Poetry. Translated from the French by Gian Lombardo. This book includes the first half of Bertrand's Gaspard of the Night: Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot (published in 1842), which is considered to be the first Western example of the modern prose poem. His work has been important for many French writers, from Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Mallarmé to the Surrealists and writers of the present day. Constructed almost like a hall of mirrors, Bertrand used the character of Gaspard to render these vignettes. Written in the early 19th century, but mimicking life two, three and even four centuries before, the modern reader is presented with what a mirror does best: presenting both "sides" of an image--ugliness and beauty.