MORE GEORGE FLOYD 

I CAN'T BREATHE 

PROTEST PHOTOS

 MAY 31, 2020

ANARCHIST GAMES STREET BOARDING

LARRY KRAMER FOUNDER OF ACT UP
AIDS ACTIVIST CREATOR OF THIS 
SLOGAN DIED THIS WEEK AS WELL

GEORGE FLOYD SUPERHERO ANGEL

WHITE SUPREMACISTS BOOGALOO BOIS
BURNED DOWN THE NATIVE CENTRE
 IN MINNEAPOLIS, REPRESENTATIVES
OF THREE MEXICAN INDIGENOUS TRIBES
ARE VISITING FOR A CULTURAL EXCHANGE

DURING PROTESTS

SHIVA'S BLESSINGS

COVERED IN MILK TO STOP THE 
TEAR GAS BURN

THIS BROTHER IS SAFER PROTESTING
IN LONDON,COPPERS DON'T CARRY GUNS

FASHIONISTA PROTESTER 

THIS IS WHAT THE FIRST AMENDMENT
 LOOKS LIKE

WHERE IS THE FEMALE COP TO ARREST
HER 

JUST GOOD NATURED FUN YOUTHFUL
EXUBERANCE AND ITS VANDALISM
NOT VIOLENCE

RIP WRAPPED
Artist Christo who wrapped Reichstag in fabric dies aged 84

The artist known as Christo, who made his name transforming landmarks such as Germany's Reichstag by covering them with reams of cloth, died on Sunday aged 84, his official Facebook page announced.

© Niklas HALLE'N Christo made transforming internationally known landmarks his speciality

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff died of natural causes at his home in New York City, the statement said.

The Bulgarian-born artist worked in collaboration with his wife of 51 years Jeanne-Claude until her death in 2009.

Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect; but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.

"Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible but realising it," said a statement from his office.

"Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork brought people together in shared experiences across the globe, and their work lives on in our hearts and memories."

In accordance with Christo's wishes, the statement added, a work in progress, "l'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped", would be completed. The event is on schedule to be shown from September 18 in 2021.

Born on June 13, 1935 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, Christo left his home country in 1957, living in several countries before arriving in Paris, where he met his future wife.

Next year's work in Paris will be accompanied by an exhibition at the city's Pompidou Centre about their time in the city. That show is due to start in July this year, running through until the end of October 2021.

As well as the German Reichstag, another of their major projects was wrapping the Pont Neuf, Paris's oldest bridge, in 1985.

Sunday's statement from Christo's office concluded: "In a 1958 letter Christo wrote, 'Beauty, science and art will always triumph'. We hold those words closely today."


'Wrapped Reichstag' artist Christo dies, aged 84
He was most famous for wrapping huge buildings and spaces, such as the Reichstag in Berlin and Paris' Pont-Neuf. American-Bulgarian artist Christo has died at the age of 84.



His last monumental work was to be the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In the fall of 2020, Christo was to cover the famous landmark with 25,000 square meters (270,000 square feet) of silver blue recyclable polypropylene fabric, tied with 7,000 meters of red rope.

Christo however didn't get to witness the unveiling of his ambitious installation. On May 31, the world famous Bulgarian-American artist died of natural causes at his home in New York City.

"Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible but realising it," said a statement from his office.

Wrapping to awake curiosity

Shiny fabrics that covered buildings, objects or entire areas were his trademark. Together with his wife Jeanne-Claude, who died in 2009, he wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, trees in Switzerland or paths in Kansas City. And sometimes he just covered up air in big "air packages."


Christo's big 'air packages'

Christo and Jeanne Claude planned together large-scale projects such as the oversized Valley Curtain installed between two Colorado mountain slopes in the early 1970s.

Other spectacular works include the pink Surrounded Islands in Florida and the Pont-Neuf Wrapped bridge installation in Paris in the 1980s. In 1995, the artist couple wrapped the German Reichstag in silver glittering fabric.

In 2016, some 1.3 million visitors walked on his Floating Piers across Lake Iseo. "I love real things, real wind, real dryness, real wet, real fear and real joy," Christo told a group of Italian students in the documentary Walking on Water.


Christo's Floating Piers across Lake Iseo

Christo started wrapping or covering items such as cans, bottles and boxes early on in his artistic career. Yet he always rejected being defined as a "packaging artist."

He left the interpretation of his art to others, but his basic approach was to arouse the curiosity of viewers by concealing objects, without ever changing them beyond recognition — a process the artist's biographer, David Bourdon, described as "revealing by hiding."

Famous artist couple: Christo & Jeanne-Claude

Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff was born in Bulgaria on June 13, 1935. In the 1950s he studied painting, sculpture and architecture in Sofia. In 1956, he fled the communist country across the Czechoslovak border.

In Paris at the beginning of the 1960s, he joined a group of artists known as the "Nouveaux Réalistes" — the new realists — who, among other things, integrated real-life objects into art by transforming them.


Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 2006

To earn money, Christo also painted portraits. While working for a general, he met his daughter, Jeanne-Claude, who was born on the same day as he was. Jeanne-Claude was first seduced by Christo's charm; her enthusiasm for his art came later. She contributed to his artistic talent through her organizational skills.

Relations with Germany

Wolfgang Volz became the couple's official photographer in 1972. "Although Christo had a worldwide reputation, I never worked 'for' the two of them, but 'with' them as equal partners," Volz once told DW. That's why their relationship lasted so long, even though Christo could also be difficult, having a reputation for being short-tempered and stubborn when it came to realizing the detailed concepts of his works exactly according to his plans.

Over time, his art projects became increasingly ambitious. "The 'working family' grew with the size of the projects," said Volz on the occasion of Christo's 80th birthday. "Engineers, professional climbers and other specialists were needed."


The veiling of the Reichstag in 1995 was one of Christo's most ambitious projects

Christo's panels of fabrics were made in Germany, where he also realized one of his most ambitious projects, the veiling of the Berlin Reichstag in 1995.

Within two weeks, five million visitors had admired the impressive sparkling Wrapped Reichstag. Christo had been waiting for over 20 years to realize this project.

Freedom as a driving artistic force

As a representative of so-called Environmental or Land Art, Christo, together with Jeanne-Claude, undertook many spectacular wrapping and design campaigns for buildings, parks and entire areas.

In the 1960s, a time of social upheaval, Land Art had a political dimension. Geographical spaces were transformed into works of art that could not be owned — a form of protest against property and the bourgeoisie.


One of the artists' most spectacular installations, 'Umbrellas,' from the early 70s

Christo remained true to this ideal until the end. His large-scale installations were only visible for a short period, but they were open to the public and free of charge for everyone. "The fact that they disappear is part of the aesthetic concept. They are deeply rooted in freedom, because freedom is an enemy of property — while property is linked to durability," said Christo as he worked on the Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin.

Freedom has always been a central concept for the former refugee from Bulgaria. In order to remain independent, he financed his projects from the sale of sketches and merchandise related to his works.

An artist with a political stance

Christo's socio-critical ambitions became artistic happenings that fascinated the public. Jeanne-Claude often described their work this way: "We create temporary works of art of joy and beauty."


Christo and Jeanne-Claude working on their project 'Over the River'

But all while promoting beauty and joy, Christo remained political. He gave up his Over the River project in Colorado, which he had been developing for 20 years, in protest against US President Donald Trump in 2017. "The US government is our landlord here," Christo told The New York Times. "It owns the country. I cannot do a project that benefits this landlord."

Oil barrels for a grave

Christo not only covered buildings and landscapes; oil barrels were another recurring material in his art. In 1962, he blocked the Rue Visconti in Paris with a wall made of 441 oil barrels. He called the work The Iron Curtain, created in protest against the East German regime and the construction of the Berlin Wall.


The Mastaba in Hyde Park

In 1977, Christo and Jeanne-Claude designed The Mastaba, inspired by Ancient Egyptian tombs. They aimed to build a colorful pyramid without a tip made of 410,000 oil barrels in the United Arab Emirates desert near Abu Dhabi.

Christo realized smaller versions of this pyramid, most recently a floating Mastaba of 7,506 oil barrels in London's Hyde Park in 2018. The Abu Dhabi Mastaba in the desert, which would have been the world's largest sculpture and his only large-scale permanent installation, remained one of his longstanding unfulfilled dreams.



CHRISTO AND HIS LARGE-SCALE ARTWORKS
Wrapping the Arc de Triomphe (2020)

The "Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped" was announced as the last large-scale project completed by Christo during his lifetime. The Parisian landmark at the end of the Champs Elysees was to be covered in September 2020 with a silvery-blue recyclable fabric, tied by a red rope. Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude had developed the concept for this installation back in 1962.

Packaging air (1968)

Christo developed his first elaborate installations in the 1960s, wrapping everyday objects such as chairs, magazines and oil drums. Later he created "Air Packages" such as this 5,600-cubic-meter installation at the Documenta 4 art fair in Kassel in 1968, which earned him worldwide recognition.

CHRISTO AND HIS LARGE-SCALE ARTWORKS

A monument to the artist couple

The Mastaba in London was a foretaste of the great mastaba that Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned for Abu Dhabi. The gigantic pyramid of 410,000 oil barrels was to be the artist couple's first major permanent project. They often visited their desired location in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. "The Mastaba," featured on Christo's homepage, remained a dream.

Author: Gaby Reucher

SEE MORE PHOTOS HERE
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Date 31.05.2020
Author Gaby Reucher
Related Subjects Christo, Reichstag, Norman Foster
Keywords Christo, artist, Reichstag, New York City

Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3d5WI

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

 MAKES THE WORLD LESS SAFE AGAIN

Growing US-China rivalry seen fueling UN paralysis amid virus crisis

For nearly a decade, the UN Security Council has been frequently paralyzed by Russia's obstinacy over the Syrian crisis. Today, however, it is the US-China rivalry that has infected a growing array of issues, according to officials and diplomats.

© Ludovic MARIN The flag of the UN outside the New York headquarters of the world body, seen in a photo taken on September 23, 2019

As recently as 2017, an understanding between Washington and Beijing allowed the United Nations on three occasions -- involving separate sets of economic sanctions -- to project international unity in the face of the North Korean nuclear threat.

Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a ferocious competition erupt between the UN's two main contributors, prompting the organization's chief, Antonio Guterres, to bemoan a "lack of leadership" during the world's worst crisis since 1945.

"Where we see power, we sometimes do not see the necessary leadership," he said recently.

Even after more than two months of negotiations, the 15 Security Council members were unable to reach agreement on a resolution supporting a call from the UN secretary-general for a global cease-fire while the world battles the novel coronavirus.

The sole reason? US-Chinese differences over a passing mention in the draft resolution to the World Health Organization (WHO), with which President Donald Trump on Friday said he planned to sever ties.

Both UN officials and diplomats say the US-Chinese conflict seems to be spreading, leaving them increasingly pessimistic.

"The Security Council has been frozen for 45 years between 1945 and 1990, because of the Cold War," one ambassador said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The last thing we need is another Cold War that would freeze again the Security Council."

"Importing bilateral disputes in the Council would be a disaster," he said.

Added another ambassador: "We really shouldn't enter in a new Cold War. But it doesn't look very good at the moment," whether regarding leadership, the pandemic or US-Chinese relations, three subjects "very closely tied to each other."

© Greg Baker UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, seen at a news conference in Beijing on November 28, 2016

- Fragility and humility -

At the UN, there is a sense of a dangerous drift into new and dysfunctional territory.

"In the past, when you had disagreements among members of the Council, it was compartmentalized," said a UN official, speaking on grounds of anonymity. "So your adversary one day on a particular issue was your best ally the next day on another issue. What we see now is everything spilling over.

"So there are camps, or there are disagreements which just spill over from one issue to another," the official said, clearly alluding to the situation in Hong Kong, where tough new Chinese security legislation has pitted the two leading permanent members of the UN against each other.

"The tensions between the US and China are really problematic" for the world body, meaning the Security Council is "not able to move forward on a range of things," the official added.

Several ambassadors shared that view.

"There is a huge fracture in the global multilateral architecture right now. And it's very serious," said Olof Skoog, the European Union ambassador to the UN.

"We are witnessing a polarization in the Security Council," said Ambassador Christoph Heusgen of Germany, currently a non-permanent member of the council, alluding to an ever more bitter volley of tweets being exchanged by the US and Chinese missions.

At a press conference Thursday, Guterres expressed his regret that the pandemic had not evoked a greater sense of humility from the big powers.

"If the present crisis shows something, it is our fragility. Collective fragility. When we are fragile, we should be humble. When we are humble, we should be united and in solidarity," he said, in remarks directed to members of the Security Council.

He then made it abundantly clear that he had in mind the United States and China -- which as permanent Security Council members enjoy the veto power that greatly magnifies their influence.

"I have never seen the Council's work being paralyzed by (non-permanent) members," he said.

prh/cjc/bbk/dw

WHAT IS SITUATIONISM? A READER STEWART HOME ED.

https://www.academia.edu/39692391/Home_-_WHAT_IS_SITUATIONISM_A_READER

From Watts to Wall Street: A situationist analysis of political violence

Chapter · April 2020 with 10 Reads 

DOI: 10.4324/9780429460357-2

In book: Cultures of Violence, Edition: 1st, Chapter: 1, Publisher: Routledge, pp.16-39
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340726696_From_Watts_to_Wall_Street_A_situationist_analysis_of_political_violence

This chapter applies ‘The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy’ – the Situationist account of the Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles, 1965) – to the August riots (England, 2011) and the global Occupy movement that followed. It draws two conclusions: that both May ‘68 and Occupy were formed by the political violence that preceded them; and that, although the Situationist essay makes problematic claims about race, its assessment of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy remains valuable. In fact, if combined with intersectional theory, it can provide a useful counterbalance to identity politics that can prevent what Alain Badiou calls an ‘immediate riot’ from becoming a ‘historical riot’ by fragmenting mass social movements and undermining unity.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

OCCUPY THE FUN PALACE

BRITT EVERSOLE

Thresholds

No. 41, REVOLUTION! (Spring 2013), pp. 32-45

Published by: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43876495

Page Count: 14

Topics: Situationism, Modern art, Palaces, Dialectic, British culture, Radicalism, Graphics, Riots, Collage

B I B L I O T H E Q U E ~ V I R T U E L L E

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)The Devil of Perversity
translation of Charles Baudelaire

First published in the July 1845 issue of Graham's Lady's And Gentleman's Magazine , this text was then republished, in a slightly revised version, in various collections of poems in the following years. Poe began to be known in France shortly before his death. The young Baudelaire discovered it in 1847, and immediately began translating his work. The first Extraordinary Histories are published in Paris ten years later.
  In the examination of faculties and inclinations - of the primordial motives of the human soul - the phrenologists forgot to take part in a tendency which, although apparently existing as a primitive, radical, irreducible feeling, was also omitted by all the moralists who preceded them. In the perfect infatuation of our reason, we have all omitted it. We have allowed its existence to escape our sight, only for lack of belief, of faith - whether it be faith in Revelation or faith in Cabal. The idea never came to us, simply because of its supererogatory quality. We did not feel the need to note this impulse - this tendency. We could not imagine the necessity. We couldn't grasp the notion of this mobile primum, and, even if it were forced into us, we could never understand what role it played in the economy of human things, temporal or eternal. It is impossible to deny that phrenology and a good part of the metaphysical sciences were a priori mixed. The man of metaphysics or logic, rather than the man of intelligence and observation, claims to conceive of God's designs - to dictate plans to him. Having thus deepened Jehovah's intentions to his full satisfaction, according to these said intentions, he built his innumerable and capricious systems. In matters of phrenology, for example, we first established, quite naturally, moreover, that it was in the designs of the Divinity that man ate. Then we assigned to the man an organ of nourishment, and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. and this organ is the whip with which God compels man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man to eat, willy-nilly. Secondly, having decided that it was the will of God that man should continue his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man continued his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. man continued his species, we immediately discovered an organ of amativity. And so those of combativeness, ideality, causality, constructiveness - in short, any organ representing an inclination, a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator. a moral feeling or a faculty of pure intelligence. And in this accommodation of the principles of human action, Spurzheimists, rightly or wrongly, in part or in whole, have only followed, in principle, the traces of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything according to the preconceived destiny of man and taking as a basis the intentions of his Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would have been safer to base our classification (since we absolutely have to classify) on the acts that man usually performs and those that he performs occasionally, always occasionally, rather than on the assumption that it is Divinity itself which makes them accomplish it. If we cannot understand God in his visible works, how then can we understand him in his inconceivable thoughts, which call these works to Life? If we cannot conceive it in its objective creatures, how will we conceive it in its unconditional modes and in its phases of creation?
A posteriori induction would have led phrenology to admit as a primitive and innate principle of human action a paradoxical je ne sais quoi, which we will call perversity, for lack of a more characteristic term. In the sense that I attach to it, it is, in reality, a motive without motive, an unmotivated motive. Under his influence, we act without an intelligible goal; or, if this appears to be a contradiction in terms, we can modify the proposition to the point of saying that, under its influence, we act by reason that we should not. In theory, there could not be a more unreasonable reason; but, in fact, there is no stronger one. For some minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. My life is no more certain for me than this proposition: the certainty of sin or error included in any act is often the only invincible force that drives us, and only drives us to its accomplishment. And this overwhelming tendency to do evil for the love of evil will admit no analysis, no resolution in subsequent elements. It is a radical, primitive, - elementary movement. It will be said, I expect, that if we persist in certain acts because we feel that we should not persist in them, our conduct is only a modification of that which ordinarily derives from phrenological combativeness. But a simple glance will suffice to discover the falsity of this idea. Phrenological combativeness has for its existence the necessity of personal defense. It is our safeguard against injustice. Its principle concerns our well-being; and thus, at the same time as it develops, we feel the desire for well-being being exalted in us. It would follow from this that the desire for well-being should be simultaneously excited with any principle which would only be a modification of combativeness; but, in the case of that I do not know what I define perversity, not only the desire for well-being is not awakened, but also appears a singularly contradictory feeling.
Every man, appealing to his own heart, will find, after all, the best answer to the fallacy in question. Anyone who will honestly consult and carefully question his soul will not dare to deny the absolute radicalism of the addiction in question. It is no less characterized than incomprehensible. There is no man, for example, who at some point has not been devoured by an ardent desire to torture his listener by circumlocutions. Whoever speaks knows well that he does not like it; he has the best intention of pleasing; it is usually brief, precise and clear; the most laconic and brightest language is agitated and struggling over its language; it is only with difficulty that he himself forces himself to refuse him the passage, he dreads and conjures the bad mood of the one to whom he is addressing. However, this thought struck him, that by certain incises and parentheses it could generate this anger. This simple thought is enough. The movement becomes a desire, the desire grows in desire, desire changes into an irresistible need, and the need is satisfied - to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in disregard of all consequences.
We have before us a task that we must accomplish quickly. We know that delaying is our ruin. The greatest crisis of our lives calls for immediate action and energy with the imperative voice of a trumpet. We are burning, we are consumed with impatience to get to work; the taste of a glorious result ignites our whole soul. This task must, it must be attacked today, - and yet we postpone it to tomorrow; - and why? There is no explanation, except that we feel it is perverse; - let us use the word without understanding the principle. Tomorrow arrives, and at the same time a more impatient anxiety to do our duty; but with this increased anxiety also comes a burning desire, anonyne, to delay further, - positively terrible desire, because its nature is impenetrable. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. The more time flees, the more strength the desire gains. There is only one hour left for action, this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. this hour is ours. We tremble with the violence of the conflict which is agitated within us, - the battle between the positive and the indefinite, between substance and shadow. But, if the struggle has come to this point, it is the shadow that prevails - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. prevails, - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late. prevails, - we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and it is the death knell for our happiness. It is at the same time for the shadow that has terrorized us for so long, the alarm clock song, the diane of the victorious rooster of ghosts. It flies away - it disappears - we are free. The old energy is coming back. We will work now. Alas! it's too late.
We are on the edge of a precipice, We look into the abyss, - we feel uneasy and dizzy. Our first movement is to back away from danger. Inexplicably we stay. Little by little our uneasiness, our vertigo, our horror merge into a cloudy and indefinable feeling. Gradually, imperceptibly, this cloud takes a form, like the vapor of the bottle from which rose the genius of the Arabian Nights. But from our cloud, on the edge of the precipice, rises, more and more palpable, a form a thousand times more terrible than any genius, than any demon of fables; and yet it is only a thought, but a dreadful thought, a thought which freezes the very marrow of our bones, and penetrates them with the ferocious delights of its horror. It's just this idea: What would be our sensations during the course of a fall made from such a height? And this fall, - this lightning annihilation, - for the simple reason that they imply the most dreadful, the most odious of all the most dreadful and all the most odious images of death and suffering that have ever presented themselves to our imagination , - for this simple reason, we desire them more ardently. And because our judgment violently drives us away from the edge, because of that very fact, we approach it more impetuously. It is not in the nature of passion more diabolically impatient than that of a man who, shivering on the edge of a precipice, dreams of jumping into it. To allow yourself, to try to think for a moment only, is inevitably to be lost; for reflection commands us to abstain from it, and it is for this very reason, I say, that we cannot. If there is not a friendly arm there to stop us, or if we are incapable of a sudden effort to throw ourselves away from the abyss, we rush forward, we are annihilated.
Let us examine these actions and others analogous, we will find that they result only from the spirit of perversity. We just perpetrate them because we feel we shouldn't. Below or beyond, there is no intelligible principle; and we could, in truth, consider this perversity as a direct instigation of the Archidemon, if it were not recognized that sometimes it serves the accomplishment of good.
If I have told you so much, it was to somehow answer your question, - to explain to you why I am here, - to have to show you some semblance of some cause which motivates these irons I wear and this convicted cell that I live in. If I hadn't been so verbose, or you wouldn't have understood me at all, or, like the crowd, you would have thought me crazy. Now you will easily perceive that I am one of the countless victims of the Devil of Evil.
It is impossible that an action has ever been devised with more perfect deliberation. For weeks, for months, I meditated on the means of assassination. I rejected a thousand plans, because the accomplishment of each involved a chance of revelation. In the long run, one day reading a few French memoirs, I found the story of an almost fatal illness which happened to Madame Pilau, due to an accidentally poisoned candle. The idea suddenly struck my imagination. I knew my victim used to read in bed. I also knew that her room was small and poorly ventilated. But I don't need to tire you of idle details. I will not tell you the easy tricks with the help of which I substituted, in the candlestick of his bedroom, a candle of my composition to the one I found there. In the morning the dead man was found in his bed, and the coroner's verdict was: Death by the visitation of God.
I inherited his fortune, and all went well for several years. The idea of ​​a revelation did not once enter my brain. As for the remains of the fatal candle, I had destroyed them myself. I had not left the shadow of a thread that could be used to convince me or even make me suspect the crime. One cannot imagine what a magnificent feeling of satisfaction arose in my breast when I reflected on my absolute safety. For a long period of time, I got used to reveling in this feeling. It gave me more real pleasure than all the purely material benefits resulting from my crime. But in the long run came an era from which the feeling of pleasure was transformed, by an almost imperceptible gradation, into a thought that harassed me. She harassed me because she haunted me. I could hardly get rid of it for a moment. It is quite an ordinary thing to have tired ears, or rather the memory obsessed with a kind of tintouin, by the refrain of a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved! a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved! a vulgar song or by some insignificant shreds of opera. And the torture will not be less, if the song is good in itself or if the opera air is estimable. This is how at the end I found myself constantly dreaming of my safety, and repeating this sentence in a low voice: I am saved!
One day, while strolling in the streets, I caught myself whispering, almost aloud, these accustomed syllables. In a fit of petulance, I expressed them in this new form: I am saved, - I am saved; - yes, - provided that I am not stupid enough to confess my case myself!
No sooner had I said these words than I felt an ice cold filter down to my heart. I had acquired some experience of these outbursts of perversity (of which I have not without difficulty explained the singular nature), and I remembered very well that in no case had I been able to resist these victorious attacks. And now this fortuitous suggestion, coming from myself, - that I could well be stupid enough to confess the murder of which I was guilty, - confronted me like the very shadow of the one I murdered, - and was calling me to death.
First, I made an effort to shake up this nightmare from my soul. I walked vigorously, - faster, - always faster; - in the long run I ran. I had an intoxicating desire to cry out with all my might. Each successive flow of my thought overwhelmed me with new terror; because, alas! I understood, all too well, that to think, in my situation, was to lose myself. I accelerated my race again. I leaped like crazy through the crowded streets. In the long run, the populace took the alarm and ran after me. I then felt the consumption of my destiny. If I had been able to tear my tongue out, I would have done so; - but a rough voice resounded in my ears, - an even rougher hand grabbed me by the shoulder. I turned around, I opened my mouth to suck. For a while, I experienced all the anguish of suffocation; I became blind, deaf, drunk: and then some invisible demon, I thought, struck me on the back with his large hand. The secret so long imprisoned sprang from my soul.
It is said that I spoke, that I uttered myself very distinctly, but with a marked energy and an ardent haste, as if I feared to be interrupted before I had completed the short, but large, important sentences which delivered to the executioner and to hell.
Having recounted all that was necessary for the full conviction of justice, I fell to the floor, passed out.
But why should I say more? Today I'm wearing these chains, and I'm here! Tomorrow I will be free! -but where?

 

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