Pour le plancher, c’est un point
De Hongrie : chaque carré fait de quatre
Carrés dont les lattes semblent
Se poursuivre, et les murs sont plaqués
De cuir et d’acajou. D’ici on surveillait
L’usine, on servait les éclairs, on jouait
Beethoven en rabotant les ironies,
Et quand tout a fermé on a mis pour
Trente ans les gendarmes. Il ne vient
Plus personne, le Pleyel est foutu
Et le docteur ajoute qu’un bon coup
De chaleur c’est quatorze de ses vieux
En moins dans le bourg, à quinze cents
Francs chacun par an, on fait vite le calcul.
As for the parquet, it’s in a fishbone pattern:
Each square made of four other
Squares whose planks seem to pursue
Each other, and the walls are covered with
Mahogany and leather. From here, they watched
The factory, they were served éclairs, they played
Beethoven, planing down his ironies,
And when it was all closed up police were posted
Here for thirty years. No one comes any more,
The Pleyel is shot to hell
And the doctor adds that with one good heat
Wave, there’ll be fourteen less of his
Old geezers in town, at fifteen hundred
Francs apiece a year, you can add that up fast enough.