Explore "The Cake" by Charles Pierre Baudelaire on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I was travelling. The landscape in the midst of which I / was seated was of an irresistible grandeur and sublimity. / Something no doubt at that moment passed from it into my / soul. My thoughts fluttered with a lightness like that of the / atmosphere; vulgar passions, such as hate and profane love, / seemed to me now as far away as the clouds that floated in the / gulfs beneath my feet; my soul seemed to me as vast and pure / as the dome of the sky that enveloped me; the remembrance of / earthly things came as faintly to my heart as the thin tinkle / of the bells of unseen herds, browsing far, far away, on the / slope of another mountain. Across the little motionless lake, / black with the darkness of its immense depth, there passed / from time to time the shadow of a cloud, like the shadow of an / airy giant's cloak, flying through heaven. And I remember that / this rare and solemn sensation, caused by a vast and perfectly / silent movement, filled me with mingled joy and fear. In a / word, thanks to the enrapturing beauty about me, I felt that / I was at perfect peace with myself and with the universe; I / even believe that, in my complete forgetfulness of all earthly / evil, I had come to think the newspapers are right after all, / and man was born good; when, incorrigible matter renewing its / exigences, I sought to refresh the fatigue and satisfy the / appetite caused by so lengthy a climb. I took from my pocket / a large piece of bread, a leathern cup, and a small bottle / of a certain elixir which the chemists at that time sold to / tourists, to be mixed, on occasion, with liquid snow.
I was quietly cutting my bread when a slight noise made me / look up. I saw in front of me a little ragged urchin, dark / and dishevelled, whose hollow eyes, wild and supplicating, / devoured the piece of bread. And I heard him gasp, in a low, / hoarse voice, the word: "Cake! " I could not help laughing at / the appellation with which he thought fit to honour my nearly / white bread, and I cut off a big slice and offered it to him. / Slowly he came up to me, not taking his eyes from the coveted / object; then, snatching it out of my hand, he stepped quickly / back, as if he feared that my offer was not sincere, or that I / had already repented of it.