A small selection (Translated by Dr. Douglas B. Gregor)
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ONCE UPON A TIME
Once upon a time there was good flour. A loaf emerged
that one ate even a week later. And broth? Made with chicken
every so often, it had a taste no longer felt nowadays.
And those strong men all muscle who used to lift hundredweights
as if they were fleas
where have they gone? Once upon a time! Once... Once upon a time:
that is how fairy-tales begin. |
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INHERITANCE
If one looks at them one cannot help lowering one's eyes. It's all
very well for you to say
that we are all the same and that everyone eats and drinks feels
coldness and warmth, catches cold just like him. It's waste of time.
Because shyness shame fear have been felt in tha marrow of one's bones
for generations and generations. For hundreds of years he has always been,
cap in hand and eyes cast-down, saying "Yes sir". |
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THE FIRST WATCH
I bought it with a labourer's wages when I was not yet fourteen. My first
watch! Now that I am more than forty it is still going, imagine, and not losing
a minute. My father is wearing it. He, to have his first watch, has
had to wait for me to buy my second. |
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THE OLD MAN
What was that old man waiting for, who, every day would sit down on the log
in the shadow of the poplar by the cross-roads? He was there for hours at a time
with hands resting on his stick and eyes staring into the distance.
Every now and then someone would pass by on a bicycle or in a coach
and would call out to him: "How goes it, grandad?" "As for all poor old'uns.
I am just waiting here. Now that I am useless, all I can do is wait".
A wave with his hand, a twirl of his moustache, then another look around,
slowly, to store up in his eyes the sight of the pebbles in the road,
of tha water in tha ditch, of the fresh-turned
sods in the fields, of the leaves on the trees and the flight of birds
and of the blue of the sky, the sun-light.
The taste of life. |
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IT IS RAINING
A drizzle, a really fine one, rattles on the roof-tiles;
what a pleasure to hear it under the sheets. |
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THE GAMBLER
Lewis always used to say: "If I win the lottery, I want to stay in the pub
all day. I want to enjoy life at last". One week he struck lucky
and could hardly contain himself, so glad he was. Only,
when the moment came to collect his winnings, he had been dead for two days.
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TIME
Man, never forget: the thousands of years to have a smooth, hairless brow;
the tremendous efforts to talk with your neighbours without bellowing;
the time it has taken to notice that grains of corn yield a white powder
that prevents death; the toil it took to become a human being.
Never forget it; and then walk straight ahead, because time is given you
by the Lord for free. |
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TO CHANGE
As if it were easy to change like that from one day to the next,
when under the finger-nails one can still see the signs of the earth.
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CONSUMPTIVE
He was a real lord: he always had all that he wanted.
Because he only ever wanted that wich he could have. |