The ramshackle boy who has nothing to do
Than to scratch your fingers and lean on my shoulder:
“In my country it will be rainy,
Wind, bright sun, and rain;
It’s called beggar laundry day.”
(Talkative, drooling, round-rumped,
Please, at least don’t drool in the soup).
“The drenched willows, and buds on the brambles—
It is there, in a downpour, that we take shelter.
I was seventans, she was smaller.
She was all wet, I gave her primaveras.”
The stains on his waistcoat amount to thirty-eight.
“I tickled her, to make her laugh.
I felt a moment of power and delirium.
But then, old lecher, at this age…
“Sir, the fact is hard.
He came to pet us, a big dog;
I was scared, I left her halfway.
That’s a shame.”
But then, you have your vulture!
Go away and pick up the wrinkles on your face;
Here, my fork, clear your head.
What right do you have to pay for experiences like me?
Here, here’s ten sous for the bathroom.
Phlébas, the Phoenician, drowned for fifteen days,
Forgot the cries of seagulls and the Cornish swell,
And profits and losses, and tin cargo:
An undersea current took him very far,
Going back to the stages of his previous life.
Imagine, it was a painful fate;
However, he was once a handsome, tall man.