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Aragon...
I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving
Deafening silence of loving
I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving
I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving
I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving
Deafening
Silence
Of loving
- Do you know Elsa? - I don't think so.
I keep thinking I know her well,
but Elsa keeps changing the way I think about her,
so I'm always thinking that Elsa is eluding me.
And yet I've been thinking this
for the past 37... 38 years.
It's strange that you think that.
I remember
Elsa's hat and fur coat
the day I met her.
But the rest cannot be pinned down.
Well, I have quite precise memories.
Louis looked like a dance hall dancer.
His hair was incredibly dark,
which no one can believe now,
because he has blue eyes
and his hair has gone white,
so people think he was blond.
But he was ever so dark.
He was very thin...
and very handsome
- a little too handsome -
which made him look rather like
those young men
one would meet in dance halls.
The first time I saw Louis from behind,
he was dressed in black
and his suit was all shiny...
like a piano.
I was sitting on this stool.
A friend said to me,
"You should meet that woman."
I was playing dice by myself.
I turned and saw the corner table where the day before,
November 4th, 1928,
there'd been many people. One of them had said,
"Mr. Aragon, the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky
"would like you to sit at his table."
A Mayakovsky like this.
And so, quite independently,
the next day, November 5th,
you came into the café through this little swing door.
And from that day forward, we were never apart.
What would I be without you
You who took the first step?
What would I be without you
But a heart turned to stone?
But time standing still
On this watch face?
What would I be without you
But this mumbling?
I learned everything from you About matters human
And now I see the world your way
I learned everything from you
How to drink from fountains
How to read the distant stars In the sky
How to take the song
From a singing passerby
I learned everything from you
The true meaning of a thrill
What would I be without you
You who took the first step?
What would I be without you But a heart turned to stone?
But time standing still
On this watch face?
What would I be without you
But this mumbling?
You say in Le Grand Jamais (The Big Never),
"In life you never know what people think, you can only imagine."
I try to imagine your life.
Imagine you.
All I have left to do is imagine you.
A little girl...
There was once in Russia a little girl
called Zemlianichka,
meaning "Wild Strawberry".
It was the time of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.
And at school, for a production of a Chekhov tale,
Wild Strawberry had been given a major role.
A little girl wakes up pointing at the floor and screaming,
"Oy krov sac!"
Which means "Oh, a cockroach!"
That's all.
The little girl has grown.
She is sixteen.
She has Elsa's eyes.
Elsa's Eyes by Aragon
Your eyes are so deep As I bent to drink
I saw every sun reflected in them
And desperate souls jumping in to die
Your eyes are so deep I lose my memory in them
Eyes and Memory
Shadows of birds, a murky ocean Then the sun and your eyes change
Summer carves the street The sky is as blue as on wheat
Enchanted by beauty The child's eyes widen
When you open yours Wild flowers fall from the heavens
Are there lightening bolts In the lavender?
I'm caught in shooting stars Like a sailor dying in August
O Paradise a hundred times Lost and found
Your eyes are my Peru My Golconda, my Indies
And so it happened The Universe smashed
On the reefs The wreckers set ablaze
But I saw shining above the sea
Elsa's eyes, Elsa's eyes, Elsa's eyes
That's when you introduced to your parents a funny guy
who no one had noticed yet,
and who had decided
to deck himself out in a yellow coat,
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.
No, not that one, not the one in that photo,
but a young man who looked like Belmondo.
A 6 foot 4 Belmondo.
What are you thinking about?
One never knows what you're thinking about.
How can one pretend To trace in words your semblance?
You who are so different, so fleeting
Always changing and transformed
You who nothing could fix In my eyes
Neither passion nor the years
Always new and surprising
Love, love
Whose portrait escapes The stroke of pen and brush
Like the indefinable form of laughter
As indefinable as a sob
Memory without recollection
And wound without dagger
Imagine you...
All I have left to do is imagine you.
One day, you went to join that Frenchman
you had met back then.
There were Frenchmen then in Russia.
He's the one who gave you your pen name.
With this Frenchman you went to Tahiti.
And to evoke distant Tahiti,
you later chose to use a painting of it
in our strange Œuvres Romanesques Croisées
which began coming out last year.
This painting by Le Douanier Rousseau,
who had never travelled to tropical countries.
By 1923, you had left your Frenchman.
You were in Berlin where there were all kinds of people.
And in this café on the Kurfürstendamm when I came in,
you were going out at the same time through that door.
We didn't meet.
There were Russians in Berlin, all kinds.
Writers like Gorki, Remizov,
and Chklovski, who was in love with you.
He showed his book to Maxim Gorki
and as there were six of your letters in the book,
Gorki wanted to meet you and persuade you to write.
In Russian, of course.
And this is the Elsa who, in Moscow in 1925,
published In Tahiti.
You wrote a second book, Wild Strawberry,
the story of this little girl.
But you had already gone back to France,
intending to stay only a short while,
when, in this empty bar...
Caressed by kisses The years race into the void
Avoid, avoid, avoid Broken memories
The sun is the same To the pale pianist
Who sang a few words Always the same
Darling, do you remember Those carefree days
When we lived together In Montparnasse?
Life has slipped by Without our noticing it
Evenings are already becoming cold The heart runs late
Caressed by kisses The years race into the void
Avoid, avoid, avoid Broken memories
We lived here in Montparnasse.
We didn't have a penny. How would we manage?
Elsa thought of making necklaces.
She told the story in her last book in Russian, Busse.
As I did later in
Le Cantique à Elsa.
You made jewelry for daytime Or evening wear
Everything became a necklace In your lyrical hands
Pieces of rags, pieces of mirrors
Necklaces as fine as glory Unbelievably fine
Elsa waltzes and keeps on waltzing
Early in the morning,
I'd carry a suitcase
filled with your necklaces.
I sold to merchants
From New York and Berlin, Rio, Milan, Ankara
The jewels Your gold washer's hands created
These rocks which were like flowers Bearing your colors
Elsa waltzes and keeps on waltzing
We lived like that for two or three years.
We felt rich, until the day you'd had enough.
So I became a journalist for 1,300 francs a month.
That was in '33 or '34.
Berlin, the Reichstag Fire.
Paris, February 6th, 1934.
And then we lived here, in the heart of Paris.
It was the time of the Spanish Civil War.
"Writing a life story means going beyond this life, beyond history."
We went to Madrid in a truck, taking gifts
to the Republic's writers.
"Just as a train speeds through the landscape.
"With its stops, switches, signals, bridges, tunnels, catastrophes."
And around this time, though you kept it from me,
you wrote in French.
A miracle! In French.
Who was Thérèse?
A name heard on the radio
Between up and down
Which wasn't destined for us
Thérèse...
As Max Ernst saw her
for our Œuvres Croisées,
but who were you talking about?
For me, Thérèse is who you were then.
Your soft hand on your cheek.
"Good evening, Thérèse."
Am I disturbing you?
Not at all. Come here.
You can give me a hand.
I've got myself all tangled up
in these proofs.
Of course, if I'd asked you
"Am I disturbing you?", you'd have said "Yes,
"I'm writing a poem about Elsa."
I enter this country She opens up to me
Where everything throbs With her presence
And her hand opens the shutter Overlooking the garden
Where there is the sound Of invisible things
I'll invent for you my rose As many roses
As there are jewels in the sea
As many roses as there are centuries In celestial dust
As there are dreams In a child's head
As there is light in a sob
I will invent for you the rose
I will invent for you the rose
You looked at me with your eyes Of pure oblivion
You looked at me over memory Over wandering choruses
Over faded roses
Over thwarted joys Over abolished days
You looked at me with your eyes Of blue oblivion
All the roses I sing of All the roses I choose
All the roses I invent I vaunt in vain with my voice
Before the rose I see before me
The readers of these poems
expect me to be 20 years old forever.
As I cannot satisfy
this need for beauty and youth
that the readers have,
I feel guilty, and it makes me unhappy.
That's what's terrible, they're not just for me.
That's why I talk...
of other poems, other texts.
At least I know what they're about,
and all that remains a secret to others.
Maybe I'm not very good at sharing.
Aragon always says he's a shadow at your feet.
He's wrong.
He's doing me wrong.
He's always belittling himself, compared to me.
It annoys people,
and they're right.
For thirty years I have been This shadow at your feet
For thirty years my thought Has been the shadow of your thought
You think all this is an allegory. You don't hear me...
I know I've done a lot for Aragon. I never meant to,
it just happened, because we were made for one another.
I've greatly influenced his writing.
He's very grateful to me, I think.
Because in the end, it went the way he wanted it to go.
There was a time
when he was having trouble finding himself.
He had completely lost his way as a writer.
And having me by his side,
without any false modesty,
probably made him feel like his path was mapped out.
He's always thanking me for that.
He never stops thanking me.
What a miracle to be together
The light on your cheek The wind playing around you
When I see you, I still tremble Like on his first date
A young man who looks like me
Blame me if I cannot adjust
Can one adjust to flames? They've killed before
The soul's eyes gouged Adjusting to dark clouds
For the first time Your mouth, your voice
From wing to mountain top The tree trembles
Always the first time When your dress touches me
Take this heavy fruit Discard the rotten half
Bite the happy half Thirty lost years
Sink your teeth in I give my life to you
My life truly began The day I met you
Your arms barred the path Of my insanity
Showed me a land Where bounty is sown
In the confusion You cooled my fevers
And I ignited Like gin at Christmas
I was born of your lip
My life begins with you
All these poems are for you. Do they make you feel loved?
Oh, no! They aren't what makes me feel loved.
Not the poetry.
It's the rest. Life.
Writing a life story, with its stops,
switches, signals, bridges, tunnels, catastrophes...
Here ends only this world, and this film.
Here we are separated, but here begins Elsa's second life
for which she is Elsa Triolet.
The Elsa Triolet of today, who has written some 17 books.
Not the woman who I imagine,
but the woman who imagines, who has given life to dreams
and characters among whom I have lived for a quarter century,
watching them be born, being one of them.
A long story that I'll tell you some other time.
For now, take this fairytale with its artificial resolutions.
They married and lived happily together.
As in every fairy tale.
When I knew in your arms I was a human being
When I stopped pretending And became myself at your touch
Take these books from my soul Open them everywhere
Break them to better understand Their perfume and secret
Brutally rip open the pages Crumple and tear them
You will retain but one thing A single murmur, a single chorus
A long thank you babbling This happiness like a meadow
Child-God, my idolatry The endless Ave of the litanies
My blossoming, my growing beauty O my reason, O my folly
My month of May, my melody My paradise, my blazing fire
My universe, Elsa, my life
My universe, Elsa, my life.
Subtitles by John Miller
Subtitling Titra Film Paris