Long let me inhale, deeply, the odour of your hair, into it plunge the whole of my face, like a thirsty man into the water of a spring, and wave it in my fingers like a scented handkerchief, to shake memories into the air.

If you could only know all that I see! all that I feel! all that I hear in your hair! My soul floats upon perfumes as the souls of other men upon music.

Your hair contains an entire dream, full of sails and masts; it contains vast seas whose soft monsoons bear me to delightful climates where space is deeper and bluer, where the atmosphere is perfumed with fruit, with foliage and with human skin.

In the ocean of your hair I am shown brief visions of a port resounding with melancholy songs, of vigorous men of all nations and ships of all shapes outlining their fine and complicated architechtures against an immense sky where eternal heat languidly quivers.

In the caresses of your hair I recover the languor of long hours passed on a divan, in the cabin of a fine ship, rocked by the imperceptible surge of the port, between the flower-pots and the refreshing water-jugs.

In the glowing fire-grate of your hair I inhale the odour of tobacco mingled with opium and sugar; in the night of your hair I see the infinity of tropical azure resplendent; on the downed banks of your hair I inebriate myself with the mingled odours of tar, of musk and of coconut oil.

Long let me bite your heavy, black tresses. When I gnaw your elastic and rebellious hair, it seems to me that I am eating memories.