Novel (Rimbaud)

I

You can't be serious at seventeen.
One pretty night, to hell with beer and limeade,
The bustling cafés' by the bursting glitz!
You'll walk the promenade under linden trees.

The lindens smell fine on these fine June nights!
The air is so perfectly gentle that you close your eyes;
The wind, sagging with noise (the city's not far),
Contains vineyard perfumes and sentiments of beer.

II

Just then you see an entirely tiny rag
Of somber blue, framed by a little branch,
Irked by an evil star, which merges
With gentle currents, small, completely white.

A June night! Seventeen! You're a little giddy,
There's a champagne sap clambering into your brain...
And rambling; on your lips you feel a kiss
That quivers there like a bug...

III

An insane heart Crusoes across novels
– Until, in the clarity of pale reverberations,
A damsel passes with her petite, charming airs,
Beneath the terrifying shadow of her father's false collar...

And, since she thinks you're tremendously naive,
She keeps her bootlets at a gallop all the while,
But twists herself around, alert, a sudden move...
– And cavatinas die upon your lips...

IV

You're in love. Leased out 'til August.
You're in love. – Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends all leave, you're in bad taste.
– Then the beloved, one night, has deigned to correspond...!

– This night...you return to the exploding cafés,
You demand your beers and your limeades...
– You can't be serious at seventeen
When there are green lindens by the promenade.