The House of the Dead

Poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Collection AlcoolsThemes DeathPeriod 20th century

To Maurice Raynal

Stretching along the sides of the cemetery
The house of the dead framed it like a cloister
Inside its glass cases
Like those of fashion shops
Instead of smiling upright
The mannequins grimaced for eternity

Having arrived in Munich fifteen or twenty days ago
I had entered for the first time and by chance
Into this almost deserted cemetery
And my teeth were chattering
Before all this bourgeoisie
Exposed and dressed as well as possible
Awaiting burial

Suddenly
Quick as my memory
Its eyes lit up again
From glass cell to glass cell
The sky filled with an apocalypse
Vivid

And the flat earth to infinity
As before Galileo
Covered itself with a thousand motionless mythologies
An angel in diamond shattered all the glass cases
And the dead accosted me
With faces from the other world

But their faces and their attitudes
Soon became less funereal
The sky and the earth lost
Their phantasmagorical aspect

The dead rejoiced
To see their departed bodies between them and the light
They laughed to see their shadow and observed it
As if truly
It had been their past life

Then I counted them
They were forty-nine men
Women and children
Who grew more beautiful by the minute
And looked at me now
With so much cordiality
So much tenderness even
That taking them in friendship

All at once
I invited them for a walk far from the arcades of their house

And all arm in arm
Humming military tunes
Yes all your sins are absolved
We left the cemetery

We crossed the town
And often met
Relatives friends who joined
The little troop of the recently dead
All were so gay
So charming so healthy-looking
That it would take a clever one to
Distinguish the dead from the living

Then in the countryside
We scattered
Two light horsemen joined us
We welcomed them
They cut wood of viburnum
And elder
From which they made whistles
That they distributed to the children

Later at a country dance
The couples hands on shoulders
Danced to the shrill sound of zithers

They had not forgotten how to dance
These dead men and dead women
We drank too
And from time to time a bell
Announced that another barrel
Was about to be tapped
A dead woman seated on a bench
Near a barberry bush
Let a student
Kneeling at her feet
Speak to her of engagement

I will wait for you
Ten years twenty years if need be
Your will shall be mine

I will wait for you
All your life
Answered the dead woman

Children
From this world or the other
Sang roundelays
With absurd and lyrical words
That are doubtless the remains
Of the most ancient poetic monuments
Of humanity

The student placed a ring
On the ring finger of the young dead woman
Here is the token of my love
Of our engagement
Neither time nor absence
Shall make us forget our promises

And one day we will have a fine wedding
Sprigs of myrtle
On our clothes and in your hair
A fine sermon at the church
Long speeches after the banquet
And music
Music
Our children
Said the fiancée
Will be more beautiful more beautiful still
Alas! the ring was broken
Than if they were of silver or gold
Of emerald or diamond
Will be more clear more clear still
Than the stars of the firmament
Than the light of dawn
Than your glances my fiancé
Will have a better scent still
Alas! the ring was broken
Than the lilac just blooming
Than thyme the rose or a sprig
Of lavender or rosemary

The musicians having left
We continued the walk

By the edge of a lake
We amused ourselves skipping stones
With flat pebbles
On the water that barely danced

Boats were moored
In a harbor
We untied them
After the whole troop had embarked
And some dead rowed
With as much vigor as the living

At the front of the boat that I steered
A dead man spoke with a young woman
Dressed in a yellow gown
In a black bodice
With blue ribbons and a gray hat
Adorned with a single little uncurled feather

I love you
He said
As the pigeon loves the dove
As the nocturnal insect
Loves the light

Too late
Answered the living woman
Repel repel this forbidden love
I am married
See the ring that shines
My hands tremble
I weep and I wish I were dead

The boats had arrived
At a place where the light horsemen
Knew that an echo replied from the shore
We never tired of questioning it
There were questions so extravagant
And answers so full of aptness
That one could die of laughter
And the dead man said to the living woman

We would be so happy together
Over us the water will close
But you weep and your hands tremble
None of us will return
We came back to land and it was the return
The lovers loved each other
And in couples with beautiful mouths
Walked at uneven distances
The dead had chosen the living women
And the living men
The dead women
A juniper sometimes
Gave the effect of a ghost

The children tore the air
Puffing their hollow cheeks
Into their whistles of viburnum
Or elder
While the soldiers
Sang Tyrolean songs
Answering each other as one does
In the mountains

In the town
Our troop dwindled little by little
We said
Goodbye
See you tomorrow
See you soon
Soon entered the brasseries
Some left us
In front of a dog butcher’s shop
To buy their evening meal

Soon I remained alone with these dead
Who went straight
To the cemetery
Where
Under the Arcades
I recognized them
Lying down
Motionless
And well dressed
Awaiting burial behind the glass cases

They did not suspect
What had happened
But the living kept the memory of it
It was an unhoped-for happiness
And so certain
That they did not fear losing it

They lived so nobly
That those who the day before
Still looked at them as their equals
Or even something less
Now admired
Their power their wealth and their genius
For is there anything that elevates you
Like having loved a dead man or a dead woman
One becomes so pure that one arrives
In the glaciers of memory
At blending with the memory
One is fortified for life
And no longer needs anyone

Guillaume Apollinaire

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