I should like, Fortunatus, to live in a city where a riv-
er would jut out from under a bridge like a hand from a sleeve,
and would flow toward the gulf, spreading its fingers
like Chopin, who never shook a fist at anyone as long as he lived.
There would be an Opera House, in which a slightly overripe
tenor would duly descant Mario’s arias, keep-
ing the Tyrant amused. He’d applaud from his loge, but
I from the back rows would hiss through clenched teeth, “You creep.”
That city would not lack a yacht club, would not lack
a soccer club. Noting the absence of smoke from the brick
factory chimneys, I’d know it was Sunday,
and would lurch in a bus across town, clutching a couple of bucks.
I’d twine my voice into the common animal hoot-
ing on that field where what the head begins is finished by the foot.
Of the myriad laws laid down by Hammurabi
the most important deal with corner kicks, and penalty kicks to boot.
I’d want a Library there, and in its empty halls I’d browse
through books containing precisely the same number of commas as
the dirty words in daily gutter language—
words which haven’t yet broken into literary prose. Much less into verse.
There’d be a large Railroad Station in that city—its façade,
damaged in war, would be much more impressive than the outside
world. Spotting a palm tree in an airline window,
the ape that dozes within me would open its two eyes wide.
And when winter, Fortunatus, threw its coarse shroud over the square,
I would wander, yawning, through the Gallery, where
every canvas, especially those of David and Ingres,
would seem as familiar as any birthmarks are.
From my window, at dusk, I would watch the horde
of bleating automobiles as they flash back and forth
past shapely nude columns in Doric hairdos,
standing pale and unrebellious on the steps of the City Court.
There would be a café in that city with a quite
decent blancmange, where, if I should ask why
we need the twentieth century when we already
have the nineteenth, my colleague would stare fixedly at his fork or his knife.
Surely there is a street in that city with twin rows of trees,
an entranceway flanked by a nymph’s torso, and other things equally recherchés:
and a portrait would hang in the drawing room, giving you an
idea
of how the mistress of the house looked in her salad days.
I would hear an unruffled voice calmly treat
of things not related to dinner by candlelight;
the flickering flames on the hearth, Fortunatus,
would splash crimson stains on a green dress. But finally the fire would go out.
Time, which—unlike water—flows horizontally, threading its way
from Friday to Saturday, say,
would, in the dark of that city, smooth out every wrinkle
and then, in the end, wash its own tracks away.
And there ought to be monuments there. Not only the bronze riders I would know by name—
men who have thrust their feet into History’s stirrups to tame
History—I would know the names of the stallions also,
considering the stamp which the latter came
to brand the inhabitants with. A cigarette glued
to my lip, walking home well past midnight, I would conjecture aloud—
like some gypsy parsing an open palm, between hiccups,
reading the cracks in the asphalt—what fate the lifeline of the city showed.
And when they would finally arrest me for espionage,
for subversive activity, vagrancy, for ménage
à trois, and the crowd, boiling around me, would bellow,
poking me with their work-roughened forefingers, “Outsider! We’ll settle your hash!”—
then I would secretly smile, and say to myself, “See,
this is your chance to find out, in Act Three,
how it looks from the inside—you’ve stared long enough at the outside—
so take note of every detail as you shout, ‘Vive la Patrie!’”
1977
Translated by George L. Kline