Lulu points out that the image of the sleepwalker at the precipice first appears in Baudelaire's “Les Litanies de Satan” (which can be found, of course, at Fleursdumal.org).

Fred MacMurray was a brilliant Cesare.

The poet addresses Satan as a merciful angel:

Toi dont la large main cache les précipices
Au somnambule errant au bord des édifices

That is an arresting idea. I used to think how it's fairly easy to walk on a narrow board suspended six feet off the ground or so, but if it were at a great height, you'd be seized by terror and fall off. So the trick, as usual, is not to mind.

I think Baudelaire might have been talking about someone who had been hypnotized, however, which was a big subject around that time. From here there is some sort of connection to Cesare, the sleepwalker confined to a trunk in “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”. And then you have your various Golems, of course.

Labels: Baudelaire's Interests