midnight blue (bleu nuit), pink and pale pink shot through with a green the color of field grass, and white. And after the mottled prints and navy blue had disappeared last year, here they are now returning in abundance.
As for the length of the dress or the tailleur, it remains as before, unchanged. And embroidery still holds its distinguished place in the spring fashions, used on the sleeves, the bosom, or the back, as desired.
To Sheikh Said Takieddine
A gypsy girl — the roads are drunk with her,
and the flute, the reed-pipe, and the buzuq.
Light of step, all aquiver,
like a moth burning in the light.
In her palm the tambourine rattles —
what is a necklace, a bracelet, an earring to that?
Oh, the magic of her as she sings, while her companion,
mad with love, chokes upon his sighs.
She sang, and the people swayed in rapture;
yet when you begged alms of them, they scattered —
all but a youth who flaunted his fortune:
he beckoned, and in his hand flashed the "banknote."
He went on overpraising her artistry,
guile in his eyes, and lust.
He called and beckoned, past all hope,
then reeled back shouting: Woe to them — they have stolen!
They took my clothes and spat upon my honor —
"gypsies" — for nothing but sin were they made!
The companions came running in a clamor,
their breasts seething with rage,
and brought her to the policeman, to search out what
the rags had hidden behind her shoulder —
and behold: a child, dying of hunger,
not a breath of life left between his ribs.
