VIEJO
SMOKING.

Look how the little room is emptying out; its only luxury is the bed frame, swaggering without a mattress. And look how this poor fellow has lost his looks, bitter, poor and skinny as a policeman's dog. Little by little, everything has gone headfirst to the pawnshop; the gamble became a plunge, and I had to swim to stay afloat... Only you are being spared, because to me you are a dream from which, God willing, no one will ever wake me.

Old tuxedo from the days when I too was somebody... How many lovely women wept on your lapels! Lapels whose sheen seemed to dazzle, and wherever I went established my reputation as a gigolo. I feel no sadness at knowing I am beaten, and the memory of my former splendor does not embitter me; I do not regret the money or the years I threw away, but I cry to see myself alone, without friends, without love;

without a hand to come and help me through a hard spell, without a woman to brighten the rest of my life... You'll see: one of these days I'll use you as a pillow and, sprawled on the bed frame, let myself die! Old tuxedo, how many times the finest woman at the milonga stained your gleaming lapel with face powder and rouge; and in my tough-guy swagger, how many tears soaked you! How many toughs envied my reputation as a gigolo!