I AM AT THE BAR—The Bird of Benin
He read and re-read this sentence while the Bird of Benin contemplated his picture, approaching it and withdrawing from it, his head at all angles. Finally he turned towards Croniamantal and said:
"I saw the woman for you last night."
"Who is she?" asked Croniamantal.
"I do not know, I saw her but I do not know her. She is a really young girl, as you like them. She has the sombre and child-like face of those who are destined to cause suffering. And despite all the grace of her hands that straighten in order to repel, she lacks that nobility which poets could not love because it would prevent their being miserable. I have seen the woman for you, I tell you. She is both beauty and ugliness; she is like everything that we love nowadays. And she must have the taste of the laurel leaf."
But Croniamantal, who was not listening to him, interrupted at this point to say:
"Yesterday I wrote my last poem in regular verses:
Well,
Hell![6]
and my last poem in irregular verses (take care that in the second stanza the word wench is taken in its less reputable meaning):