NaPoMo Day 13 Translation

The return home
Jacques Prévert
from Paroles
French version here

There’s a man from Brittany who returns to his mother country
After having done several bad things
He walks past the factories of Douarnenez
He doesn’t recognize anyone
No one recognizes him
He is very sad.
He enters a creperie to eat crepes
But he can’t eat them
He has something that stops them from passing
He pays
He leaves
He lights a cigarette
But he can’t smoke it
There is something
Something in his head
Something bad
He is more and more sad
And suddenly he remembers:
Someone told him when he was small
“You will finish on the scaffold”
And through the years
He never dared do anything
Not even cross the road
Not even go to sea
Nothing absolutely nothing
He remembers
The one who predicted all this was his uncle Gresillard
Uncle Gresillard who carried unhappiness to everyone
Oh man!
And the man from Brittany thinks of his sister
Who works at Vaugirard
Of his brother killed in war
Thinks of all the things he has seen
All the things he has done.
The sadness tightens around him
He tries anew
To light a cigarette
But he does not want to smoke
So he decides to go to his Uncle Gresillard’s house
He goes there
He opens the door
The uncle doesn’t recognize him
But he recognizes him
And he says
“Hello uncle Gresillard”
And then he twists his neck
And he finishes on the scaffold in Quimper
After having eaten two dozen crepes
And smoked one cigarette.