Léo Ferré - Caussimon - Nights of absence

Original Title: "Nuits d'absence"
Text: Jean-Roger Caussimon
Year: 1985

There are nights when I go away
Discretely, secretely
My image alone is present
It has my forehead, my clothes...
It's my double in that mirror
It's my cinema stand-in
To that reflection replacing me
You'd swear I'm there

But I fly over in a hang-glider
The blue tops of the Pyrénées
In Andorra-The-Catalan
I let my destiny go...
I trample a rye field
Or maybe a wheat field
In the air, I've met eagles
And I thought I looked like them...

The summer wind, sometimes, carry me away
Too far, it's a risk to take
In the tumult of the arena's
I'm everything which must die
I am the poor nag
Belly opened by a bull
I'm the bull who falters
I'm the fear...of the torrero
Weekday or is it Sunday?
All shivering in the thaw
I'm on the edge of the White sea
In the white night of Arkhangelsk
I hail drunk sailors
As much from alcohol than sleep
"That bleak glare on the frost
Is if the moon...or the sun?"

The pale day saddens the furniture
And here it's, it's already tomorrow
The frost persists to the blind eyes
Of my dog which is looking for my hand...
And you, you sleep in the silence
Where, without me, you manage to recover
That calm face from childhood
Which moved me...to the point of crying...

There are nights when I go away
Discretely, secretely
My image alone is present
It has my forehead, my clothes...
It's my double in that mirror
It's my cinema stand-in
To that reflection replacing me
You'd swear I'm there

There are nights when I go away
Discretely, secretely
My image alone is present
It has my forehead, my clothes...
It's my double in that mirror
It's my cinema stand-in
To that reflection replacing me
You'd swear I'm there