The Soldier’s Tale
four fragments

The Reader

Between two towns upon a road,

There’s a soldier going home...

Just two weeks of leave he’s got,

And he’s walked now very far.

He’s walked, he’s walked so very much.

Can’t wait to get there, in a rush,

Because he’s walked so very much.

The Soldier

Miss, at present, I can tell,

You shall surely be made well.

I come to you this very day,

Because at present there’s a way.

I’ll be there, I’ll take a chance,

Because I’m found again at last,

I’ll be there, I feel quite set,

I’ve been saved from certain death;

I’ll save you from certain death.

The Devil

For the moment that’ll do,

But the kingdom’s not so huge;

Whoever dares cross the line,

Into my grasp he falls in fine.

Go not beyond the bounds permitted you,

Or else the Missus must perforce take to her bed anew;

And, as for the prince her spouse,

Let him know well, my patience is out.

I shall bring him down below,

Where on a spit alive he’ll go.

The Reader

You must not ever wish to add,

Unto what you have what you had,

You cannot be at one same time,

What you are now and what that’s past.

You have to be able to choose. You’ve no right

To have it all: that’s forbidden.

One great joy is all great joy:

Two, that’s as if they weren’t.

“I’ve everything”, is what he thinks.

Yet one day she, she says to him:

“I still know nothing of your life,

Tell me, tell me of your life.”

“It was at the time, much older,

At the time I was a soldier;

Much older with mother in the village,

Distant, now, and I forgot how.”

C.-F. Ramuz