Combien de marins, combien capitaines
Qui sont partis joyeux pour des courses lointaines,
Dans ce morne horizon se sont évanouis!
Combien ont disparu, dure et triste fortune!
Dans une mer sans fond, par une nuit sans lune,
Sous lâaveugle océan à jamais enfouis!
I suppose I should attempt to translate that for those readers who may not know French. But I wonât bother with the rhymes.
Oh, how many sailors, how many captains
Who left joyfully for far away places
Have vanished beyond the bleak horizon!
How many have disappeared, hard and sad destiny,
In a bottomless sea, during a moonless night
Buried forever under the blind ocean
Thatâs the best I can do for now. Ah, Victor Hugo, hélas!
I have forgotten the rest of the poem, except for two more lines.
On sâentretient de vous parfois dans les veillées,
Tandis que vous dormez dans les goémons verts!
I loved that word goémons, even though I never knew what a goémon was. In fact, I had to look it up in my French-English dictionary in order to be able to translate it.
Sometimes during evening gatherings we speak of you
While you are asleep amongst the green seaweed.
Thatâs good enough.
Back then, as a boy, I wanted to be a sailor who would sail joyfully to far away places. A deck-boy on a big ship. Perhaps even on a pirate ship.
To fall asleep amidst the green seaweeds.
Here I am, again entangled in a dreamy digression.
I was saying in school I always did my work well. Perhaps I was not as dumb as I was made to believe, even if my uncle Leon and my cousin Salomon always called me petit con because I never had much to say.
Often at the end of the school week I would come home with bons points. In my school you would get bons points for good behavior. They looked like little stickers.
They had no value, except that they made my mother happy when I brought them home. And me, I was proud to get these bons points. I kept them in a small box.
As I said, it was probably more for good behavior than for my good grades that I was awarded the first prize that year. Good behavior in my school counted more than good work.
In any case, the day of la remise des prix my mother was very proud of me. She came to the ceremony with my two sisters. My father was not there.
When one of the teachers called my name I had to get my prize from the principal. I was very nervous and all flushed. The principal was seated behind a table on the stage of the auditorium with all the prizes in front of him. Seated next to him there was a man from La Caisse dâÃparge de Montrouge. He was wearing a black suit and a bow tie. In front of him, on the table, there was a big green register in which he asked me to sign my name.
I carefully signed, making beautiful curls to the R of Raymond and the F of Federman, the way I had learned to do in class when we wrote compositions. And I was very careful not to make ink spots while writing my name because I was so nervous. In those days we still wrote with a porteplume that we dipped into an ink well.
After that the principal shook my hand and congratulated me as he handed me a savings account booklet and a beautiful book bound in leather with the title on the cover inscribed in gold letters. It was Les lettrres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet.
The parents who had come to the ceremony applauded. I was really proud when I went back to sit next to my mother who kissed me on the cheek. She was so proud of me, even though the other boys were looking at me enviously.
In this savings account booklet there was the sum of one hundred francs. Old francs of that period. The man from the bank explained when he handed me the booklet that I was the only one authorized to collect this money, but not before I became majeur. That is to say before I was twenty-one years old.
My mother put that booklet in the cardboard box with the family papers and photos she kept in the little closet next to her bed. And
Qui sont partis joyeux pour des courses lointaines,
Dans ce morne horizon se sont évanouis!
Combien ont disparu, dure et triste fortune!
Dans une mer sans fond, par une nuit sans lune,
Sous lâaveugle océan à jamais enfouis!
I suppose I should attempt to translate that for those readers who may not know French. But I wonât bother with the rhymes.
Oh, how many sailors, how many captains
Who left joyfully for far away places
Have vanished beyond the bleak horizon!
How many have disappeared, hard and sad destiny,
In a bottomless sea, during a moonless night
Buried forever under the blind ocean
Thatâs the best I can do for now. Ah, Victor Hugo, hélas!
I have forgotten the rest of the poem, except for two more lines.
On sâentretient de vous parfois dans les veillées,
Tandis que vous dormez dans les goémons verts!
I loved that word goémons, even though I never knew what a goémon was. In fact, I had to look it up in my French-English dictionary in order to be able to translate it.
Sometimes during evening gatherings we speak of you
While you are asleep amongst the green seaweed.
Thatâs good enough.
Back then, as a boy, I wanted to be a sailor who would sail joyfully to far away places. A deck-boy on a big ship. Perhaps even on a pirate ship.
To fall asleep amidst the green seaweeds.
Here I am, again entangled in a dreamy digression.
I was saying in school I always did my work well. Perhaps I was not as dumb as I was made to believe, even if my uncle Leon and my cousin Salomon always called me petit con because I never had much to say.
Often at the end of the school week I would come home with bons points. In my school you would get bons points for good behavior. They looked like little stickers.
They had no value, except that they made my mother happy when I brought them home. And me, I was proud to get these bons points. I kept them in a small box.
As I said, it was probably more for good behavior than for my good grades that I was awarded the first prize that year. Good behavior in my school counted more than good work.
In any case, the day of la remise des prix my mother was very proud of me. She came to the ceremony with my two sisters. My father was not there.
When one of the teachers called my name I had to get my prize from the principal. I was very nervous and all flushed. The principal was seated behind a table on the stage of the auditorium with all the prizes in front of him. Seated next to him there was a man from La Caisse dâÃparge de Montrouge. He was wearing a black suit and a bow tie. In front of him, on the table, there was a big green register in which he asked me to sign my name.
I carefully signed, making beautiful curls to the R of Raymond and the F of Federman, the way I had learned to do in class when we wrote compositions. And I was very careful not to make ink spots while writing my name because I was so nervous. In those days we still wrote with a porteplume that we dipped into an ink well.
After that the principal shook my hand and congratulated me as he handed me a savings account booklet and a beautiful book bound in leather with the title on the cover inscribed in gold letters. It was Les lettrres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet.
The parents who had come to the ceremony applauded. I was really proud when I went back to sit next to my mother who kissed me on the cheek. She was so proud of me, even though the other boys were looking at me enviously.
In this savings account booklet there was the sum of one hundred francs. Old francs of that period. The man from the bank explained when he handed me the booklet that I was the only one authorized to collect this money, but not before I became majeur. That is to say before I was twenty-one years old.
My mother put that booklet in the cardboard box with the family papers and photos she kept in the little closet next to her bed. And
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