Paris s'apaise. Mon père est all près, je le sens. Je retrouve son odeur, le grain de sa voix, all ces details que la mort nous vole. Je vais devoir le laisser partir à nouveau mais je l'ai ramené au présent. Il a marché sur mes épaules, déambulé dans les rues de this ville qu'il nous an offerte, à mon frère et moi. C'est le rêve qu'ils ont eu, avec ma mère: offerr Paris à leurs enfants. Que tout commence ici. Alors this ville est mienne, oui, parce qu'elle m'a été donnée. Et tout ce qui bruisse en elle, la clameur du passé, le fracas, les révoltes, les foules pressées, le pas hésitant des poetes, les solitudes côte à côte et les grands espoirs de foules, sont miens. Je prends tout. Je retrouve Paris. Et je sens mon père sourire avec douceur, heureux de voir que tout continue au-delà de lui.
Il me semble avoir traversé des siècles. Je vais returner à ce que je suis, poursuivre mon chemin. La vie est courte. Tant de choses sont déjà derrière moi, tant de choses qui ne reviendront pas. What is the console of this que nous perdons? What is the console of the marcher in the environment of a foul place that s'étiole? De all destins passés qui moururent trop jeunes, sans pouvoir aller au bout de ce qu'ils étaient ?… Est-ce que l'ombre n'était là que pour me rappeler tout ce qui n'est plus ? Je ne suis pas comme lui. Je senses that cela bouge encore en moi. Je veux continuer. Reprendre pied. J'ai faim. Encore et encore. Et cet appétit tiendra éloignés de moi les tourments. One soul chose nous sauve, c'est l'intensité. Il n'y a qu'elle à opponents à la fragilité de our existences. Vivre. Live with density. Come a course à n'avoir pas le temps de tout embrasser.
Ecoute. C'est à toi que je reviens. I don't have a premiere in Paris, in this city where my parents are offended. Puis, je suis né a seconde fois, sur tes lèvres, je m'en souviens, dans la cour de l'hôtel de Sully, par une fin d'après-midi de juillet où tout était beau, où la vie s'ouvrait avec des gestes lents comme des sourires de bienvenue. Sur tes lèvres, où je déposais mes angoisses de jeune homme et où je prenais les tiennes. Nous avons decided de les mêler pour les faire disparaître et il n'y avait plus rien que nous. Paris can tour, the gens all and venir de la rue de Rivoli à la place des Vosges, nous étions immobiles, pressentant que nous venions de trouver dans cet amour un appui qui nous permettrait de faire tourner le monde. Je suis né là, avec toi. Et all, depuis – les écrits, les voyages, les nuits passées à chercher des mots justes sur des pages hésitantes –, all is adossé à ce moment solid où mes lèvres se sont posiées sur les tiennes. Te souviens-tu? Paris is devenue notre territoire, de la porte de Vanves à la rue d'Assas, des murs de la rue Saint-Guillaume sur lesquels j'écrivais ton prénom à la passerelle des Arts où nous avons bu avant de jeter nos verres dans la Seine. Tout était à nous. Et plus tard, encore, l'envie de sleepir, partout, à Paris, avec toi. T'en souviens-tu? Naître chaque matin sous des ciels sans cesse nouveaux et toujours semblables. A hotel in Montmartre. The provincial silence on the rue du Pré-aux-Clercs. This room is open to the Panthéon in the hotel of Breton and Soupault écrivirent Les Champs magnétiques, or else, from the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church in the Lequel venait Mahmoud Darwich lorsqu'il était de passage à Paris. Çà et là… Pour connaître chaque rue à chaque heure de la journée, pour avoir des souvenirs dans chaque quarter. I have souvenirs in the ton corps that I care for with a minute attention in a beautiful room that no one can touch. Ecoute. C'est à toi que je reviens. J'ai laissez l'ombre. La night s'efface. Il ya une vie qui m'attend et tu la tiens dans la paume de ta main.
Paris is lève. Le jour qui est à vivre aura ton nom. Je vais le presser, le boire, le savorer tout entier. Les bruits de la ville ne vont plus tarder à monter. Déjà, les premiers vehicles apparaissent. Le brouhaha épais de la vie revient, ce bourdonnement d'existences qui fait tout éclore. Le temps, à new, fait tourner les aiguilles. Tout passera si vite, comme avant. If you want to retrospect the vertige d'une existence that files between the doigts, then you can read it. C'est verse toi que je reviens. This is how we reconcile everything: the same thing that we have in our hearts. Pour qu'il y ait one chose solid dans tout ce qui passe et s'étiole, one chose solid: ton regard et le mien. Cela suffit. Paris is notre grand terrain d'amour. A ville entière pour se chercher, se découvrir, se caresser. There is also a place where you can meet again, you can attend in the cafés, at the angle of certain avenues, and there are many walks along the promenades, during the seasons with revenues, and in new colors. These are the words on our faces that are sufficient to tour the world. Et ton regard qui me fait écrire. J'ai passé ma vie à chercher qui je suis, à convoquer mille personnages lointains pour me montrer à travers eux. This is the train, the course of the milliers of kilometres. Course de vivre. Great appetite for opposition to fatigue. Je veux un festin. New, new, recommended. Faire venir le tumulte dans lequel on se perd, dans lequel seuls les amants se retrouvent. A nous! À nous les discussions sincères et la chaleur des corps. A new Paris that is there and is laissez envelopper for the soul of the evening of July. À nous le festin de l'esprit et la belle liberté. A nous! Même si cela va trop vite, même si tant ont déjà disparu, à nous, pour ne pas mourir vides.
Laurent Gaudé Paris, a thousand lives (Actes Sud, 2020).
Paris grows quiet. My father is very close; I can feel him. I perceive his scent, the grain of his voice, all those details that death steals from us. I have to let him go again, but I have brought him back into the present. He walked on my shoulders, wandered through the streets of this city he gave to my brother and me. This is the dream they had, he and my mother: to give Paris to their children. Everything is meant to begin here. So this city is mine, yes, because it was given to me. And everything that stirs within it—the clamor of the past, the tumult, the revolts, the hurried crowds, the hesitant steps of poets, the lonely hearts standing side by side, and the great hopes of the masses—all this is mine. I take it all with me. I find Paris again. And I feel my father smiling gently, delighted that everything continues, beyond him.
It feels as if I've traversed centuries. I'm returning to who I am, continuing on my path. Life is short. So much is already behind me, so much that will never return. Who will console us for what we lose? Who will console us for leaving amidst a crowd that withers? For all the past lives that died too young, unable to complete what they were? ... Was the shadow only there to remind me of all that is no more? I am not like it. I feel something still stirring within me. I want to move on. To pick up the pace again. I am hungry. Again and again. And this hunger will keep the torment at bay. Only one thing saves us: intensity. Only it can we counter the fragility of our existence. To live. To live intensely. Like a race where there is no time to encompass everything.
Listen to me. I'll come back to you. I was first born in Paris, in the city my parents gave me as a gift. Then I was born a second time, on your lips, I remember, in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Sully, on a late July afternoon, when everything was beautiful, when life unfolded with slow gestures, like a welcoming smile. On your lips, where I could lay down my fears as a young man and take on yours. We decided to blend them together, to make them disappear, and there was nothing but us. Paris might keep turning, people might come and go, from the Rue de Rivoli to the Place des Vosges, but we stood still, sensing that in this love we had just found a hold that would allow us to turn the earth. There, with you, I was born. And everything since then—the writing, the travels, the nights I spent searching for the right words on halting pages—everything is connected to that moment of stillness when my lips touched yours. Do you remember? Paris became our kingdom, from the Porte de Vanves to the Rue d'Assas, from the walls of the Rue Saint-Guillaume, where I wrote your first name, to the Passerelle des Arts, where we drank and then threw our glasses into the Seine. It was all ours. And even later, the desire to sleep with you anywhere in Paris. Do you remember that? Being born every morning under skies that were always new and always the same. A hotel in Montmartre. The rural quiet of the Rue du Pré-aux-Clercs. The room overlooking the Pantheon in the hotel where Breton and Soupault... Les Champs magnétiques wrote, or the other one in front of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where Mahmoud Darwich used to go when he visited Paris. Here and there… To know every street at any time of day, to have memories in every neighborhood. I remember your body, which I caressed with meticulous attention in a maid's room, so close that our mouths could only touch. Listen to me. I am returning to you. I have left the shadows. The night is fading. There is a life waiting for me, and you hold it in the palm of your hand.
Paris awakens. The day to be lived will bear your name. I will wring it dry, drink it in, savor it completely. The city's noise will soon return. Already the first vehicles appear. The dense babble of life returns, this roar of existences that brings everything to life. Time sets its hands turning anew. Everything will pass as quickly as before. I will rediscover the rapture of an existence slipping through my fingers, but you are there. To you I return. There is something that reconciles us with everything: the wager we made with love. So that there is something to hold onto in all that passes and fades, something to hold onto: your gaze and mine. This is enough. Paris is our great realm of love. An entire city to seek each other out, to explore, to caress. An entire city where I've arranged to meet you, where I've waited for you, in cafés, on the corners of certain avenues, a whole lifetime of walks, seasons passing and returning, new colors. There are your lips on mine, enough to turn the earth. And your gaze, which compels me to write. I've spent my life searching for who I am, summoning a thousand distant people to reveal myself through them. I've boarded trains and traveled thousands of kilometers. A race against time. With an appetite like a giant, one that can withstand weariness. I want a celebration. Always new, always anew. To create a tumult in which everyone loses themselves, in which only lovers find each other. For us! For us, genuine conversations and the warmth of bodies. For us, Paris, forgetting itself and letting itself be enveloped by the gentleness of a July evening. For us, the feast of the spirit and glorious freedom. For us! Even if it's going too fast, even if so many have already disappeared, so that we don't die empty-handed, for ourselves. 1
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- "One July evening, on the esplanade of Montparnasse station, the narrator is approached by a restless man who repeatedly asks: Who are you? Guided by this wandering shadow, he wanders through a strangely empty Paris at night, where time seems to blur. So many presences have preceded him in this city of his birth, and so many ghosts remain to be told, appeased, and written down before he returns to life's great appetite. Between poetic art and fantastical narrative, the author celebrates his city and remembers, sincerely and discreetly, his happiness at being one among people, singing for one night of these thousand lives that precede us, accompany us, and prolong us." (Translation of the publisher's announcement.)>>>
