My wise heart, flee the odour of turpentine,
Behold the morning curls like a jet of water.
The air is a golden screen painted with wings;
Why do you leave for Nice or for Yedo?What need have you for glittering Asia
Of blue glass mountains as drawn by Hokusai
When you feel with such strength the beautiful frenzy
Of a sudden downpour gilding the roofs of Vésinet!Oh, to depart to Pecq, whose name seems so strange,
See Mont Valérien before you die
When the solicitous sunset prepares and unravels
Between the Big Wheel and the Artesian Well.1
Isn't that quite pwetty dear Tininuls but I think it would be better say: Oh, to depart to Puteaux2 whose name disconcerts!
Written in a letter to Reynaldo Hahn, c. 1908.
1. In Paris before the First World War there was a big wheel on the Champ-de-Mars. The artesian well at Passy was on the corner of the Avenue Henri-Martin and Lamartine Square.
2. Puteaux West of Paris, pun on pute or putain meaning a whore.