Mlle

"Ces quelques pas du palier a la chambre d'Albertine, ces

quelques pas que person ne ne pouvait plus arreter, je les fis

avec

delices, avec prudence, comme plonge dans un element

nouveau, comme si en avancant j'avais lentement deplace

du bonheur, et en meme temps avec un sentiment inconnu de

toute-puissance, et d'entrer enfin dans un heritage qui

m'eut de tout temps appartenu."*

A winter's night

the Northern Quay

the Isle of Dogs

the rabid one is me

you sip your drink

undismayed

and I just said

"These days my heart seems to be a kind of hand

grenade"

Nothing in the air tugs at the tower blocks

as you raise your finger and pull the pin

nothing much on earth moves down these desolating docks

do you really think you just scratched your chin?

But you were never Albertine

and I was never poor Marcel

who were you that time round,

Mademoiselle?

Monsieur a peur du parfum des princesses

And now I act up

and you've a winning frown

I've contracted love

as I'm devoured down

blame my deadening intensity

and tell me how you got the part in this

my own illicit agony

I lay it on pretty thick

you spread yourself pretty thin

ducking and dividing under every skin

and my final words as you get up and leave

"If you're free as air, I don't want to breathe"

Good evening,

I am the madman in love with your daughter

we need to talk

just you and me

I saw her last in Eden

or some other Far Eastern quarter

where the river snakes its way out to sea

But you were never Albertine

and I was never poor Marcel

who were you that time round,

Mademoiselle?

* Marcel Proust - A L'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs

Those few steps from the landing to Albertine's door,

those few steps which no one now could prevent my

taking, I took with delight, with prudence, as though

plunged into a new and strange element, as if in going

forward I had been gently displacing the liquid stream

of happiness, and at the same time with a strange feeling

of absolute power, and of entering at length into an

inheritance which had belonged to me from all time.