Au lecteur [English translation]

Stupidity, misguided ways, sin and stinginess

dwell in our minds and stir our bodies,

and we sustain our pleasant remorses

as beggars feed their vermin.

Our sins are stubborn, our repentance cowardly.

We sell our confessions for a fat price

and happily go back to tread the muddy path

thinking our measly tears will cleanse all our stains.

The great1 Satan himself lulls ceaselessly

our bewitched mind on the pillow of evil,

and the rich metal of our will

is soon vaporized by this adept chemist.

The devil himself holds the string that move us!

We find some appeal to disgusting objects

and walk down unafraid through stinking darkness

one step closer to hell with every passing day.

Just like a wretched debaucher gnawing at

the tortured breast of a decrepit whore,

we pilfer on the sly a clandestine pleasure

that we squeeze out firmly

like an old orange.

Packed, crawling like a million helminths,

a crowd of demons feasts in our brains,

and as we draw breath, Death flows with stiffled moans

down our lungs as on an invisible river .

If rape, poison, dagger, arson

haven't yet sewn their pleasant patterns

on the trite canvas of our pitiful fates,

it's because our soul, alas, is not bold enough.

Yet among jackals, panthers, bitches,

apes, scorpions, vultures, snakes,

shrieking, yelling, growling, crawling monsters

of the odious menagerie of our vice,

one stands out as the most ugly, mean and abject!

Though it would make no great fuss,

it would gladly turn the Earth into rubble

and swallow the world in a yawn.

It's boredom! Its eye brimming with unwitting tears,

it dreams of gallows while smoking its hooka.

You know this delicate monster well, O indiscrete reader,

O canting reader, my fellow, my brother!

1. a name of the devil based on Hermes Trismegistus

• Artist:Mylène Farmer
• Album:Désobéissance (2018)