der blonde, and they danced between the tables.
As if in a dream, Lucy sang in a soft soprano voice:
“Only once we live down here:
Beauty, youth soon disappear;
Age runs riot with our face,
Of our youth leaves not a trace.”
She bent her head. Suddenly sadness flashed in her eyes, but only for a moment. She stroked her forehead with her open hand. She threw her head back, as if in defiance, and laughed: “Well, what else?”
Reader, do not judge from the characters and from the surroundings that the author of this poem is a worldly or licentious man, rebelling against the order of things, an immoral, worthless cynic, who wishes to hurl poesy from its pure azure heights into the mire of orgies. No, he is a common Philistine, a slave of his office, a citizen who pays his taxes and is peaceably inclined; who eats
