Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent ? [English translation]

Everything is a question of decor.

Changing beds, changing bodies,

What's the point, since once again, it's

Me who betrays myself,

Me drags and scatters myself

And my shadow undresses itself

In the girlish arms

Where I believed I'd find a country.

A light heart becomes a heavy heart.

The time for dreaming is very short.

What am I supposed to do with my days?

What am I supposed to do with my nights?

I didn't have love, and no place

Where I live or die remains.

I passed like a rumour,

I slept like the noise.

It was an unreasonable time,

We put the dead at the table

We made sandcastles

We took wolves for dogs.

Everything changed, from center to shoulder

The play, whether it was funny or not.

Me, if I managed to badly hold on to my role

It was from not understanding anything.

Is this how men live?

And their kisses which follow them from afar?

In the Hohenzollern district,

Between the Saar and the barracks,

Like the flowers of the alfalfa

Flowered Lola's breasts.

She had the heart of a swallow.

On the brothel-couch,

I had just lain down beside her

Among the hiccups of the piano.

The sky was grey with clouds

There were wild geese flying in it

Who cried of death, in passing

Above the houses of the docks.

I saw them through the window.

Their sad song entered into my being,

And I thought I recognised in it

Rainer Maria Rilker.

Is this how men live?

And their kisses, which follow them from afar?

She was dark, she was pale,

Her hair fell to her hips.

And during the week, and on Sunday,

She opened her naked arms to everyone.

She had eyes like furnaces.

She worked valiantly

For a worker from Mayence

Who never came back to her.

There are other soldiers in the city,

And at night, the civilians come up.

Reapply mascara to your eyelashes,

Lola, who will be with you soon.

Another glass of liquor.

It was in April, at five o' clock,

At dawn, when into your soft heart

A dragon plunged his knife.

Is this how men live?

And their kisses, which follow them from afar?

• Artist:Yves Montand