"Ces quelques pas du palier a la chambre d'Albertine, ces
|
quelques pas que person ne ne pouvait plus arreter, je les fis avec
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delices, avec prudence, comme plonge dans un element
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nouveau, comme si en avancant j'avais lentement deplace
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du bonheur, et en meme temps avec un sentiment inconnu de
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toute-puissance, et d'entrer enfin dans un heritage qui
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m'eut de tout temps appartenu."*
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|
A winter's night
|
the Northern Quay
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the Isle of Dogs
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the rabid one is me
|
you sip your drink
|
undismayed
|
and I just said
|
"These days my heart seems to be a kind of hand grenade"
|
|
Nothing in the air tugs at the tower blocks
|
as you raise your finger and pull the pin
|
nothing much on earth moves down these desolating docks
|
do you really think you just scratched your chin?
|
|
But you were never Albertine
|
and I was never poor Marcel
|
who were you that time round,
|
Mademoiselle?
|
|
Monsieur a peur du parfum des princesses
|
|
And now I act up
|
and you've a winning frown
|
I've contracted love
|
as I'm devoured down
|
blame my deadening intensity
|
and tell me how you got the part in this
|
my own illicit agony
|
|
I lay it on pretty thick
|
you spread yourself pretty thin
|
ducking and dividing under every skin
|
and my final words as you get up and leave
|
"If you're free as air, I don't want to breathe"
|
|
Good evening,
|
I am the madman in love with your daughter
|
we need to talk
|
just you and me
|
I saw her last in Eden
|
or some other Far Eastern quarter
|
where the river snakes its way out to sea
|
|
But you were never Albertine
|
and I was never poor Marcel
|
who were you that time round,
|
Mademoiselle?
|
|
* Marcel Proust - A L'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs
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|
Those few steps from the landing to Albertine's door,
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those few steps which no one now could prevent my
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taking, I took with delight, with prudence, as though
|
plunged into a new and strange element, as if in going
|
forward I had been gently displacing the liquid stream
|
of happiness, and at the same time with a strange feeling
|
of absolute power, and of entering at length into an
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inheritance which had belonged to me from all time.
|
|
Translated by C K Scott Moncrieff
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|
-----------------
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Mlle
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| Luxuria |
