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Charles Baudelaire: Charles Baudelaire Poems

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THE GAMING ROOM

Charles Baudelaire

The armchairs of worn satin; the aged courtesans,
Livid and rouged, their eyes relentless, their eyebrows blacked,
Jingling eternally from their withered ears, to attract
Attention, their huge earrings, and ogling behind their fans;
The long green table, the rows of lipless faces, the lips
Drained of all color; the gaping, toothless mouths; the unrest
Of hundreds of white nervous fingers, stacking the chips,
Or searching the empty pocket, the convulsive breast;
The dirty ceiling, the blaze of crystal chandeliers,
The low-hung lamps illumining with a crude glare
The ravaged brows of poets, the scars of grenadiers,
Who come to risk the earnings of their lifeblood there.
— Such is the lurid spectacle that with calm dread
I saw as in a melancholy dream unroll:
Myself, too, sitting in a deserted corner, my head
Propped in my hands, mute, weary, jealous to my soul,
Jealous of all that rabble, of the lust of it,
The terrible gaiety of those old whores, the smell
And noise of life, for which they frantically sell
Some remnant of their honor, their beauty, or their wit.
And suddenly I was affrighted at my own heart, to feel
Such envy of all men running wildly and out of breath
Nowhere, and who prefer, like those around that wheel,
Pain, horror, crime, insanity — anything — to death!