Roman [English translation]

I

We are not serious when we are seventeen years old

- A fine evening, to hell with the ales and the limonades

Of the rowdy cafés with bright chandeliers

- We go under the green lime trees of the promenade

The lime trees smell good in the fine evenings of June!

The air is sometimes so sweet that we close our eyelids;

The wind loaded with noises - the city is not far -

Has some scent of vines and smells of beer

II

Here we catch a very small piece of rag

of dark sky, framed by a very small branch

Stung of a bad star, which merges

with sweet shivers, small and all white...

Night of June! Seventeen years old! We let ourselves get intoxicated

The sap is like champaign and goes to the head

We ramble, we feel a kiss to the lips

Beating there, like a small beast

III

The crazy heart robinsons through the novels

When in the pale light of a streetlamp

A damzel passes with charming airs

Under the shadow of the detachable collar of her father

And as she thinks you are immensely naive

While she trots about in her small ankle boots

She turns around, agile and with a lively gesture

On your lips then dies the cavatina

IV

You are in love. Praised until the month of August.

You are in love. Your sonnets makes her laugh

All your friends go away, you are of unpleasant taste

Then the adored one, one evening, deigned writing you!

That evening - You enter inside the loud cafés

You ask for ale or limonade

We are not serious when we are seventeen years old

And we have green lime trees on the promenade