Rue de Seine

Rue de Seine half past ten

at night

on the corner of another street

a man staggers... a young man

wearing a hat

a rain-coat

a woman is shaking him

she shakes him

and she is talking to him

and he shakes his head

his hat is all awry

and the woman's hat is about to fall off backwards

they are both very pale

the man certainly wants to leave

to disappear . . . to die

but the woman has a furious desire to live

and her voice

her whispering voice

one cannot help but hear it

is a moan

an order...

a cry...

this voice is so eager...

and sad

and alive...

a new-born child sick and shivering on a tomb

JACQUES PRÉVERT

in a cemetery in Winter...

the cry of a creature whose fingers are caught by a door

a song a phrase

always the same

a phrase

repeated ...

uninterrupted

unanswered.

the man watches her, rolling his eyes

like a drowning man

and the phrase recurs

Rue de Seine on the corner of another street

the woman continues

tirelessly

continues her worried question

wound impossible to dress

Pierre, tell me the truth

Pierre, tell me the truth

I want to know everything

tell me the truth...

the woman's hat falls

Pierre, I want to know everything

tell me the truth...

stupid and grandiose question

Pierre does not know how to answer

he is lost

he who calls himself Pierre

has a smile that perhaps he wishes were tender

and repeats :

come now, calm down, you are crazy

but he does not know how right he is

but he does not see

he cannot see how

his man's mouth is twisted by his smile...

he is suffocating

the world is lying on top of him

and smothering him

he is a prisoner

cornered by his promises . . .

someone is asking him to account for himself

there in front of him

an accounting machine

a machine for writing love letters

a machine for suffering

seizes him...

hangs on him

Pierre, tell me the truth.

Jacques PRÉVERT

translated by Liovyp C. Panxs