I hurried back to Cadiz. The castle wasn't there.
They told me that a mist had come and arrows of rain
And then a gust of darkness. And every window-pane
And doorway of the castle had vanished in Cadiz . . .
And what can you do with property, when you don't know where it is?
AN INN
(From French of Charles Vildrac)
There's an inn,
At the cross-roads of Chétives-Maisons,
In the country that's always cold.
Two wide bare roads intersecting
Which have never seen harvests return
And which stretch to the very horizon
Make the cross-roads of Chétives-Maisons.
Three houses are there,
Squatting in a corner, all three,
And two of them no longer lived in.
And the third is this inn of the sad heart!
They give you black bread there and bitter cider,
The fire, wet with snow, weeps there, and the innkeeper
Is a forlorn woman with a wan smile.
It is only because you are thirsty that you enter to drink there,
It is because you feel yourself dropping that you go there to sit down,
You never find two or three others there
And you never have to tell your story there.
He who enters there with chattering teeth,
Seats himself quietly on the edge of the bench,
Holds his chin slightly forward
And places his hands flat on the table.
