Wednesday, April 1, 2009

L'esprit du jour


The Man Who Pretends to Be Deaf, by Nguyen Khuyen (Vietnam, 1835-1901)

A man I know pretends to be deaf.
He throws such crazy looks that you’d think he cannot speak.
Who knows he is deaf only during working hours?
That kind of deafness, I would love to learn.
In a crowd his face is wooden, but at night he comes to life.

He roams in his garden, smoking a pipe, chewing betel, drinking tea and quoting classic poetry.
He is all ears one moment, and deaf the next.
Who wouldn’t like to be that kid of deaf?
But it’s not easy to be deaf that way:
Ask him how, and he will just say, “Eh?”

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