Author: M. Miller

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Le Homard et le Crabe

One of my favorite authors of books for very young children is Arnold Lobel. His most famous works are the Frog and Toad series, though I’m particularly fond of two of his other books, Grasshopper on the Road and Uncle Elephant. Lobel also published an award-winning collection of fables aimed at a slightly older audience, though I’m not sure if that’s 8-year-olds or 80-year-olds. A while back I was studying the passé simple (the literary past) in my weekly lesson. We read a couple of French fables and talked about their use of that tense, as well as other stylistic conventions. The optional homework was to write my own fable using the same style. I wasn’t interested in writing a new fable, but immediately thought to translate a Lobel fable into French. It took me a couple years to get around to it (hey, the homework was optional!), but I am happy I did.

After I wrote and revised my translation solo, I worked with one of my teachers to refine it. I’ve posted below each version, as well as the original English text.

Translating was an interesting undertaking, not one I’ve done much of. I am eager to try translating a few more of Lobel’s fables. It appears that an official French edition of Arnold Lobel’s Fables was published in 2003. I haven’t found any of the translations on line, nor the name of the translator. I’m not all that interested in finding it, as I’d rather translate the fables on my own in a vacuum. But perhaps someday I’ll find and consult it.

Version française (traduit par David Miller et Virginie Bordier)

Le Homard et le Crabe

 Par un jour d’orage, le Crabe se promenait sur la plage. Il fut étonné de voir le Homard en train de préparer son bateau pour un voyage.
  «Homard», dit le Crabe, «c’est de la folie de se hasarder un jour pareil.»
  «Peut-être», dit le Homard, «mais j’adore les tempêtes en mer!»
  «Je vous accompagne», dit le Crabe. «Je ne vous laisse pas affronter seul un tel danger».
  Le Homard et le Crabe entamèrent leur voyage. Bientôt ils se trouvèrent loin du rivage. Leur bateau se faisait balloter et remuer par les eaux tumultueuses. 
  «Crabe!» hurla le Homard au-dessus du bruit du vent. «Quant à moi, l’éclaboussure d’écume salée est exaltante. Chaque vague qui se brise me coupe le souffle»
  «Homard, je pense que nous coulons!» cria le Crabe.
  «Mais, bien sûr que nous coulons,» dit le Homard. «Ce vieux bateau est plein de trous. Soyez brave, mon ami. Rappelez-vous que nous sommes tous les deux des créatures marines.» 
  Le petit bateau chavira et sombra.
  «Quelle horreur!», cria le Crabe.
  «C’est parti!» hurla le Homard.
  Le Crabe était ébranlé et bouleversé. Le Homard l’emmena aller faire un tour au fond de l’océan pour se calmer.
  «Que nous sommes courageux !» dit le Homard. «Quelle aventure merveilleuse nous avons faite!»
  Petit à petit, le Crabe commença à se sentir mieux. Bien qu’il préféra d’habitude une vie plus tranquille, il dut reconnaître qu’il avait apprécié cette journée hors du commun.

Même une prise de risque infime pimente l’existence.

Version française (traduit par David Miller seul)

Le Homard et le Crabe

Un jour orageux, le Crabe se promenait sur la plage. Il était étonné de voir le Homard en train de préparer son bateau pour un voyage.
  «Homard», dit le Crabe, «c’est de la folie de voguer pendant un tel jour.»
  «Peut-être», dit le Homard, «mais j’adore la tempête sur la mer!»
  «Je vous accompagne», dit le Crabe. «Je ne vous laisse pas confronter seule un tel danger.»
  Le Homard et le Crabe entamma leur voyage. Bientôt ils se trouvèrent loin du rivage. Leur bateau se faisait bousculer et basculer par l’eau remuante.
  «Crabe!» hurla le Homard au-dessus du bruit du vent. «Quant à moi, l’éclaboussure d’écume salée est excitante. Avec chaque vague qui brise j’ai le souffle coupé.»
  «Homard, je pense que nous coulons!» cria le Crabe.
  «Mais, bien sûr, nous coulons,» dit le Homard. «Ce vieux bateau est plein de trous. Soyez brave, mon ami. Rappelez, nous sommes tous les deux êtres de la mer.» 
  Le petit bateau chavira et coula.
  «Nom de Dieu!», cria le Crabe.
  «C’est parti!» hurla le Homard.
  Le Crabe était ébranlé et bouleversé. Le Homard l’emmena faire une randonnée calmante sur le sol de l’océan. 
  «Nous sommes si courageux,» dit le Homard. «Quelle aventure merveilleuse avons-nous faite!»
  Petit à petit, le Crabe commença à se sentir mieux. Bien qu’il préféra d’habitude une vie plus tranquille, il dut reconnaître que ce jour-là eut été agréablement extraordinaire.

Même un petit peu de péril ajoute l’éclat à l’existence.

Version anglaise (par Arnold Lobel)

The Lobster and the Crab

On a stormy day, the Crab went strolling along the beach. He was surprised to see the Lobster preparing to set sail in his boat.
“Lobster,” said the Crab, “it is foolhardy to venture out on a day like this.”
“Perhaps so,” said the Lobster, “but I love a squall at sea!”
“I will come with you,” said the Crab. “I will not let you face such danger alone.”
The Lobster and the Crab began their voyage. Soon they found themselves far from shore. Their boat was tossed and buffeted by the turbulent waters.
“Crab!” shouted the Lobster above the roar of the wind. “For me, the splashing of the salt spray is thrilling! The crashing of every wave takes my breath away!”
“Lobster, I think we are sinking!” cried the Crab.
“Yes, of course, we are sinking,” said the Lobster. “This old boat is full of holes. Have courage, my friend. Remember, we are both creatures of the sea.”
The little boat capsized and sank.
“Horrors!” cried the Crab.
“Down we go!” shouted the Lobster.
The Crab was shaken and upset. The Lobster took him for a relaxing walk along the ocean floor.
“How brave we are,” said the Lobster. “What a wonderful adventure we have had!”
The Crab began to feel somewhat better. Although he usually enjoyed a quieter existence, he had to admit that the day had been pleasantly out of the ordinary.

Even the taking of small risks will add excitement to life.

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Learning Log, 2021 Week 36

I’m logging what I do each week to improve my French. Maybe it will motivate me to do more. No need to post the details here, but I’ll see if posting a skeleton log of my actions helps motivate me to keep it up. I’ll update this post over the week rather than make new articles each time.

  • J’ai fait…
    • GPdF Chapitre 4: Les Temps de l’indicatif.
      • Les Passés
        • Mettez les verbes au passé composé, puis imaginez une suite à cette histoire.
    • GPdF Chapitre 5: Le Subjonctif
      • Emplois du subjonctif.
        • Répondez en utilisant le subjonctif selon le modèle.
  • J’ai lu …
    • La Nuit des temps, de René Barjavel, pp 238 – 410.
  • J’ai écrit …
  • J’ai écouté à …
  • Cours particulier (x2)
    • Tout, toute, tous, toutes.
    • Conversation.

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Songs for Grammar: Embrasse-les tous

Césaire de Heisterbach

I’ve often heard the advice that it’s a mistake to learn vocabulary words in isolation, either as memorized english translations of French word or as memorized French synonyms of a French word. Better, says the recommendation, to remember a sentence that uses the target word so that you learn it in context. I’ve found this advice hard to implement, as I have difficulty remembering whole sentences, especially for the full range of words I’m trying to learn.

But this technique may be more viable for grammar rules. This morning I was doing an exercice on the words tout, toute, tous, and toutes. One of the examples shown was an excerpt from Césaire de Heisterbach, who chronicled the siege of Béziers (between Narbonne and Montpellier) in 1209. It contains this well known (if often re-attributed) passage:

«Comment distinguer les hérétiques des catholique», se demandait-on lors de la prise de la ville de Béziers où vivaient de nombreux cathares, en 1209.

«Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens», répondit Arnaud Amaury, légat du pape Innocent III.»

“How shall we distinguish the heathens from the catholics?”, they wondered upon capturing the city of Beziers which, in 1209, still housed many Cathars.

“Kill them all, God will know his own,” replied Arnaud Amaury, the representative of Pope Innocent III.

Ah yes, a classic in the annals of tactics. Bloodshed aside, the point of this passage was illustrate that the word tous, when used as a pronoun meaning “everyone, all of them”, comes after an imperative verb, and also after any direct object there may be. Thus «Tuez-les tous» and not «Tous les tuez», «Tuez-tous-les», etc. Moreover, because «tous» is a pronoun here you pronounce the final “s” rather than leaving it silent as you would in «Tous les deux» or «tous les gens» where it is an adjective. That makes this Béziers passage less than ideal as a canonical example. Even if I overcame my qualms about memorizing a passage about killing heathens, there’s no hint to help me remember to pronounce that final “s”.

Fortunately for me, there preamble to the exercise gives a second example that is right up my alley: a Georges Brassens song excerpt!

De Pierre à Paul en passant par Félicien
Embrasse-les tous, Embrasse-les tous
Dieu reconnaîtra le sien
Passe-les tous par tes armes
Passe-les tous par tes charmes
Jusqu’à ce que l’un deux les bras en croix
Tourne de l’oeil dans tes bras

From Peter to Paul, by way of Félicien
Kiss them all, kiss them all
God will know his own
Dazzle them all with your wiles
Favor them all with your smiles
Til one of them faints in your arms
Swept of his feet by your charms

I love the reference that Brassens makes in this song, and I am thankful to the authors of this grammar text for drawing my attention to it. I vaguely knew the “Kill them all and let god sort it out” line, but didn’t know the particular french structure of it, nor did I think of it when I first herd the Brassens song. I thought he was just doing his usual anarchy-and-free-love thing. But it’s a great bit of literary jiu-jitsu to add in his anti-clericalism and turn the Church-inspired slaughter into an endorsement of promiscuity. That said, if you look past the sentimental and nostalgic music, there’s still a bit of misogyny to these American-in-2020 ears

Anyway, from a pedagogical view point I like this example is a better fit for me. It has the advantage that it is a song with music, which makes it easier for me to remember, and also that I can listen to the recording of Brassens singing it and pronouncing the final “s”.

It so happens that I know another Brassens song, even more ribald, which shows the contrasting pronunciation of «tous» when used as an adjective «Tous les gars».

Quand Margot dégrafait son corsage
Pour donner la gougoutte à son chat
Tous les gars, tous les gars du village
Étaient là, lalala la la la
Étaient là, lalala la la la

When Margot would unclip her blouse
To let her cat nurse from her breasts
All the men, all the men of the village
Would come hooting and howling
Lalala la la la!

If you listen to the whole song, Margot is presented as a simple (but wise?) shepherdess, innocently thinking that the men are there to see a cute kitty-cat that she had adopted when its mother was lost. The men are happy to let her think whatever she like so long as they get their daily peep show. The women of the village are none too happy about it, though, and end up organizing themselves and beating the cat to death. Margot is distraught by this turn of events, takes herself a husband, and from then only shows her charms to him only. Echos of Il était une bergère if you think about it (translation).

And just in case you thought it was only men who sang ribald Brassens songs, here’s a recording of Patachou singing the same song. Recall that Patachou (née Henriette Ragon) is the cabaret nightclub singer who discovered Brassens in 1952, first singing his songs on stage and later getting him up on stage to perform them himself. According to her account, she convinced him to sing because some of his songs were told in the first person by an obviously male character, and presenting audiences with a woman singing them was too much of a stretch.

Finally, I can’t resist including this all-instrumental version of Brave Margot, posted just a few months ago by a classical guitarist

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Touchez pas à la charentaise!

Les charentaises are a particular style of slippers made in La Charente, a department of France some 80 miles north east of Bordeaux. I’ve driven past it, but never gone there. These slippers have been made in La Charente for over 350 years, first by hand and then by machine. They were originally intended for military and rural life, as a comfortable indoor shoe that you could keep on all day long while you donned and doffed your outdoor boots or wooden shoes. A number of charentaises-making factories opened there in the first years of the 20th century, and they started aggressively exporting the slippers globally in the 1950s. At its peak in the 1970s, this French industry was exporting over a million pairs of slippers each year. Together with a beret and a baguette, a pair of charentaises became part of the French caricature.

The global center of shoe manufacturing today is in Asia, as China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia account for 75% of all output. While French production of slippers fell precipitously in the past 50 years, it’s having something of a resurgence, both in La Charente and in Brittany. The French government has been pursuing a “Made in France” industrial initiative for the past few years, and generally has a soft spot for saving culturally iconic production. My French teacher assigned me to watch a documentary about the re-opening of one of the original charentaise factories and write a response about the importance (or not) of preserving industries like this.

Here’s my rather rambling response, after applying corrections suggested by my teacher N.M. In other posts I include both my original draft and the final draft after editing in order to display my errors. But as this post is long enough already, I’m posting only the final draft.

Version rédigé avec N.M.

C’est quoi la forme de la vie? La pomme est ronde, un cristal de sel est cubique, la coquille d’un escargot est spirale. Quelle est la morphologie de la vie? Dans son livre La Maison de joie: Une histoire de la vie et de la mort, l’historienne Jill Lepore constate que de l’Antiquité à la Lumière les peuples de l’Ouest ont imaginé que la vie est comme un cercle. On est né, on reçoit la sagesse et les traditions du passé, on habite dans la maison de son père, on laboure les champs de son grand-père, et on mange les recettes de ses arrières grand-mères. Au cours des années, on grandit, on a des enfants, et on leur apprend à faire comme leurs parents. Finalement on vieillit, on sourit aux petits-enfants, on leur enseigne les comptines patrimoniales, et on meurt conforté par le fait que le cercle recommence.

Pourtant depuis la Lumière, cette notion d’une vie cyclique a été remplacée par la vie linéaire. On utilise la raison pour améliorer les techniques. On progresse. On grimpe vers le sommet, on se hisse à l’échelle. L’arrivée de l’industrialisation et des idées de Darwin au XIXe siècle a accéléré cette réorientation de la conception de la vie. On doit construire, accumuler, foncer plus loin ou plus vite. Regardez les milliardaires de nos jours, messieurs Bezos et Branson, qui se hâtent de se lancer dans l’espace. Ruons-nous vers l’avenir!

Mais faites attention! Parce qu’on ne peut pas être au four et au moulin. En se dépêchant sur la longueur du chemin de progrès, il faut qu’on lâche maintes coutumes du passé. On ne peut pas dire «Rien à jeter» en surchargeant les malles de notre culture actuelle. Nos boulevards sont ou pour les chevaux, ou pour les automobiles, mais pas les deux. Un stationnement au centre ville est ou une écurie ou un parking. Et un travailleur doit choisir un métier, soit fermier, soit ouvrier, soit enseignant, soit avocat. Quel choix fera-t-il?

D’où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?

Ça me rappelle des questions du peintre Paul Gauguin, dont une œuvre est sous-titrée «D’où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?». Parce que la question de «que garder, de quoi se débarrasser» est à son cœur une question d’identité. Pour les circulaires, répondre à ces trois questions est facile. Nous venons d’un chemin déjà arpenté par nos parents; nous sommes des gens qui entournent cette orbite familiale sans aucun souci; nous repasserons les mêmes chemins à nos tours. Mais chez les linéaires, chez les dévots du progrès, les questions d’identité sont plus difficiles. Il faut changer pour s’améliorer, et un changement de mode de vie exige un changement d’identité. Choisir d’abandonner nos pratiques habituelles, de bouleverser nos affaires, c’est choisir de nous laisser mourir un peu pour permettre de faire naître le prochain «nous». Sommes-nous prêts à mourir?

Enfin, au bout de cette route sinueuse, j’arrive au sujet des charentaises. Cette pantoufle particulière est née il y a trois cent cinquante ans. En 1907, Théophile Rondinaud (parmi les autres) à lancé une usine à Rivière en Charente. Dès les années 1950, son fils James Rondinaud exportait ce produit dans le monde entier. Pendant les années 1970, l’usine Rondinaud employait 1300 travailleurs. La Charente était renommée pour ces jolies pantoufles douces. Mais cinquante ans plus tard, c’est la faillite. Les fabricants asiatiques ont surpassé ceux de la Charente, les chiffres d’affaires ont chuté. Même avec une consolidation de quatre fabricants sous le nom «la Manufacture Charentaise» (LMC), et avec la protection inédite du titre d’Indication géographique «charentaise de Charente-Périgord», cette société a dû mettre la clé sous la porte en 2019.

Est-ce qu’il faut être en deuil pour cette industrie française? Il y a deux ans qu’Emmanuel Macron a annoncé son initiative de relocaliser certaines chaînes de valeur pour les produits critiques. La crise sanitaire du Covid-19 a démontré la sagesse de fabriquer les molécules pharmaceutiques intra-pays. Une usine pour faire les semi-conducteurs en France c’est stratégique pour ne pas être dépendant de la Chine pour nos ordinateurs et nos portables incontournables. Mais les pantoufles? Forcément un manque imprévu de chausseurs duveteux ne serait pas une crise nationale. Les orteils patriotiques de la France survivraient.

Ici ce n’est pas une question de nécessité mais d’identité. Si un membre de la famille Rondinaud, comme l’arrière petit-fils Olivier Rondinaud, veut continuer l’entreprise, qu’il y aille. Mais si la rentabilité est insuffisante, on doit poser la question: d’où viendra la subvention? À mon avis, ceux qui s’identifient aux charentaises doivent subventionner eux-mêmes leur fabrication en France. Si c’est Olivier Rondinaud seul, je souhaite qu’il ait une grande fortune personnelle. Si ce sont les travailleurs de l’usine, peut-être qu’ils voudront travailler à des salaires réduits. Enfin, si les habitants du département ou du pays s’identifient profondément avec les charentaises, une subvention nationale serait dans ce cas-là la plus correcte. Pas de problème pour moi.

Mais il se trouvera, peut-être, que les consommateurs de la France préfèrent acheter les pantoufles bon marché, que les contribuables préfèrent renouveler les autoroutes, et que Mais peut-être qu’il se trouve que les consommateurs français préfèreraient acheter des pantoufles bon marché, que les contribuables préféreraient renouveler les autoroutes, et que les électeurs préféreraient revaloriser les salaires des soignants. Évidemment, il y a des limites budgétaires. Donc, qui sont les Français? Un peuple qui donne priorité à ses pieds? Ou un peuple en marche vers l’avenir sur des chemins modernes, avec des soignants correctement payés, mais avec les pieds à la chinoise?

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Learning Log, 2021 Week 35

I’m logging what I do each week to improve my French. Maybe it will motivate me to do more. No need to post the details here, but I’ll see if posting a skeleton log of my actions helps motivate me to keep it up. I’ll update this post over the week rather than make new articles each time.

  • GPdF Chapitre 3: Les Négations
    • La Place de la négation
      • Dites dans les exemples suivant si «ne» est explétif ou s’il est négatif.
      • Créez des interdictions d’après les contextes proposés.
  • GPdF Chapitre 4: Les Temps de l’indicatif.
    • Le Présent
      • Utilisez le présent à la place des passés quand c’est possible pour donner à ce texte un caractère plus vivant.
    • Les Passés
      • Mettez les verbes entre parenthèses à l’imparfait.
  • GPdF Chapitre 5: Le Subjonctif
    • Formation et caractéristiques
    • Utilisez le subjonctif comme dans le modèle.
    • Complétez avec le subjonctif.
  • J’ai regardé …
    • Dix pour cent
      • Juliette (s2 e6) with French audio only.
  • J’ai lu …
    • La Nuit des temps, de René Barjavel, pp 62 – 237
  • J’ai écrit …
  • J’ai écouté …
    • L’Univers . Cours « tout public » Aurélien Barrau.
    • L’Invité de 8h20: Le Grand Entretien (FranceInter)
      • Pierre Rosanvallon : “Il y a un désir d’égalité, que chacun soit reconnu dans sa singularité”
      • Atiq Rahimi, écrivain et réalisateur, et Jean-Pierre Filiu, historien. Afghanistan : “Maintenant les islamistes, les djihadistes partout dans le monde, se disent que c’est possible”
      • “10 à 11% des enseignants pas vaccinés” affirme le ministre Jean-Michel Blanquer
      • Gérard Larcher, président du Sénat, sénateur LR des Yvelines, est l’invité du Grand entretien de France Inter.
      • Bruno Le Maire : “le pass sanitaire n’a ralenti ni la consommation, ni la croissance”
    • Le 7/9 par Nicolas Demorand , Léa Salamé (FranceInter)
      • Sept 1 émission, 70 minutes.
  • Cours particulier

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Learning Log, 2021 Week 34

I’m going to try doing some simple French exercises daily as a supplement to consuming organic language (reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, watching videos). Exercises were a big part of how I learned French in high school, but I haven’t done much with them in the past 10 years. Maybe the habit of a little each day will be helpful.

I randomly picked a source of exercises from my shelf: Grammaire progressive du français (niveau avancé). Long ago I had written in the answers to the first few exercises, so I’m starting with Chapitre 2: L’Adjectif. No need to post the details here, but I’ll see if posting a skeleton log of my actions helps motivate me to keep it up. I’ll update this post over the week rather than make new articles each time.

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Feydeau, Chambre 21

Much has been made of October 2021 as the 100th anniversary of the birth of one famous French Georges, the singer Brassens. But June 2021 was also the 100th anniversary of the death of another famous French Georges, the playwright Georges Feydeau. Feydeau is widely considered the master of French vaudeville, a theater genre we could call “farce” in English (note that this is different from the American “vaudeville show”, which is more a mix of variety acts and short slapstick sketches).

French vaudeville is full of licentious gentlemen, sexually harassed servants, unfaithful wives, and cuckold husbands. There are secret lovers stuffed in closets, hidden under beds or tucked behind drapes. The dialog is witty, double entendres abound, and mistaken meanings («quiproquos») lead to comedy gold. Most of all there is non-stop motion, a frenzy of perfectly timed entrances and exits («portes qui claquent»). The canonical line from a Feydeau vaudeville show is «Ciel, mon mari!», declared by an adulterous woman who has just discovered her husband is about enter the scene where she is entertaining a lover. English language works like “Charlie’s Aunt” or “Noises Off” are direct cultural descendants of vaudeville as elaborated by Feydeau. And of course Feydeau’s work owes much to Molière’s comedy and to commedia dell arte before that.

This framed poster from 1896 hangs in the Théâtre du Palais-Royale, where I photographed it in 2018.

Feydeau enjoyed great success in the Paris theaters for over 30 years. He started writing plays in 1882, debuting his first smash hit Tailleur pour dames in 1886. He continued delivering money-makers for decades, titles like Monsieur chasse!, Champignol malgré lui, Le Dindon, La Puce à l’oreille and Je ne trompe pas mon mari! Feydeau had penned over 40 plays when his final play, Hortense a dit : « Je m’en fous ! », was produced in 1916. Sometime afterward he contracted syphilis. Feydeau spent the last two years of his life in a sanatorium in Rueil-Malmaison, a suburban community west of Paris, where he routinely experienced megalomania, paranoia, and hallucinations according to reports. He was just 58 years old when he died in 1921.

It is this final period of Feydeau’s life that modern authors Thierry Barbeau and Pierre Berriau have taken as their focus for their play Feydeau, Chambre 21. We follow the ailing and addled Feydeau through his delirium and hallucinations as his experience of life plays out in a fantasia of clever banter and hat tips to his greatest works. All of this is superimposed on early 20th century mental hospital treatments, with a healthy dose of fourth-wall breaking to boot. In addition to airing the story of his sad demise, the play is an homage to Feydeau’s style of vaudeville with super witty dialogue and carefully choreographed traffic patterns.

Many actors explicitly play two characters, a common device which the audience is ready to accept until Feydeau-the-character sees through it and calls it out. The other characters have no idea what Feydeau is talking about and treat this as another symptom of his madness. Feydeau nonetheless coaches them on how to be a better character in a Feydeau play, e.g. teaching them to use theatrical asides properly. Some characters are delighted that they can say whatever they like, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be heard, while others protest that they can hear the offending remarks loud and clear.

Here’s an example of the sort of self-awareness that suffuses the whole script:

Scène 5
Feydeau et Adélaïde (fille de Fouquart) sous les draps d'un lit. Des ébats amoureux.

Fouquart entre en trombe dans la chambre.

FOUQUART: Ma femme, Gabrielle, elle a disparu!
FEYDEAU: Quoi? Mais qu'est-ce ...
FOUQUART: Où est ma femme, Feydeau? Elle est là, n'est-ce pas?
FEYDEAU: Mais je ne sais pas.
FOUQUART: Mais si, elle est là, je la sens. (Montrant furieusement le lit dans lequel se trouve Adélaïde.) Ce lit! Il y a quelqu'un à l'intérieur.
FEYDEAU: Mais non, il n'y a personne.
FOUQUART: Enfin, Feydeau, vous n'allez pas voir vos pièces? Quand quelqu'un dit qu'il n'y a personne dans le lit, c'est qu'il y a quelqu'un.
FEYDEAU: Mais je vous assure que non. C'est un lit vide.
FOUQUART: Un lit vide? Depuis quand y a-t-il des lit vides dans les vaudevilles, ils ne sont jamais vides, croyez-moi, il y a toujours quelqu'un dedans. Et je vais vous le prouver.
FEYDEAU: Mais je vous interdis! Pour qui vous prenez-vous, Fouquart?
FOUQUART: Pour le cocu, monsieur, le cocu. Vous savez très bien ce que c'est un cocu, Feydeau, non? Il faut toujours un cocu dans l'histoire et aujourd'hui, le cocu, c'est moi. (En direction du lit.) Gabrielle, c'est toi mon bébé? 
FEYDEAU: (s'interposant) Je suis chez moi! C'est ma chambre, c'est mon lit.
FOUQUART: Alors mon ami, d'un, le cocu est cocu mais il a des droits que les autres n'ont pas. Et de deux, (désignant le lit) je vous affirme qu'il ya quelqu'un ici.
FEYDEAU: Mais non, je vous dis «personne».
FOUQUART: Il y a quelqu'un. (Il va au lit, soulève les draps, il n'y a personne. La comédienne est passée par une trappe.) Ah non, personne.
FEYDEAU: Ah bon?
FOUQUART: J'aurais pourtant juré que ...
Scene 5
Feydeau and Adélaïde (Fouquart's daughter) are under the sheets of a bed, making love.

Fouquart bursts into the room.

FOUQUART: My wife, Gabrielle, she's disappeared!
FEYDEAU: What? But what ...
FOUQUART: Where is my wife, Feydeau? She's there, isn't she?
FEYDEAU: Well, I don't know. 
FOUQUART: Oh yes, she's in there, I smell her. (Gesticulating furiously at the bed where Adélaïde is.) This bed! There's someone inside. 
FEYDEAU: No, really, there's nobody.
FOUQUART: Come on, Feydeau, don't you go to your own plays? When somebody says there's no one in the bed, there's someone in the bed.
FEYDEAU: But I swear to you, there's no one. It's an empty bed.
FOUQUART: An empty bed? Since when are there empty beds in vaudeville? They are never empty, believe me, there's always somebody inside. And I'm going to prove it. 
FEYDEAU: Wait, I forbid it! Just who do you think you are, Fouquart?
FOUQUART: I'm the cheated husband, sir, the cuckold. You know full well what a "cuckold" is, don't you Feydeau? There's always got to be a cuckold in the story and today, that's me. "Mr. Cuckold." (Turning to the bed) Gabrielle, is that you baby? 
FEYDEAU: (jumping between them) But we're at my place! This is my bedroom, that's my bed.
FOUQUART: Well my friend, in the first place, Mr. Cuckold may be cuckold but he gets some rights that nobody else has. And in the second, (pointing at the bed) I'm telling you there's someone in there.     
FEYDEAU: And I'm telling you "no one".
FOUQUART: There is somebody! (He goes to the bed, lifts up the sheets, but it is empty. The actress has exited via trap door). Huh, nobody. 
FEYDEAU: Oh, really?
FOUQUART: But I could have sworn ...

Broad humor, no doubt.

A set design for Le Dindon, Act II, 1896.

One noteworthy element of the play, possibly standard in Feydeau’s vaudeville, is the foreigner who speaks French with a ridiculous accent (now that I’ve written that, the play “The Foreigner” comes to mind – another show that owes a debt to Feydeau). In this show it’s Le Général-Docteur Azacassasse, a medical quack from Latin America. This bit is far harder to translate, as the phonetic word play doesn’t work outside of French, but the joke is that Azacassasse says «sisse» when he wishes to say «si», which to him is an all purpose “yes”. But the word «sisse» also sounds like «six» (the number 6), while the word «aussi» (meaning “also”) becomes «aussisse», and the phrase “6 also” («six aussi») becomes «sisse aussisse» in the mangled accent, which with elision sounds like «six saucisses» = “six sausages”.

I’ve tried to translate it on the right, taking liberties to preserve some semblance of the wordplay, but it doesn’t really capture the naturalness of the original.

FEYDEAU: Quoi, quoi, «lé ké vou losse»? Ici, il faut parler français.
AZACASSASSE: Ah, sisse?  
FEYDEAU: Mais parfaitement. En France, on parle français. Sinon, on ne comprend rien du tout. Vous, c'est quoi votre langue?
AZACASSASSE: L'ouroulouguaille. 
FEYDEAU: Ah! bon! eh bien, voilà, chacun sa langue chez soi.
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, ma bien sisse! 
FEYDEAU: Ceci dit, je ne suis même pas certain que vous compreniez tout ce que vous êtes en train de dire. 
AZACASSASSE: Euh... Nosse, pa to. 
FEYDEAU: Ah! vous voyez!
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, y'avousse. 
FEYDEAU: Le plus étrange, tout de même, c'est que vous compreniez parfaitement le français que je vous parle.
AZACASSASSE:  Ah, ma tresse bienne, tresse bienne.
FEYDEAU: Il y a quand même un petit problème, non?
AZACASSASSE: Ah, sisse, problème?  
FEYDEAU: No, pas six problèmes, on vous dit qu'il y a un petit problème, un seul.
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, yé dis sisse. 
FEYDEAU: Oui, mais nous, on dit «un».
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, oune.
FEYDEAU: (comprenant) Ah! «sisse» ça veut dire «un» pour vous.
AZACASSASSE:  Nosse, sisse é sisse.
FEYDEAU: Quoi, «sisse et sisse», six et six, douze.
FOUQUART: Bon, Feydeau, le général-docteur n'est pas là pour faire des additions. 
FEYDEAU: (comprenant) Ah! «sisse», ça veut dire «oui».
AZACASSASSE: Sisse! 
FEYDEAU: Mais comment dites-vous «six» alors? Le nombre six?
AZACASSASSE: Euh... Sisse aussisse. 
FEYDEAU: Ah, vous dites «six saucisses»?
AZACASSASSE:  Sisse. Sisse aussisse.
FEYDEAU: Comment voulez-vous qu'on s'y retrouve si vous dites aussi «sisse aussisse»
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, cé pas no kaille. 
FEYDEAU: Ah, c'est le moins qu'on puisse dire, c'est «pas no cailles» du tout.
GABRIELLE: Pour être honnête, c'est vrai qu'on ne comprend pas tout.
FEYDEAU: What's with, «lé ké vou losse»? You must speak french here.
AZACASSASSE: Ah, sisse?  
FEYDEAU: Why of course. In France, you speak French. Otherwise, no one will understand you at all. Say, what's your language?
AZACASSASSE: Ouroulouguaille. 
FEYDEAU: Ah! Good! Well, there you are, when we're in your country, we can speak that.
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, berry good,  sisse! 
FEYDEAU: You know, I'm not really sure you understand all the things you're saying. 
AZACASSASSE: Euh... Nosse, not all. 
FEYDEAU: Ah! there, you see!
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, I sees. 
FEYDEAU: The weirdest thing, though, is that you understand perfectly when I speak to you in French.
AZACASSASSE: Ah, me berry well, berry well.
FEYDEAU: But we still have a small problem, right?
AZACASSASSE: Ah, sisse, problem?  
FEYDEAU: No, not six problems. I said that there's a small problem, just one.
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, I's says sisse. 
FEYDEAU: Right, but we, we say "one".
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, woon.
FEYDEAU: (understanding) Ah! «sisse» for you means "one" for us.
AZACASSASSE:  Nosse, sisse eez sisse.
FEYDEAU: What, «sisse eez sisse», six and six is twelve.
FOUQUART: Look, Feydeau, the Doctor General is not here to do arithmetic. 
FEYDEAU: (comprehension dawning) Ah! «sisse», that means "yes".
AZACASSASSE: Sisse! 
FEYDEAU: But how do you say «six» then? The number six?
AZACASSASSE: Euh... Sisse too. 
FEYDEAU: Ah, you say «six two»?
AZACASSASSE:  Sisse. Sisse oh sisse.
FEYDEAU: What's a guy supposed to do if he has to say «cease see-sawing at seez oh seez"?
AZACASSASSE: Sisse, tha's nosse eezy. 
FEYDEAU: You can say that again. Not easy-peasy in the least.
GABRIELLE: To tell you the truth, even I don't understand what he's saying.

In the end, I’m not a big fan of this play. It has some hilarious, laugh-out-loud scenes, but the concept is not executed all that well. It mostly feels like someone wanted to show off how well they can write Feydeau-style farces, and was taken with the idea of what a manic, drugged out Feydeau must have been like. But I had a hard time getting past the bit about syphilis being a horrible way to die, and how being that disoriented would probably feel pretty scary. I expect it works better as a live spectacle than as a written text to be read. But I’m quite sure that in a live performance with lines delivered at full speed I would have been totally lost.

Feydeau, Chambre 21 was created for the 2021-2022 theater season. Rehearsal photos were taken at Théâtre de la Tour Eiffel, but I’m not sure they have a Paris production nailed down yet. The show poster is for some sort of filmed version maybe? Or a staged version in Nantes? I’m not clear. Either way, I think I’ll content myself with having read the script and move on.

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Odds and Ends

Random French bits I picked up in the past week that don’t merit a post in and of themselves.

  • I watched the first one and a half episodes of the Netflix series Marseille. It’s more or less the French equivalent of House of Cards, but with Gérard Depardieu taking the role of Kevin Spacey. It’s unclear to me how explicitly Netflix meant it to be a direct adaptation of the concept, but others have noticed the obvious parallels as well. One can only hope that Netflix didn’t mean to have their leading actor plagued by sexual assault scandals, but Depardieu seems to have that in common with Spacey as well. So far I’m willing to separate the art from the man and haven’t given up on watching Depardieu films. I’ll see if this TV series is worth watching more of.

  • In this week’s French conversation lesson I found myself explaining how I met a French-teacher friend, and then I found myself explaining my mathematics graduate school career and why I left, and then I found myself explaining my advisor’s research, and next thing you know I’m explaining the five families of modern cryptography schemes and the corresponding hard math problem each one is based on. I was able to get across most of the ideas (and kudos to my teacher for sticking with me on this), but I lacked some of the technical terms in French for various mathematical objects. It’s times like these I wish I had reviewed Cryptographie sur les courbes elliptiques in advance of my lesson.
https://youtu.be/8WTesYp5H8o
  • Google News and YouTube keep feeding me various Georges Brassens materials, which are all the rage as we draw near the 100th anniversary of his birth in October 2021. This one is a particular gem. It’s an hour-long TV program from 1972 (Bienvenue à George Brassens) that has Brassens in a cozy setting surrounded by maybe 100 members of a television audience. The show interleaves performances with interviews, and many of Brassens collaborators are present and participate in the discussions. A large part of the charm of this particular video is the anonymous audience members in all their 1970’s glory. Look at the hair styles, what they are wearing, how and what they smoke, and their reactions to his sometimes ribald songs. I have some sense of what Americans in the 1970’s were like, as I lived through 90% of the seventies and watched plenty of movies and films from that time. But French styles in the 1970s were different, so this is a nifty look back through both time and space.

    Brassens is also charming and disarming with his total lack of pretentiousness.
Rubens, 1 of N
  • I finally got around to watching the final two episodes of the Netflix series Lupin. They were OK, but the plot holes were large enough to drive une fourgonne through. It’s better if you just enjoy the scenes and the acting and don’t worry too much about how it all fits together. I’ve read one Lupin short story long ago, but ordered from my local bookstore one of the re-issues that the success of the Netflix series has spawned. It’s taking a while to arrive, but I’ll read it someday …
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From Marie-France Pisier to Olivier Duhamel

Someone recommended to me the RTL radio show L’Heure de crime, hosted by Jean-Alphonse Richard and available as a podcast. It airs four times per week and each hour-long episode explores some aspect of French crime, prosecution, or justice. I listened to one named L’étrange mort de Marie-France Pisier and learned about the unsavory death of a famous French actor in 2011 and a political pedophilia scandal that followed in 2021.

  • Marie-France Pisier
  • Olivier Duhamel
  • Camille Kouchner
  • Bernard Kouchner
  • Thierry Funck-Brentano
  • Évelyne Pisier-Kouchner

One morning in 2011, the wealthy Mme Pisier was found floating in the middle of her own swimming pool, fully clothed, and with her head lodged between the bars of an iron pool chair. A lengthy investigation proved inconclusive, with suicide, mild drug overdose, and murder all being possible explanations. Autopsy couldn’t even determine if she had drowned or was placed in the water after death. The case was filed away as unresolved and that was that.

Ten years later, her niece Camille Kouchner published dark family secrets in a book La Familia grande that effectively ended the career of Olivier Duhamel (European deputy, political scientist, public intellectual, powerbroker). Duhamel was the second husband of Évelyne Pisier-Kouchner, and was accused of sexual abuse towards multiple adolescents including his step son Antoine (a.k.a. «Victor») Kouchner (Camille’s twin). Marie-France Pisier learned of the abuse before her death and apparently threatened to go public with it if her sister wouldn’t. The non-public already knew of this behavior though: Duhamel’s entourage was aware of it for years and Duhamel himself confessed to his behavior shortly after the book’s publication. He suffered no criminal penalties, though, as Antoine refused to cooperate in filing charges in 2011 or before, and the statute of limitations had run out by 2021.

Meanwhile, the whole family is full of French luminaries. Évelyne’s first husband (and father of one of the abused minors) was Bernard Kouchner (former French foreign minister, minster of health, etc.), while Marie-France Pisier’s husband at the time of her death was Thierry Funck-Brentano, CEO of the 4 billion euro publishing group Lagardère (parent company of Hachette). Given all the wealth and power involved, the never proven suspicion is that foul play caused the death of Marie-France Pisier. Regardless, the accusations, the downfall of Duhamel and the nature of his acknowledged crimes was a major news item for several days this year.

Not a great podcast, but now I know about this important episode in modern French culture.

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Summer Lessons Day 13: Codenames

One last day of vacation, one last lesson with Sofia to close out the series. The focus of our final session was code-names – not the award-winning word game by Vlaada Chvàtil, but the actual French legal code and the actual geographic names of places. We also did some grammar and some writing.

The grammar section touched on the timeline of indicatif verb tenses and how they can indicate the relationship between the action being described and the present moment (or more precisely, the moment where the narration is situating itself). So the plus que parfait comes before the passé composé. The passé récent, présent, and futur proche are all considered as “present-ish” moments. And the futur comes further along in time, with the futur antérieur sneaking in between the present and the future when one needs to talk about sequenced future events.

Mille bornes ou temps borné?

There’s one more commonly used indicative tense I haven’t listed, which is the imparfait. I’ve heard the distinction between the imparfait and the passé composé described in many ways: the passé composé is for one-time actions, while the imparfait is for habitual past actions; the imparfait is for descriptions while the passé composé is for events; the imparfait is for continuous action in the past; the imparfait is for background scenery while the passé composé is for the focus of a narration, the plot. But Sofia gave me a new one that I find helpful: the passé composé is a bounded tense (un temps borné), while the imparfait is an unbounded tense (non borné). If you don’t know (or don’t wish to indicate) when an action finished, use the imparfait. Note that the present is implicitly an unbounded tense, while both plus que parfait and futur antérieur are bounded tenses, as they are only used when you need to indicate an event that has finished before some other event you wish to mention (either past or future relative to now). I don’t know why borné is a more helpful concept to me than “continuous”, but it does give me a new lens for the imparfait / passé composé distinction.

Coding on a Sunday

After the grammar, we watched another montage of “man on the street” interviews (a «micro-trottoir») asking how people felt about working on Sunday. Traditionally most everything is closed on Sunday in France. Originally this was to reserve it for religious observances, but with la laïcité this historical basis has been de-emphasized. The opinions featured in the clip varied, and I expected to be asked to write several paragraphs about my views. But this day’s lesson had a twist on the timed writing exercise: instead of having 25 minutes to write at length in response to a prompt, I had 25 minutes to read a complicated document and then summarize it in under 80 words.

I have a fair amount of experience reading French fiction, and I’ve also read and listened to a decent amount of French news articles, but I haven’t done much with reading more official French documents. Digesting the opening 20 paragraphs of this government-issued review of the laws and regulations surrounding Sunday hours for salaried workers was a comparatively experience. I’ve done something similar when I opened a bank account in France eight years ago and again when I investigated traveling there this summer amid Covid, but that’s about it.

Here’s an example of the text, beginning with an excerpt from the actual Code itself:

Un salarié ne peut travailler plus de 6 jours par semaine : au moins un jour de repos (24 heures auxquelles s’ajoute un repos quotidien minimum de 11 heures) doit lui être accordé chaque semaine et, en principe, le dimanche (repos dominical). Toutefois, le principe du repos dominical connaît plusieurs types de dérogations qui peuvent, selon le cas, être permanentes ou temporaires, soumises ou non à autorisation, applicables à l’ensemble du territoire ou à certaines zones précisément délimitées, etc.

Le fait de méconnaître les dispositions du Code du travail relatives au repos hebdomadaire et au repos dominical est puni de l’amende prévue pour les contraventions de la 5e classe. Les contraventions donnent lieu à autant d’amendes qu’il y a de salariés illégalement employés. Les peines sont aggravées en cas de récidive dans le délai d’un an.

The text is not fundamentally difficult but it is definitely a different register of language than news reporting. Most of the work is in untangling the nuances that are built into the law, though there is also some specialized vocabulary whose meaning I had to deduce on the fly from context. I imagine the comparable English section of Massachusetts state law would have the same feel.

Summarizing 20 paragraphs in 80 words does not leave a lot of room for fancy constructions or even many modifiers. I ended up writing 110 or so naturally and then trimmed it back to reach the limit. We did a quick joint editing afterwards. Here are the two drafts.

Version originale

En général, la loi de travail dit que le dimanche soit un jour de repos pour les salariés. Mais il y a plusieurs exceptions: certains établissement qui s’occupent des besoins de public ou qui bénéficent de travail en continue peuvent obliger leurs salariés à travailler le dimanche. Autres entreprises définies peuvent rester ouvertes le dimanche avec les salariés à volontés. En outre, il y a une dérogation temporaire pour ces entreprises qui luttent contre la Covid-19 en n’importe quelle mesure.

Version corrigée

En général, le code du travail dit que le dimanche doit être un jour de repos pour les salariés. Mais il y a plusieurs exceptions: certains établissements qui s’occupent des besoins du public ou qui produisent en continue peuvent obliger leurs salariés à travailler le dimanche. Les autres entreprises évoquées peuvent rester ouvertes le dimanche avec les salariés volontaires. En outre, il y a une dérogation temporaire pour ces entreprises qui luttent contre la Covid-19 de quelque façon que ce soit.

Name That Rue

Speaking of Sunday, you might know that it is named for a prominent celestial body, as is Monday. Other days are named for the Norse gods Tyr, Wotan, Thor, or Freya. But who decided these things? Do these names represent the diversity of who we are as a society today? And what if the actions of these Norse gods are no longer acceptable to our modern mores – shouldn’t we stop honoring that one weekly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlVhJsgTuqs

These questions seem a bit academic in thinking about days (nobody is about to mount a serious campaign to rebrand Saturday as Parvatiday), but they are very much in play in France when it comes to street names. French streets are old, and many are named after people who did very bad things – ruthlessly slaughtered people in Africa, traded in slaves, mistreated poor workers, abused women etc. And behavior aside, the vast majority of honorees are old European white men. So there is a French movement to rename some of the streets that currently glorify some pretty bad people and a parallel movement to name newly constructed streets for people who belong to underrepresented groups. For example, among French streets named for people only 10% or so are named for women. I imagine it’s not much different in the US.

We looked at two articles discussing this: a news item on the Macron government’s release of a list of suggested names that towns and cities may wish to choose from in naming streets; and, a magazine article about the myths behind Greek place names. We also watched a television report from Belgium about renaming problematic street names. After each one we discussed various prepared question in order to check reading or oral comprehension. The hardest piece for me was the Greek mythology one, primarily because it had dozens of unfamiliar names in it, mythological or actual. I do better understanding mechanisms than I do remembering catalogs of examples, so I had to keep referring back to the text to find the answers to the questions.

I’d say it was all Greek to me, but that’s not expression. When something is incomprehensible they describe it with «c’est de l’hébreu» or else «C’est du chinois». Maybe the French already decided that honoring the Greeks in this way was problematic …