Jacques Bertin - Novel

Original Title: "Roman"
Year: 1972

He was coming down the mountain and the silence and in front of him men
Up there he was alone; one cannot hear anything but the wind
He was coming down, in his head he was looking for the implacable word
That would bind him to the world, to men and to himself for ever

Toward him you were moving forward barded with objects, small, puny,
History closed on you like a wicket that is being brought down
We were only saying a few words, only a few words, always the same ones
You didn't know who you were, earth was rolling under your steps

He was coming down, you told him, "You come, your are one of us"
You told him "You are a part of ourselves", he didn't like you
He was young, he was looking for God, he was only looking for the word
Like a broad and luminious belly where everything is getting calm and the wind falls down

But he was gliding toward you and he smelled the smell of men
He felt himself sinking, he didn't like you
You were holding your hands out to him, the hands gnawed, the bones: look!
He saw that he had the same hands, the same death stuck at the fingertips

He heard your complaint about the city and it was coming out of his mouth
He saw you the throat slit in the gullies of Algeria
He heard his own groan that was going up from the metro Charonne
In the Vercors he was getting up with the shadows beating the air on the crosses

Near Chateaubriant in the hedges the executed soldiers sing
At night in the suburbs the posters peel to the wind
It's always the same words on the ground simply asking to be picked up
And to be carried from hand to hand, most of all that we do not forget

The same words always at night, alike and the day before
The same song, the same groan, not much, hurt words
May it be that we haven't lived for nothing. It's simple
And that song will last like Earth will.

The enemy is stronger than ever now that our song is weak
The same words come from Billancourt, from Prague and from Madrid
It's always the time to put up barricades of words
It's always today that we have to defend that inferno there

A woman was passing with in the eyes the same tear
The same crushed dream at the bottom of the eyes. They recognized each other’s
A few moments and a door that is being closed already
Without lying he had had the time to tell her he loved her

He was betting every moment, he was talking of present things
He was of every fight systematically
He had no hope, no future, he was drunk
He was standing in History like the stopped sob of a child.