Latgalistikys kongresu materiali, III. 2011. - Latvijas Universitāte

In the texts where the author evokes his wife and his daughter,
tenderness, but also a great optimism, are felt everywhere; he is not
doubtful of the fact that he will find again that momentarily lost happiness.
One might also wonder here if it not a matter of some kind of autosuggestion.
Once again, if the author recalls his family, he does it only in
the context of their living place, the town of Châtelet which he loved
above all.
Soye, soye, Marîye qui soye, / Su l’ trotwêr d’èmon Roscây, / Dji ratind
qu’èle s’èn-n-èvâye / Du coûrs dèl Crwès Roudje...
‘Saw, saw, sawing Mary, / On the pavement of the café Roscaille, / I ’m
waiting for her to get out of the Red Cross class...’ (“Plouve” ‘Rain’, p. 56)
A revealing detail found in the poem “Ô bôrd du Rhône” ‘By the
Rhone’ is the following one: in the main body of that poem, the author
does not mention the name of the French river, but he uses the name of the
watercourse which bathes his town, namely the Sambre river; this is a
form of reappropriation of his living place.
Vo man, avou s’ tchapia as-éles, / Pôjêre come li batia qui duveut ridér /
Su Sambe, pa d’rî zèles, a lèyi montér / Dissus sès lèpes, dins sès-oûys, tout
li / Lôme qui suke si keûr môgré lès-angouches / Èt lès zines.
‘Your mother, with her straw hat, / Quiet like the boat that must have
been gliding / Over the Sambre, behind them, has let go up / On her lips,
into her eyes, all the / Honey that sweetens her heart in spite of her
anxieties / And her hare-brained ideas.’
(“Ô bôrd du Rhône” ‘By the Rhone’, p. 82)
As we already said above, there is no trace in those texts of hostile
feelings, of hatred which some would suppose to find there; there are no
portraits of grotesque jailers, but there is of course an underlying
questioning about the uselessness of the suffering caused by war. Besides,
a short poem “Droci” ‘Here’ sums up the whole anthology and is worth
being used here as a conclusion.
Nos-ârons apris, / Branmint, toudis, / A r’trouvér sins mô, sins rûjes / Çu
qu’i-gn-a d’ pus simpe, / Çu qu’i-gn-a d’ mèyeû, / Li pirète di l’ome / Mins
çu qu’i-gn-a d’ pus pîre ètou: Lès broûs.
‘We will have learned, / Much, / To find again easily / The simplest, /
And the best, / In us / The basest also: / Mud.’ (“Droci” ‘Here’, p. 52)
Source
Émile Lempereur. Greifswald — Powènes di prijonîs / illustrations d’Angela Mahler.
Charleroi: “èl bourdon”, 2010.
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