The Gifts of the Moon

The Moon, who is caprice itself, looked in through the window when you
lay asleep in your cradle, and said inwardly: "This is a child after my
own soul."

And she came softly down the staircase of the clouds, and passed
noiselessly through the window-pane. Then she laid herself upon you
with the supple tenderness of a mother, and she left her colours upon
your face. That is why your eyes are green and your cheeks
extraordinarily pale. It was when you looked at her, that your pupils
widened so strangely; and she clasped her arms so tenderly about your
throat that ever since you have had the longing for tears.

Nevertheless, in the flood of her joy, the Moon filled the room like
a phosphoric atmosphere, like a luminous poison; and all this living
light thought and said: "My kiss shall be upon you for ever. You shall
be beautiful as I am beautiful. You shall love that which I love and
that by which I am loved: water and clouds, night and silence; the
vast green sea; the formless and multiform water; the place where you
shall never be; the lover whom you shall never know; unnatural flowers;
odours which make men drunk; the cats that languish upon pianos and sob
like women, with hoarse sweet voices!

"And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You
shall be the queen of men who have green eyes, and whose throats I have
clasped by night in my caresses; of those that love the sea, the vast
tumultuous green sea, formless and multiform water, the place where
they are not, the woman whom they know not, the ominous flowers that
are like the censers of an unknown rite, the odours that trouble the
will, and the savage and voluptuous beasts that are the emblems of
their folly."

And that is why, accursed dear spoilt child, I lie now at your feet,
seeking to find in you the image of the fearful goddess, the fateful
god-mother, the poisonous nurse of all the moonstruck of the world.