41 
It so happened that a little piece of Dadaism thought it 
could perfectly well invest itself with Sex Quality and fill a 
respectable role within the vulva of the mob. The success of 
Surrealism is the wedding apparel of this bird of paradise. 
They don’t agree any more about Surrealism than they used 
to about Dadaism. The same thick swamp subsists. Who is 
surrealist, who is not? They know it only at the Central Office— 
where everybody is it. Like Dadaism in its time, there remains 
the same duplicity among individuals, the same mystification 
which is inseparable from all deep outbursts, being after all as 
respectable as the latter. A certain appearance of steely vio 
lence, but only an appearance, the call to revolt and the gears 
of social revolts complete the analogy. 
But is it an analogy? Is it not merely Dadaism going on? 
The lacteous appetites of youth, the sufferings of the platter 
as we face life ahead of us have replaced however the frenzy of 
yesteryear’s embers. One does not repeat such an adventure. 
Our rebels of to-day are just suffering from growing pains. 
Catholicism in bloom seems to be dipping its wick pretty well 
in its candle-wax. 
The equivocal depth of this movement streaming with a new 
freshness, with the jewels of a poetry paraded somewhat “a la 
Jeanne d’Arc” is not without some fragrance of the dark, for 
merly assumed by Dadaism. Its leader will not cling, when the 
day comes he will remove the palm of his hand and with a 
beautiful crash the dust will change appearance. 
In spite of ourselves who, may be, had given too much scope 
to our tameness, this example makes us shake our feathers. The 
universe has not yet lost under our teeth its taste of hardness. 
With too much confidence, we were keeping our eyes closed, 
lying on a bed of pumice stones which was without much trouble 
transformed into a comfortable sofa. Eyelids of hot steel and 
shark lips, lets stop dreaming and go hunting? We care too 
much for public opinion, and we blush for looking unfashion 
able to the snobbish eye, so happy are we that the turn of fashion 
is for an easy nonchalance. 
The strong hands which lead Surrealism will, no doubt, with 
draw, some day, followed by loud laughter. But there may be 
then so many clouds of whipped cream that the whole world will 
have again put on its white cloak of the centuries of comfort, 
in the insipid asphyxy of prudish suns and moons in corsets? 
It matters little, after all. It is a question of our pleasure, 
which claims to refresh itself in Violence. 
G. RIBEMONT DE88AIGNE8