(first published July 2nd, 1864)

Poor pale kid, why shout your pointed and insolent song at the top of your lungs in the streets, until it gets lost among the cats, lords of the roofs?  Because that song won’t pass through the shutters on the first floor, behind which you are unaware of heavy silk curtains, incarnadine.

Inevitably you sing with the assurance of a tenacious little man who goes his own way in life and counts on nobody, working for himself.  Have you ever been an era?  You don’t even have an old woman to beat you and make you forget your hunger when you return penniless.

But you work for yourself, prematurely underweight, dressed in discolored clothes made for a man and too big for your age, you sing to eat, doggedly, without lowering your wicked eyes to the other kids playing on the pavement.

And your lament is so high, as high as your bare head, which rises into the air as your voice rises, and seems to want to leave your small shoulders.

Little man, who knows if it will not go away one day, when after having shouted for a long time in cities, you will have committed a crime?  A crime is not very hard to commit, it goes, it is enough to have courage after desire, and like that – your little figure is energetic.

No penny falls into the wicker basket your long hand holds, hung without hope over your pants.  We will make you bad and one day you will commit a crime.

Your head always raises itself up and wants to leave you, as if it knew, in advance, while you sing with an air that becomes threatening.

It will say goodbye to you, when you will pay for me, for those who cost less than me.  You probably came into the world towards that and you go without food from now on.  We will see you in the papers.

Oh! Poor little head!