Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life"

Nick: This is the face of a man who will not be sent to India. After all, what profitable whoring can be had among its indigent monks and farmers? No, a man must whore properly in Paris, where he can contract syphilis, become paralyzed and mute, die, and finally be buried between the mother he resented and the stepfather he despised. I've stood at his grave, and wept, and raged against the impotence of its occupant, and cursed his genius. I also walked fifteen miles through the city's dirty, winding streets--alleys and avenues and boulevards filled with the vapid, dishonest crowds he adored--before arriving at the intransigent wreck of his body. I walked there, as a pilgrim should.