*
Chapter I
Ombre musulmane, safran, frangipane, panne
In the horror of a deep night…a poor little ship was carrying Don Juan and his fortune. Row! row! little boat! a mouthful for the terrible muzzle of night! (it was during the horror of a deep night)…
The corsairs! the corsairs! red sail on the horizon! A sail, what am I saying? a fire of Bengal! But Werther-Don Juan, elbows on railing, was consumed by the poetry of the mariner’s singing: he stiffens up shivering in his Napoleonic cloak. Ah! so cold it is, gentlemen of the barcarolle!
……………………………………..Give me the pearl necklace of sheen
………………………………………………………………dear Josephine!
he said at last to the young mammamoucha whom he had just captured from the paternal hearth. And the aristocratic hand of the titled scoundrel twisted the wrist of the arabesque.
……………………………………..Thus this was the gentle voyage
……………………………………………..of the privateers’ passage!
Green dwarves before the fire of Bengal! You, hideous gnomes, pirates in dark fezzes! dwarves in golden yatagans, phantoms from the shadows! you on the waters who laugh at the storm! …. It was more that they were proud to act as a spectacle to the splenetic Spanish gentleman than desirous of taking the mammamoucha from him. Like rings, their bantering eyes pierced the shadows but Juan did not have a chill, he had his feet on the box full of Hindu jewels which was used as warmth.
Dirty water! Bitumen and jam! the breast of the moaning girl was fluttering under emerald silk that was perhaps nothing other than cloth.
……………………………………..“I’m cold, mister” she said.
…..This rowboat! the raft of the Medusa minus the corpses!
…..And Juan revisited the past:
…………..his mother in mourning, linen of damask
………………………………………………………………amassed
…………..the neighbor with brown hairs on her lip
……………………………………..black eyes
……………………………………..meat pies
……………………………………..daggers
……………………………………..crackers
…..Corsairs! galleys!…corsets…Rrrr!
…………..Future! what sees don Juan in the black of night?
……………………………………..shoulders outside shirts?
……………………………………..no! his ambition comes into sight:
……………………………………..a hussard’s uniform.
*
Chapter II
mayar, coaltar, caviar
Dawn, alas! it was the day after nuptials: Mister don Juan was of a dreadful pallor. The Irish sailors bared their teeth ferociously, demanding the ship to land, uttering loud cries. But the mamamoucha said to Juan “Darling!” and don Juan drew a whistle from his pocket saying: “I’ll break all your heads
……………………………………..with this.”
(landing on an inhospitable coast. The mammamoucha complains in her language).
1.
When you took me from parents’
I was an honest girl
you even promised a slice
if I was nice
but you began to take
my bracelets
my jewelry my jewelry box
and after you never wanted
to run amok
nor….
2.
After you brought me by boat
without dinner and without life
I’d have preferred a chateau
like you see in books
I would have it up to here
with near a ton of chocolate
(the mammamoucha would say)
I’d rather have lunch
Or depart
Leave for my father’s house (bis)
…..Juan, the Anglo-Spaniard in whom Germanic blood and Moorish blood mixed, had her bound to a tree-trunk.
…..“I’m going to abandon this one again!” he said.
…..Suddenly an old man appeared.
…..“I am their father! Give me my children back!”
…..Juan suppressed a satanic laugh but he was a gentleman, we said to him
…..“At your orders, my commandant!”
Then music in the background played a tune from La traviata, one which made the shoulders shrug of our Napoleon of love.
……………………………CHOIR OF APPARITIONS IN PINK SHIRTS.
……………………………………..Flannel! Flannel trill!
……………………We are virgins still!
……………………We were mystified
……………………But we will be avenged.
……………………………………..Flannel! flannel!
……………………LE PÈRE
…..I am don José! luckily for the families
…..You’re not the right lover
…………………………..JUAN
…..You should find another.