Léo Ferré - Paul Verlaine - Lodger girls

Original Title: "Pensionnaires"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

One was fifteen years old, the other was sixteen
Both were asleep in the same bedroom.
It was a very heavy evening of September
Frail, with blue eyes, some redness of a strawberry

Each left, to make themselves comfortable,
The thin shirt of a fresh perfume of amber
The youngest stretches her arms and arches her back
And her sister, her hands on her breasts, kisses her,

Then fall on her knees, then becomes wild
And tumultuous and crazy, and her mouth
Plunges under the blond gold, in the grey shadows;

And the child, in the meanwhile, makes a list
On her cute fingers some promised waltzes,
And, pink, smiles with innocence.

All poems by Verlaine.