XXVII

I think there was an hour in which God laughed at me,

For as I passed along the street,

Saw that all the women — although their bodies were dexterously concealed —

Were thinking with all their might what men were like:

And the men, mechanically correct, cigars at lips,

Were wanting to rush at the women,

But were restrained by respectability or timidity,

Or fear of the consequences or vanity or some puerile dream

Of a pale ideal lost in the vast grey sky.

So I said to myself, it is time to end all this:

I will take the first woman that comes along.

And then God laughed at me — and I too smiled

To see that He was in such good humour and that the sun was shining.