In recent times, I was a man
of fifty-two years, a gentleman I might say, one of those not too old and absolutely distant from the wicked intoxication of youthful years; I was a charming man, no doubt, not handsome,
I've never been, I leave that beauty to the rough peasants of the common people: I seek only the delirium of beauty.
I do not remember
precisely where I was that day, of course I was fifty-two years old,
perhaps I did not appear to be a man of that age, but I possessed the
awareness and the decline, even if perhaps not the experience of it. It is
likely I was at the sides of a Parisian avenue, in perfect
solitude in a bistro sipping a burning hot café on an already
scorching early spring afternoon.
Beauty unfolded
before my eyes just as the light spreads in a calm
country dawn against the backdrop of silent hills; none of the passers-by
managed to perceive that beauty, even if in their own way they were its
modest creators, unaware actors of a reality capable of granting
happiness if only they would pause to look at each other, stopping
for a few minutes from the frantic race of daily frenzy.
I was
too elegant to live in a contemporary world: shoes polished to
a shine, black trousers of thin fabric, a light shirt open by two
buttons, no tie, a gentleman’s jacket, a pair of
gloves, a low top hat and the inevitable dark glasses
to shield my eyes from the energetic sunrays of that day
and to protect my gaze from that of others: too cold and
mercilessly selfish.
[...continua...]
Greet with joy!
