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When on the boulevard I go to stroll a bit,
How many times I hear, without dying of grief,
Two decorated gentlemen, who seem quite capable,
Chatting, exchanging amiable smiles.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
What, it’s you?
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
By what chance?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
And your health?
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Not bad, and you?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Thank you, very well.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
What superb weather!
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
If it can continue, we’ll have a summer
Magnificent!
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
That’s true.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Tomorrow I’m off to the country!
To my property.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
It’s the moment, everything is leaving.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Yes. – At home the lilacs are a bit late;
The air is dry and the nights are very cool.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Here comes the red moon. Will you have good peaches?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Yes – not bad.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
What’s new, besides?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Nothing.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Madame
Is well?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
A bit flu-ridden.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Oh! with the times as they are,
Everyone is sick. – Have you seen the drama
By What’s-his-name?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Me? – No indeed – What do they say of it?
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Almost a flop.
It’s not sufficiently polished in the current style.
It’s not Sardou. Very strong, Sardou!
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Very strong!
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
What’s-his-name applies himself too much. It’s good in a volume,
One notices the work and effort less;
But in the theater one must write as one talks.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
I’m going back to Feuillet. There’s some prose for you!
As for all the makers of books today
I do without them. – I’m no longer at the age when one can read
Much; and my newspaper suffices for my boredom.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
The newspaper… and… the fair sex!…
– They have that little laugh
By which one admits a vice as one should. –
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
And the table?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Oh! that no. – I don’t have that fault.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
And you still occupy yourself with politics?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
A great deal, that’s even my consolation!
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Oh! to devote one’s life to the public Thing,
Certainly, that is a great and noble ambition.
We now have a proud phalanx
Of orators in the Chamber.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
They are very strong, very strong.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
But what a misfortune that Thiers and Changarnier are dead!
By the way, do you read that Zola?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
What filth!!!
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
And then people come to complain that everything is expensive,
And that people cheat, and deceive, and steal, and plunder!
They undermine morality, they destroy the family.
Where are we heading?
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Alas!… Come, adieu my dear,
Time presses me.
SECOND DECORATED GENTLEMAN
Adieu. Compliments to madame.
FIRST DECORATED GENTLEMAN
I won’t fail. My respects, if you please,
To your young lady.
– And each went on his way.-
And learned priests say they have a soul!
And that if there is a sign by which one surely sees
That a God made man be born above the beast,
It is that he put august thought in his head,
And that this noble spirit progresses incessantly!
But it has been so long that this old world has existed,
And human folly obstinately persists!
If between man and calf my heart hesitated,
My reason would well know the choice that must be made!
For I do not understand, O pedants, that one prefers
The stupidity that speaks to that which keeps silent!
Guy de Maupassant
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-street-talk-guy-de-maupassant/