The Trap

During that time I kept out of circumstances that were too full of mystery As people with stomach ailments avoid heavy meals, I preferred to stay at home inquiring into certain questions Concerning the propagation of spiders, To which end I would shut myself up in the garden And not show myself in public until late at night; Or else, in shirt-sleeves, defiant, I would hurl angry glances at the moon, Trying to get rid of those bilious fancies That cling like polyps to the human soul. When I was alone I was completely self-possessed, I went back and forth fully conscious of my actions Or I would stretch out among the planks of the cellar And dream, think up ways and means, resolve little emergency problems. It was at that moment that i put into practice my famous method for interpreting dreams Which consists in doing violence to oneself and then imagining what one would like, Conjuring up scenes that I had worked our beforehand with the help of powers from other worlds. In this manner I was able to obtain priceless information Concerning a string of anxieties that afflict our being: Foreign travel, erotic disorders, religious complexes. But all precautions were inadequate, Because, for reasons hard to set forth, I began sliding automatically down a sort of inclined plane. My soul lost altitude like a punctured balloon, The instinct of self-preservation stopped functioning And, deprived of my most essential prejudices, I fell unavoidably into the telephone trap Which sucks in everything around it, like a vacuum, And with trembling hands I dialed that accursed number Which even now I repeat automatically in my sleep. Uncertainty and misery filled the seconds that followed, While I, like a skeleton standing before that table from hell Covered with yellow cretonne, Waited for an answer from the other end of the world, The other half of my being, imprisoned in a pit. Those intermittent telephone noises Worked on me like a dentist's drill, They sank into my soul like needles shot from the sky Until, when the moment itself arrived, I started to sweat and to stammer feverishly, My tongue like a veal steak Obtruded between my being and her who was listening, Like those black curtains that separate us from the dead. I never wanted to conduct those over-intimate conversations Which I myself provoked, just the same, in my stupid way, My voice thick with desire, and electrically charged. Hearing myself called by my first name In that tone of forced familiarity Filled me with a vague discomfort, With anguished localized disturbances which I contrived to keep in check With a hurried system of questions and answers Which roused in her a state of pseudo-erotic effervescence That eventually affected me as well With a feeling of doom. Then I'd make myself laugh and as a result fall into a state of mental prostration. These ridiculous little chats went on for hours Until the lady who ran the pension appeared behind the screen Brusquely breaking off our stupid idyll. Those contortions of a petitioner at the gates of heaven And those catastrophes which so wore down my spirit Did not stop altogether when I hung up For usually we had agreed To meet next day in a soda fountain Or at the door of a church whose name I prefer to forget.