The old man apparently wanted to renew one single cell,

he has no desire, no obsession for the child-like woman.

The young man puts up with the night: If only it would end!

The woman is a rough sea wrongly risen between

the two of them: She doesn’t want what is given to her,

she doesn’t have the strength to pluck what she reached for.

Her tongue and her hands are wandering awkwardly,

her dispersed voice, rising off and on, searches for impossible

                                                                  octaves,

the next table is apprehensive of a storm soon to break,

they look at the waiter, and then

at the proprietor waiting behind: the patient warden.

Whereas, the throbbing rowdy vein in each of them

passes from one hour to the next defeated,

the make-up runs into a massive static silence,

from all the faces slide clowns into empty armchairs

each one of them watching everything blankly.

Sponge, the night—in this broken triangle

constructed by an inverse movement of the hand

a much belated “if only!” meets: with its naïve plot

adapted from Marguerite Duras.