It was last spring,
Nearly a year now,
In the salon of the old Temple, in London,
With its old furniture. The windows looked out,
Past old buildings, in the distance,
Between the lawns, on a grey zigzag of river.
Everything was grey and looked tired
Like the dull sheen of a sick pearl.
There were elderly gentlemen, old ladies
With dusty feathers in their hats;
A murmur of voices coming from the corners
Near tables with yellow tulips,
Family portraits and empty teapots.
The shadows falling
With a cat-like smell
Were stirring up sounds in kitchens.
A very quiet man was seated
Near me. I could see
The shadow of his long profile at times
Looking up absently from the rim of his cup,
With the same weariness
Of a corpse coming back
From someone’s lips,
Over in a corner
Where clusters of old folks were talking,
Heavy as a falling teardrop,
Came one word: Spain.
An unspeakable fatigue
Circled my skull.
The lights came on. We left.
After descending long, dim flights of stairs
I found myself in the street,
And next to me, when I turned,
I saw that quiet man again,
Who said something I didn’t quite get
In a foreign accent,
A child’s accent in a voice grown old.
He followed me, walking
As if all alone beneath an invisible weight,
Hauling his own gravestone;
But then he stopped.
“Spain?” he said. “A name.
Spain is dead.” The little street
Suddenly turned a corner.
I watched him vanish into the damp shadows.
Translated from Spanish by Stephen Kessler