the stranger
A stranger is ordinarily a person that is coming from another country. In the question-answers that follows, all is taking place as if the one that is answering is not the stranger of anybody else.
To enjoy with moderation!
Text of the stranger
- - Who do you love the best, enigmatic man, say? your father, your mother, your sister or your brother?
- - I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
- - Your friends?
- - You are using here a word whose meaning remains unknown to me to this day.
- - Your homeland?
- - I do not know in which latitude it lies.
- - Beauty?
- - I would love her willingly, goddess and immortal.
- - Gold?
- - I hate it as you hate God.
- - Eh! what do you love then, extraordinary stranger?
- - I love the clouds… the passing clouds … up there … up there … the marvelous clouds!
text: Charles Baudelaire (opens in a new tab), "the stranger".
original text in french language.
English translation: original translation. Can be reproduced with mention « original translation to english by François Vidit », link included.