Little Poems in Prose

XXXI THE JOYS OF THE SOUL IN a fair garden, where the rays of the au- tumnal sun seemed to linger in enjoyment, be- neath a sky already greenish where golden clouds floated like travelling continents, four lovely children, boys, tired without a doubt of playing, were talking among themselves. One of them said: “Yesterday Papa took me to the theatre. There are big, sad palaces, beyond which one sees the sea and the sky, and in them there are men and women very serious and very sad too; but much more beautiful and better dressed than the people we see about, and they talk in a singing voice. They threaten each other, they beseech, they lament, they often put their hand to daggers that they have in their sashes; oh, but it is beautiful! The la- dies are much lovelier and taller than the ones that come to see us at home, and though they look terrible with their big hollow eyes and flaming cheeks, you cannot help loving them; you are afraid, you want to cry, and yet all the time you are happy. . . . And then, funnier