Small Lives

141 Pages·2012·0.81 MB·English

by  Deshays, Michon, Pierre, Gladding, Jody

Pierre Michon
Small Lives
Translated from the French
by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays
archipelago books
English Translation Copyright © Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays, 2008
Copyright © Pierre Michon, Editions Gallimard, 1984
First Archipelago Books Edition
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without prior written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Michon, Pierre, 1945 –
[Vies miniscules. English]
Small lives / by Pierre Michon;
translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-9357447-0-2
I. Gladding, Jody, 1955– II. Deshays, Elizabeth. III. Title.
PQ2673.I298V513 2008
843'.914–dc22 2007050889
Archipelago Books
232 Third St. #A111
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.archipelagobooks.org
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
www.cbsd.com
Cover art: Portrait of a One-Eyed Man by Vincent van Gogh, 1888
This publication was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation,
the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts,
a state agency, and the French Ministry of Culture.
to Andrée Gayaudon
Contents
The Life of André Dufourneau
The Life of Antoine Peluchet
The Lives of Eugène and Clara
The Lives of the Bakroot Brothers
The Life of Father Foucault
The Life of Georges Bandy
The Life of Claudette
The Life of the Little Dead Girl
Par malheur, il croit que les petites gens
sont plus réels que les autres.
ANDRÉ SUARÉS
Small Lives
The Life of André Dufourneau
Let us explore a genesis for my pretensions.
Was one of my ancestors a fine captain, a young, insolent ensign, or fiercely
taciturn slave trader? East of the Suez, some uncle gone back to Barbary in a
cork helmet, wearing jodhpur boots and a bitter smile, a stereotype warmly
endorsed by younger branches of the family, by renegade poets, all those
dishonored ones full of honor, shadow, and memory, the black pearls of the
family trees? Did I have some colonial or seafaring antecedent?
The province I am speaking of has no coasts, beaches, or reefs; no exalted
Saint-Maloin or haughty Moco hears the call of the sea when the west winds,
purged of salt and coming from far off, pour over the chestnut trees there.
Nevertheless, two men familiar with those chestnut trees no doubt took shelter
there from the rain, perhaps they loved and certainly they dreamed there, then
sought very different trees under which to work and suffer, not to assuage their
dreams, perhaps to continue to love, or simply to die. One of these men I have
heard about; the other I believe I remember.
Once in the summer of 1947, under the big chestnut tree in Les Cards, my
mother carried me in her arms to the place where the village road can suddenly
be seen emerging, hidden until that point by the wall of the pigsty, hazel trees,
shadows. It was a beautiful day, my mother no doubt wearing a light dress, me
babbling; on the road, preceded by his shadow, was a man unknown to my