Divine lightly accepts this moth's life. She gets tipsy on alcohol and neon light, but especially on the headiness of their Quite-Quite gestures and their dazzling remarks. "This life in a whirl is driving me mad," and she said "in a whirl" as one says "hair in bangs," a beauty patch "a la Pompadour," tea "Russian style." But, Darling's absences from the garret were growing more and more frequent. He would remain away for nights on end. A whole street of women, the Rue de la Charbonniere, had recaptured him, then, afterward: one woman alone. His bulky prick was working wonders, and his lacy-fingered hands were emptying the bawd's bag. He had stopped robbing show cases; he was being kept. Then it was Our Lady's turn to disappear, but him we shall soon find again.

What would the destiny of the splendid Marchettis matter to Divine and me if it did not call to mind what I suffered upon returning from my adventures, in which I magnified myself, and if it did not remind Divine of her impotence? To begin with, the tale of Our Lady of the Flowers lulls present time, for the very words the murderer uses are the magic words that equally handsome hoodlums spat out like so many stars, like those extraordinary hoodlums that pronounce the word "dollar" with the right accent.  But what is to be said of one of the strangest poetic phenomenon: that the whole world- and the most terribly dismal part of it, the blackest, most charred, dry to the point of Jansenism, the severe, naked world of factory workers- is entwined with marvels, the popular songs lost in the wind, by profoundly rich voices, gilded and set with diamonds, spangled or silky; and these songs have phrases which I cannot think of without shame if I know they are sung by the grave mouths of workers which utter such words as: succumb... tenderness... ravishing... garden of roses... cottage... marble steps... sweethearts... dear... love... jewels... crown... oh my queen... dear stranger...gilded room... lovely lady... flowered basket... treasure of flesh... golden waning... my heart adores you... laden with flowers... color of the evening... exquisite and pink... in short, those fiercely luxurious words, words which must slash their flesh like a ruby-crested dagger.  They sing them, perhaps without giving them much thought.  They whistle them too, with their hands in their pockets.  And poor, shameful me, I shudder at the thought that the toughest of workers is crowned at all times of the day with one or another of these garlands of flowers: mignonette, and roses which have bloomed among the rich, gilded, jeweled voices, maidens all, simple or sumptuous, shepherdess or princesses. See how beautiful they are! All of them, their bodies busked by machines, like a locomotive being inaugurated, are adorned, as the solid body of the hundred thousand hoodlums one meets is also adorned with moving expressions, for a popular literature, light because unwritten, light and flitting from mouth to mouth, in the wind, says of them: "My little monkey-face," "little tramp," "cute little bastard," "little louse" (note that the word "little," if applied to me or some object dear to my heart, overwhelms me; even if someone says to me, "Jean, your little hairs" or "your little finger," it turns me inside out). These expressions certainly have a melodic relationship with young men, the glamour of whose superhuman beauty derives from the uncleanness of dreams, a beauty so potent that we penetrate it in one swoop, and so spontaneously that we have the feeling of "possessing" it (in both senses of the word: of being full of it and of transcending it in an external vision), of possession, for the slightest question. In like manner, certain animals, by their gaze, make us possess at one swoop their absolute being: snakes, dogs, in the twinkling of an eye we "know them" and to such a degree that we think of an eye we "know them" and to such a degree that we think it is they who know, and we therefore feel a certain uneasiness mixed with horror. These expressions sing. And the little tramps, cute bastards, little bastards, sweet monkey-faces, are sensitive, as is crystal to the finger, to those musical inflections (they should be noted here to be well rendered), which, I think when I see them coming in the song of the streets, are going to pass unperceived by them. But on seeing their bodies undulate or contract, I recognize that they have quite caught the inflection and that their entire being shows their relationship.