Athens, circa 1930...
"La vie est breve:
Un peu de reve,
Un peu d'amour
Et puis bonjour."
A woman from Armenia
sleeps behind half-fastened
shutters, all night long
they tap like muffled
heartbeats, hooves, a horse-
drawn hearse, stick of a blind
beggar striking cobbles.
Huddled into a web of words
she spins herself to keep warm,
she gropes in dreams for half-
remembered songs.
Listen, the voice
comes faint, but oh, the wind!
Will it never cease?
Why must the leaves
be exiled from the trees?
"La vie est vaine:
Un peu de peine,
Un peu d'espoir
Et puis bonsoir."
Madame Sarkissian will die
in Smolenski, New Phaleron;
the theatre of the heart
will miss a beat.
When sixty years have passed,
her card slips lightly from an old
nouvelle, bought by chance
from dealers' stands in Sinai Street.
"Ваши пальцы ... пахнут ладаном,
А в ресницах ... спит печаль.
Ничего ... теперь ... не надо нам,
Никого ... теперь ... не жаль..."
A talisman of vagrant dreams -
the inked inscription, "Mille Mercis".