NICE-BABEL

...March... The sun curls, in broad and harsh waves, over the languid Baie des Anges, like a studio "Sunlight" which brutally cuts out the eternal, well-washed decor of a Côte d'Azur. Cinematic azure...

On the rejuvenated asphalt, the facades whose pink mask has been highlighted are reflected: Nice, this winter, is the true setting for cosmopolitan honeymoons.

Each light bulb, in light bronze, projects in strange lines the shadow of the electric filaments, which cuts the stripes of the sidewalks... And, on these unusual chessboards, slow couples seem to be playing some strange game of chess. ..

In the wide estuary which, from Place Masséna extends towards "Raûba-Capeou" to the east, and Magnan to the west, the confusion of races proves to us that it is here, in spring, the worldly customs of universal exchanges... Between the Casino de la Jetée-Promenade, a masterpiece of electroplating in pale pink and gold metal, and the creamy palaces that grow up to their shoulders over two hundred meters, there is still room, this weekend afternoon, for the jazz band, modern malaria of dance halls clear and glazed like aquariums... Tangos, blues, Bostons, stagnant or frenetic, souls of the savannahs, agitate, despite the mist on the sea , suddenly rejuvenated women and gigolos

Open berries: the parasol mushrooms, red and soft... yellow (ollé, Raquel!...) which grow on the terraces, are spherical screens between the vertical rays of the sun and the cheeks of the short-haired customers.

At "La Potinière", a diplomat's daughter drinks her Wisky-and-Soda in front of a tennis champion who looks at her as a likely partner... "You... play me..." she thinks he, and she hums: "Go..." to the tune of "Je m'donne... m'donne..." while thinking of Kayes, the place of his birth, where love was less tedious. ..

The columnist of a Parisian weekly turns, resignedly, the porto-flip of a Star who casts his myopic gaze on the squads of hygienic torches. An Egyptian pseudo-viscount, in a crudely striped blazer, dives in front of Sessue Hayakawa, who has escaped from the neighboring studio where he is filming some tragic film. The Japanese, with a hand accustomed to kimonos, lifts his tortoiseshell glasses and observes, ironically, this cotton planter, as one does for someone encountered on an uncertain point on the globe. Then he calls his wife by an exquisite nickname: Kitayouki (clear morning smile), and sinks into a sedan...

...The twilight then lengthens the shadow of the tall pines on Mont-Boron, where each veranda catches the light in a warm steam bathed in clear anisette...

All of a sudden, behind the stylized palm trees of the public garden, there is the hubbub of a fair. Saturday evening... On the Promenade des Anglais, the luminous and spasmodic banisters of the Grill-rooms burst forth, these international greenhouses where roses from France, British orchids, tulips from Holland, Swiss edelweiss, and Spanish mimosas come together. ...

"...Brother, put on your tuxedo...We have to go to a dance hall."
All suppers put this bitter refrain into practice! Above the pleated breastplates: vermilion masks of Americans and English, so childish that we always want to offer them a nurse... Cachou faces and lacquered hair of Brahmin princes. The room?... A conference in Lausanne where women would sit. On the tablecloths shine the prisms of heavy rings. Beads, too many beads, which add to the electric garlands, and accentuate the fatigue of our eyes...

...Tunics with golden chains, in which throats of multiple tones are ready to burst. Each breast, which rolls and sways, puts a flash of ivory in the harsh light of the bulbs. While the saxophone and the small high flute dialogue in minor, balls of hydrophilic and colored cotton, thrown on the ceilings, burst and fall into a cold broth.

The beauties of the night and the men of the day remember that, at fifteen years old, they rolled breadcrumbs and papier-mâché between their fingers...

RENÉ JAUBERT.