Seeing isn't believing

Not a week goes by that I don't see one or more blind people in Paris navigating the subways and streets with exceptional thrift. This might be because I live next to an institute for the blind, situated on the busy avenue that runs south through the Place D'Italie and the Gobelins crossroads straight into the heart of Paris. Nevertheless, the irony of blindness in such a beautiful city is very profound. I don't know if any writer attempts to resolve it better than Baudelaire. The following poem was taken from a compendium given to me for Christmas, and below I've provided my own interpretive adaptation to English.

Les Aveugles

Contemple-les, mon âme ; ils sont vraiment affreux !

Pareils aux mannequins ; vaguement ridicules ;

Terribles, singuliers comme les somnambules ;

Dardant on ne sait où leurs globes ténébreux.

Leurs yeux, d’où la divine étincelle est partie,

Comme s’ils regardaient au loin, restent levés

Au ciel ; on ne les voit jamais vers les pavés

Pencher rêveusement leur tête appesantie.

Ils traversent ainsi le noir illimité,

Ce frère du silence éternel. O cité !

Pendant qu’autour de nous tu chantes, ris et beugles,

Eprise du plaisir jusqu’à l’atrocité,

Vois ! je me traîne aussi ! mais, plus qu’eux hébété,

Je dis : Que cherchent-ils au Ciel, tous ces aveugles ?

-Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

The Blind

Look at them, my soul; they are truly hideous!

Similar to dummies; vaguely ridiculous;

Terrible, queer as sleepwalkers;

Shadowy orbs darting to where we don’t know.

Their eyes, from where the divine spark left,

As if they were watching from afar, stood open

Towards the sky; we never see them towards the gravel

Dreamily tilting their laden heads.

They thus cross the limitless dark,

This brother of eternal silence. Oh city!

While around us you sing, laugh, and bellow,

In love with pleasure to the point of cruelty,

Look! I’m dragging along too! But, more dazed than them,

I say: What do they seek from the Heavens, all these blind people?