Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
Intimate Journals
Flares and My Heart Laid Bare · French with an independent English translation.
Explore the LexiconSwipe or use the arrow keys.
Facing Pages · Branch 79 of 118
My Heart Laid Bare · LXXVIII
French
p. 157Pourquoi le spectacle de la mer est-il si infiniment et si éternellement agréable ?
Parce que la mer offre à la fois l’idée de l’immensité et du mouvement. Six ou sept lieues représentent pour l’homme le rayon de l’infini. Voilà un infini diminutif. Qu’importe, s’il suffit à suggérer l’idée de l’infini total ? Douze ou quatorze lieues de liquide en mouvement suffisent pour donner la plus haute idée de beauté qui soit offerte à l’homme sur son habitacle transitoire.
Intimate Journals: My Heart Laid Bare
p. 158Why is the sight of the sea so infinitely and so eternally pleasing?
Because the sea offers the idea of immensity and movement at once. Six or seven leagues represent for man the radius of infinity. Here is a diminutive infinity. What does it matter, if it is enough to suggest the idea of infinity as a whole? Twelve or fourteen leagues of liquid in motion are enough to give the highest idea of beauty offered to man in his transient dwelling.
Socrates
Reading Intimate Journals · My Heart Laid Bare · My Heart Laid Bare · LXXVIII
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Charles Baudelaire’s private fragments turn from art, love, and crowds to prayer, anger, work, and the discipline of writing. This complete bilingual edition presents all 117 sections of Flares and My Heart Laid Bare, including Hygiène, with an introduction and 104 explanatory notes.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows Adolphe van Bever’s 1920 edition of Journaux intimes, printed pages 3–42 and 45–112. Its 117 Roman-numbered sections contain the complete Fusées and Mon cœur mis à nu, including Hygiène. These fragments were arranged after Baudelaire’s death; their printed sequence preserves that edition’s organization of loose sheets. The separate selection of maxims on love and the editor’s backmatter are outside this volume.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French. Flares and My Heart Laid Bare retain the fragments’ abrupt turns, repetitions, images, and unfinished projects. French and English paragraphs remain paired, with verse, italics, and printed annotations preserved. The introduction places the notebooks in context; translator’s notes clarify references, ambiguities, and uncertain readings. All 104 notes meet the reader’s Essential criterion and remain available beside their passages.
Rights
Baudelaire’s historical French text and the 1920 printing are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation, introduction, and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimile and catalogue identify the printed source, while a historical transcription supplies a comparison witness. Original annotations retain their attribution, and source references distinguish the printed arrangement from the surviving manuscript sheets.