So I tried something else, which also engulfs the infinite into a certain metrics. I tried to run a marathon. It is as long as is wide the "infinitely and eternally pleasant sea" of Baudelaire's journal. Exactly as long, 42.2 km, which is in between 12 and 14 leagues. There is a metrics, with signposts every kilometer, and refueling stands every four or five kilometers. But is the metrics solid enough? Would it remain a "pleasant sea," or would it turn into an abyss? Would the numbers go wrong when I reached the famous wall of the thirtieth kilometer, and each minute would stretch longer, or each of my steps get smaller, like those of Achilles that never reach the tortoise? Or, to use what we could call the law of Baudelaire's strange arithmetics, would two and two – two kilometers and two kilometers – make only three kilometers? And how long would my marathon then be? Could I carry this vast mathematical operation?

In a word, would my marathon be more like hashish or poetry?