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The windows were open. The drawing room
Illuminated cast the glow of a conflagration,
And great shafts of light ran along the lawn;
The park, over there, seemed to answer the melodies
Of the orchestra, and made a murmur in the distance.
All laden with the scents of leaves and hay,
The warm air of the night, like a soft breath,
Came to caress our shoulders, mingling
The emanations of the woods and the plain
With those of perfumed flesh, and troubling
With an oscillation the flame of the candles.
We breathed the flowers of the fields and of the hair.
Sometimes, crossing the widening shadows,
A cold breath, fallen from the sky riddled with fires,
Brought to us something like a smell of stars.
The women watched, seated languidly,
Silent, eyes drowned, from moment to moment
The curtains swell as sails do,
And dreamed of a departure across that golden sky,
Across that great ocean of stars. A tenderness
Sweet oppressed them, like a stronger need
To love, to tell, with a voice that caresses,
All those vague secrets a heart can hold.
The music sang and seemed perfumed;
The night perfuming the air seemed to be rhythmic,
And one thought one heard stags bellowing in the distance.
But a shiver passed among the white dresses;
Everyone left their place and the orchestra fell silent,
For behind a black wood, on a pointed hill,
One could see rising, like a fire in the branches,
The enormous red moon through the fir trees.
And then it emerged at the summit, all round,
And climbed, solitary, in the depths of the distant skies,
Like a pale face wandering around the world.
Everyone scattered along the shadowy paths
Where, on the blond sand, like a sleeping water,
The moon scattered its charming light.
The soft night made men amorous,
Lighting a flame deep in their gazes.
And the women walked, grave, heads bowed,
All having a little moonlight in their souls.
The breezes carried languors of sin.
I wandered, and without knowing why, my heart rejoicing.
A small sharp laugh made me turn my head,
And I suddenly perceived the lady I loved,
Alas! discreetly, for never
Had she ceased to be rebellious to my wishes:
“”Your arm, and let’s take a turn in the park,”” she said.
She was gay and wild and mocked everything,
Claimed the moon looked like a widow:
“”The path is too long to go all the way,
For I have fine shoes and my dress is new;
Let’s turn back.”” I took her arm and led her on.
Then she ran, vagabond and whimsical,
And the wind of her dress, blown at random,
Disturbed the sleeping air with a gust of wind.
Then she stopped, panting; and gently
We walked without a sound all along an alley.
Low voices spoke in the night, tenderly,
And, among the murmurs with which the shadow was peopled,
One sometimes made out something like the sound of a kiss.
Then she would throw a trill up to the sky!
Quickly everything fell silent. One heard passing
A rapid flight; and some sullen lover
Left alone cursed the indiscreet.
A nightingale sang in a tree, quite near,
And in the plain, far off, a quail answered.
Suddenly, wounding the eyes with its brutal reflection,
There rose, all white, a high wall,
Like in a tale a palace of metal.
It seemed to watch our passage from afar.
“”Light is propitious to whoever wishes to stay wise,””
She told me. The woods are too dark, the night.
Let’s sit a while before this wall that shines.””
She sat down, laughing to see me cursing her.
Deep in the sky, the moon also seemed to laugh at me!
And both together, I don’t quite know why,
Seemed to be preparing to mock me.
So we were seated before the great pale wall;
And I, I did not dare to say to her: “”I love you!””
But as I was suffocating, I took both her hands.
She had a slight curl of her coquettish lip
And let me come like a hunter who lies in wait.
Dresses, passing at the end of the black paths,
Sometimes cast into the shadow a doubtful whiteness.
The moon covered us with its paled rays
And, wrapping us in its milky clarity,
Melted our hearts, softened at its sight.
It glided very high, very placid and very slow,
And penetrated our flesh with a troubling languor.
I watched my companion, and I felt growing
In my clenched being, in my senses, in my soul,
That strange torment into which a woman throws us
When the fever of desire ferments within us!
When one has, each night, in the turmoil of dreams,
The consenting kiss, the “”yes”” of a closed eye,
The adorable unknown of dresses one lifts,
The body that abandons itself, motionless and swooning,
And when in reality the lady leaves us
Only the hope of surprising a moment of weakness!
My throat was parched; and ardent shivers
Came to me, making my teeth clash together,
A fury of a slave in revolt, and the joy
Of my strength able to seize, like a prey,.
That proud and calm woman, whom suddenly
I would make sob with her tranquil disdain!
She laughed, mocking, shamelessly pretty;
Her breath made a fine vapor
Of which I was thirsty. My heart leaped; a madness
Took me. I seized her in my arms. She was afraid,
Stood up. I clasped her waist in anger,
And I kissed, bending her nervous body beneath me,
Her eye, her forehead, her moist mouth and her hair,
The moon, triumphant, shone with clear gaiety.
Already I was taking her, impetuous and strong,
When I was repelled by a supreme effort.
Then our frantic struggle began again
Near the wall that seemed a stretched canvas.
Now, in a sudden lunge having turned around,
We saw an astonishing and comic spectacle.
Tracing in the light two disordered bodies,
Our shadows stirred a strange mimicry,
Drawing together, moving apart, embracing in turn.
They seemed to play some buffoonery,
With mad gestures of puppets in fury,
Oddly sketching the caricature of Love.
They wriggled, farcical or convulsive,
Butted heads like rams;
Then, suddenly straightening their excessive heights,
Remained fixed, upright like two great pillars.
Sometimes, unfolding four gigantic arms,
They pushed each other away, black on the white wall,
And, suddenly seized by grotesque tendernesses,
Seemed to swoon in a burning kiss.
The thing being very gay and very unexpected,
She began to laugh. – And how to get angry,
Struggle and forbid lips to approach
When one is laughing? An instant of lost gravity
More than a burning heart can save a lover!
The nightingale sang in its tree. The moon
From the depths of the serene sky sought in vain
Our two shadows on the wall and saw only one.
Guy de Maupassant
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-the-wall-guy-de-maupassant/