Tales and plots of intrigues mean nothing to us...
We know it all no matter what you suggest we read.
I, for example, consider the best book in the world
To be our Criminal Code.

And whenever I have a sleepless night.
Or suffer from a heavy hangover.
I open the Criminal Code at random
And just can’t tear myself away...

I never gave my friends advice
But I know that robbery could be charged against them...
I have just finished reading about it.
Not less than three not more than ten.

As you become immersed in these simple lines,
Novels of all times and lands lose their meaning.
It is full of barracks, long as sentences...
Scandals and fights, cards and cheating...

If I were not to see these lines for a hundred years.
I should still spot someone’s fate in each one of them
And I feel happy when a paragraph
May bring some luck, although not much, to someone.

And my heart throbs like a wounded bird
When I start reading up on my own case.
And my blood and temples feel as if they are being crushed,
Just as if the cops came to take me away.