And you thought YOU were cursed

[rockettqween]

The Favours of the Moon
Charles Baudelaire

The Moon, who is caprice itself, looked through the window while you
were
sleeping in your cradle, and said to herself:'I like this child.'

And softly she decended her staircase of clouds and, noislessly,
passed
through the window-panes. Then she stretched herself out over you with
the
supple tenderness of a mother, and laid down her colors on your face.
Ever
since, the pupils of your eyes have remained green and your cheeks
unusually
pale. It was while comtemplating this vistor that your eyes became so
strangely enlarged; and she clasped your neck so tenderly that you have
retained for ever the desire to weep.

However, in the expansion of her joy, the Moon filled the whole room
with
phosphorescent vapour, like a luminous poison; and all the living light
thought and said: 'You shall suffer for ever the influence of my kiss.
You
shall be beautiful in my fashion. You shall love that which I love and
that
which loves me: water, clouds, silence and the night; the immense green
sea;
the formless and multiform streams; the place where you shall not be;
the
lover whom you shall not know; flowers of monstrous shape; perfumes
that
cause delirium; cats that shudder, swoon and curl up on pianos and
groan
like women, with a voice that is hoarse and gentle!

'And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You
shall
be the queen of all men that have green eyes, whose necks also I have
clasped in my nocturnal caresses; of those who love the sea, the sea
that is
immense, tumultuous and green, the formless and multiform streams, the
place
where they are not, the woman whom they do not know, sinister flowers
that
resemble the censers of a strange religion, perfumes that confound the
will;
and the savage and voluptuous animals which are the emblems of their
dementia.'

And that, my dear, cursed, spoiled child, is why I am now lying at
your
feet, seeking in all your person the reflection of the formidable
divinity,
of the foreknowing godmother, the poisoning wet-nurse of all the
lunatics.