Читать книгу Paris Spleen - Charles Baudelaire - Страница 11

Explosive New Year’s Day: chaos of mud and snow, criss-crossed by a thousand carriages, sparkling with toys and toffee, crawling with greed and despair, standard delirium of a metropolis, made to disturb the brain of the sturdiest solitary.

In the midst of bohu and din, a donkey trotted briskly, hard pressed by a rascal with a whip.

As the donkey came to turn a corner, a gentleman, gloved, polished, imprisoned in cruel necktie and spanking new duds, bowed ceremoniously to the humble beast and, doffing his hat, addressed it, “All the best for you in the new year,” turning then to I know not what companions with a fatuous air, as if praying them to approve his own satisfaction.

The donkey, oblivious to this high-class joker, continued its trek as duty directed.

For my part, I was taken suddenly with an incommensurate rage against this ostentatious imbecile, who seemed to me to concentrate in himself the whole spirit of France.