horror, through the stinking shadows.

Like a poor sinner who kisses and consumes
The tortured breast of an ancient whore,
We steal in passing a clandestine joy
We squeeze as strongly as a withered fruit.

Serried, seething, like a million ants
In our brains riots a Demon horde
And, when we breathe, Death in our lungs
Descends, a sightless river, with deaf moans.

If rape and poison, arson and the knife
Have not yet woven their pleasant designs
On the dull canvas of our lowly destinies
It is because our soul, alas, is not yet bold enough!

But among the jackals, panthers and chimerae
The monkeys, scorpions, vultures and the snakes
The monsters yelping, shouting, grunting, crawling
In the ill-famed menagerie of all our vices

Is one more ugly, evil, fouler than the rest
Making no grand gestures or great cries
Yet it would gladly lay waste to the earth
And with a yawn would swallow up the world

And it is Boredom! Eye laden with involuntary tears,
Dreaming of scaffolds, pulls upon its pipe
You know it, reader, this delicate monster
- Hypocrite reader, - my likeness, - my brother!