By morning, the restaurant empties.
The fairies rustle with their gauzy wings.
The organ howls. Dishes ring in
Servants’ hands

Amid the private booths. Like a shade,
I wander in a flowing smoky web.
The golden day
Will strike these windows soon.

Stretch its fingers through the smoke and soot,
Gleam like a diamond in the mirror…
A gaslight in the window there
Stands guard, a watchman with its flaming eye.

Over the city, from the earth,
Burnt fumes rise up and shroud the streets.
From far away, above my head, from far away
I hear the shreds of arias unanswered.

And so I lived, and died in anguish
Without discovering the cries.
Reflections on the ceiling there
Will stretch, a wreath

Of airy lace. And for a moment, everything
Will light up yellow in a flash,
It is my double in the mirror there
An excised silhouette—

Approaching me, he nods his head,
In endless torment, wrings
Within the mirror’s clear depths
His outstretched hands.