English translation below.Quelques Extraits...
''Je l'imaginai ce chef pâtissier qui venait de passer devant moi. Je l'imaginais se lever tôt chaque matin de chaque jour de chaque semaine de son gros édredon en lui espérant une chambre chaude et confortable que je soupçonnais de ne pas être et le voyais traverser la neige dans le noir de la nuit pour aller faire ses gâteaux pour mille et quelques euros. Ils régaleraient de toute une saison les riches clients de l'hôtel sans que jamais ils ne l'eussent même aperçu une seule fois ni pensé à son existence. Seul sur son piano de cuisine allumé des lumières crues des néons sous son chapeau pointu à mettre croissants petits pains et brioches au four dans le silence des suites endormies que couvrait son poste de radio, il préparait sa pâte de tartes aux myrtilles, ses lits de chocolat et ses forêts noires, ses mille feuilles et ses opéras au milieu des oeufs, du beurre et des confitures les mains dans la farine pour des clopinettes de misère. Et le mot rimait à la perfection avec son salaire. L'annonce lui proposait aussi de nombreux avantages. Ils étaient immenses avec ses dix heures de travail journalier et son jour de repos hebdromadaire. Je pensais encore à Prévert. À la poésie qui est partout comme Dieu n'est nulle part.''
Un travail saisonnier / Seasonal work.
''I imagined what that Pastry Chef's life in two capital letters could be. I could imagine him waking up every morning of every single day of each week, jumping out of his quilt hoping he had a warm and comfortable room which I doubted to be. I could see him walking in the snow through the dark of the night on his way to bake cakes. They would delight during the entire season the rich clients that would never even see his face nor think of his existence. Early morning on his own he would work on his piano kitchen under the bright white neon lights putting croissants, brioches and fresh bread in the oven wearing his chef's tall hat, covering the silence of the asleep suites with the sound of the radio. He would prepare the pastry for his bilberries pies, would make the chocolate melt for his black forest cakes, and would, in the middle of eggs butter and flour, get at the end of the month his salary. The rhyme sounded absolutely perfect with misery. The ad was also proposing him lots of benefits. Ten hours a day work, one day off, skis and poles and shoes and a ski pass for the season. I just hoped that he could ski. I wished him so bad even though he would arrive by the time the ski slopes close, too tired anyway to let himself go to the pleasure of skiing and other pleasures which he could hardly even think of I guessed. I was thinking of him in his late afternoons having diner at six with his colleagues sitting at a long wooden table covered by an off white oilcloth that was bored a hole here and there by cigarettes butts, eating last evening's restaurant's left overs. He was wearing his gray and white little stripes plaid pants under a chef white jacket with ventilation holes under the arms with no pocket and no collar. Once fed on the house, he would go to his room and change to put his blue jeans on ready to cross the street dressed as a civilian to the nearest local workers pub to drink a beer or two, headlong facing the bar counter, his eyes getting red by too much smoke and fatigue. That was his only color. His only trifle. There was not much room left for me to think of the space and time of his monthly salary life. And it made me cry. For I loved this Pastry Chef. But my life from Singapore to Paris could not trace his. There is no way I was about to go and work to some subliminal job and reach the luxury that would fill in my search of lost teenager days.''
Un travail saisonnier / Seasonal work.
''I imagined what that Pastry Chef's life in two capital letters could be. I could imagine him waking up every morning of every single day of each week, jumping out of his quilt hoping he had a warm and comfortable room which I doubted to be. I could see him walking in the snow through the dark of the night on his way to bake cakes. They would delight during the entire season the rich clients that would never even see his face nor think of his existence. Early morning on his own he would work on his piano kitchen under the bright white neon lights putting croissants, brioches and fresh bread in the oven wearing his chef's tall hat, covering the silence of the asleep suites with the sound of the radio. He would prepare the pastry for his bilberries pies, would make the chocolate melt for his black forest cakes, and would, in the middle of eggs butter and flour, get at the end of the month his salary. The rhyme sounded absolutely perfect with misery. The ad was also proposing him lots of benefits. Ten hours a day work, one day off, skis and poles and shoes and a ski pass for the season. I just hoped that he could ski. I wished him so bad even though he would arrive by the time the ski slopes close, too tired anyway to let himself go to the pleasure of skiing and other pleasures which he could hardly even think of I guessed. I was thinking of him in his late afternoons having diner at six with his colleagues sitting at a long wooden table covered by an off white oilcloth that was bored a hole here and there by cigarettes butts, eating last evening's restaurant's left overs. He was wearing his gray and white little stripes plaid pants under a chef white jacket with ventilation holes under the arms with no pocket and no collar. Once fed on the house, he would go to his room and change to put his blue jeans on ready to cross the street dressed as a civilian to the nearest local workers pub to drink a beer or two, headlong facing the bar counter, his eyes getting red by too much smoke and fatigue. That was his only color. His only trifle. There was not much room left for me to think of the space and time of his monthly salary life. And it made me cry. For I loved this Pastry Chef. But my life from Singapore to Paris could not trace his. There is no way I was about to go and work to some subliminal job and reach the luxury that would fill in my search of lost teenager days.''
No comments:
Post a Comment