6.10.23

From “Anywhere out of the World” by Charles Baudelaire (translated by Martin Sorrell)

Life is a hospital where every patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One would like to suffer by the stove, another thinks he can recover beneath the window.

I think it would always be better for me wherever I am not, and changing places is a question I discuss constantly with my soul.

“So, my poor, shivering soul, what about Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you’d bask like a lizard. It’s a city by the sea, made of marble, they say, and the locals loathe plant life so much they rip up all the trees. That’s your sort of landscape, light and mineral with liquid reflections!”

[ . . . ]

Finally, my soul erupts, and yells its wise words: “Anywhere, anywhere, so long as it’s out of this world!”