The Silence of the Sea (Le Silence de la Mer)

VERCORS' FAMOUS BOOK

THE SILENCE OF THE SEA

In memory of SAINT-POL-ROUX, assassinated poet.

"This film has no pretension

of solving the problem of Franco-German relations,

for they cannot be solved while the barbarous Nazi crimes,

committed with the complicity of the German people,

remain fresh in men's minds."

And so, he had left.

And so, he submitted, like the others,

like all the others of that miserable nation,

and I tried to etch into my mind the events of these last six months:

Our evenings, his words,

his revolt. Yet not even he, of all men, had the courage

to resist his master's orders.

His arrival was preceded by a major military deployment.

Later, the soldier returned with another.

They spoke in what they thought to be French.

I couldn't understand a word.

However, I showed them the available rooms.

They seemed pleased.

The next morning...

a military touring car entered the garden.

Two soldiers withdrew two crates from it.

The car left,

and a few hours later, I heard hoofbeats.

Three riders appeared.

I later saw they'd driven my workbench clamp into the wall

to tie up the horses in front of my workshop.

For two days, nothing else happened.

I didn't see anyone.

The men rode out early and returned in the evening.

They slept in the straw they'd spread in the hayloft.

On the third day, the car returned.

A set of sheets, please.

My niece had just served coffee, like every evening.

It helps me sleep.

I was seated in the back of the shadowy room.

Excuse me.

My name is Werner von Ebrennac.

I'm sorry to -

Naturally, this is necessary.

Or else I'd have avoided it.

My aide will do his best not to disturb you.

I have great respect for those who love their country.

I'd like to go to my room, but I don't know the way.

My niece opened the door to the stairs and went up

without looking at him, as if she were alone.

He followed.

I noticed that he limped.

My niece returned.

He seems respectable, thank God.

The next morning, the officer entered while we were eating breakfast.

Another stairway leads there, and I don't know if he heard us,

or if he just happened to pass that way.

He said:

I slept very well. I hope you also slept well.

Your old mayor told me I'd stay in a castle.

I'm glad my men made a mistake.

This house is much better than a castle.

That night, he returned at the same time as yesterday.

We were drinking our coffee.

He knocked, but didn't wait for my niece to let him in.

He let himself in.

I fear I'm disturbing you.

If you prefer, I could enter through the kitchen...

and you could lock this door.

I bid you good night.

We never locked that door.

I'm not sure our reasons were very clear or very noble.

By unspoken agreement, my niece and I decided

to change nothing in our lives, not the slightest detail,

as if the officer didn't exist. As if he were a ghost.

But it's possible that another motivation tainted my decision:

Even were he my enemy, I cannot without compunction offend a man.

For a long time, over a month,

the same scene repeated itself every day:

The officer knocked, then entered.

He said a few words about the weather,

or similarly banal topics.

Their common link was they didn't require an answer.

He always stayed a short moment looking around him,

a tiny smile expressing the obvious pleasure he took in looking.

Each day, the same survey of the room, the same pleasure.

His eyes rested on my niece's face in profile,

as always, stern and impassive,

and when he finally looked away,

I was certain I saw a kind of smiling approval.

I bid you good night.

One night, things suddenly changed.

Tiny snowflakes fell, mixed with rain, terribly cold and damp.

I was burning one of the thick logs I save for such nights.

In spite of myself, I imagined the officer, covered in snow,

but he never came.

His normal hour of arrival was long past.

With annoyance, I realized that he filled my thoughts.

My niece knitted slowly, seeming very absorbed.

Finally we heard footsteps, but from inside the house.

I recognized the uneven rhythm of the officer's steps.

I realized he'd entered by the back door and was coming from his room.

To prevent us from seeing him in a damp, unglamorous uniform,

he'd changed first.

A heavy step, then a light one, descending the stairs.

The door opened and he appeared in civilian clothes.

Excuse me, I'm not warm enough.

My uniform was soaked and my room is freezing.

I'll warm myself at your fire for a while.

That's nice.

Winter in France is nothing, it's quite mild.

At home, winter is very harsh.

We have dense forests of pine,

covered in a thick sheet of snow.

Here the trees are slender. Snow covers them like lace.

At home, they remind me of bulls, stocky and powerful,

needing strength to survive.

Here, what's needed is the mind, subtle and poetic thought.

I've always loved France.

I was a child during the last war, so my opinion then doesn't count.

Since then, I've always loved it,

but from afar, like a faraway princess...

because of my father.

Because of my father.

He was a great patriot,

bitterly wounded by our defeat...

and yet, he loved France.

He loved Briand.

He believed in the Weimar Republic and in Briand.

He was enthusiastic.

He said, "He'll unite us like man and wife."

He thought the sun would finally rise on Europe,

but Briand was defeated

and my father realized France was still led by your cruel bourgeoisie,

industrialists like de Wendel, Henry Bordeaux,

your old Marshal Foch.

He told me, "You must never enter France except in boots and a helmet."

He was on his deathbed, so I swore.

When war broke out, I'd visited all of Europe except France.

I'm a musician.

Not a performer, a composer.

It's my whole life,

so it's strange to see myself as a soldier.

However, I don't regret this war.

I believe great things will come of it.

Forgive me, perhaps my words hurt you,

but they come from the heart.

I say it out of love for France.

Great things will come of this war for Germany and France.

Like my father, I believe "the sun will shine on Europe."

I bid you good night.

Perhaps it's inhuman to refuse him even a single word.

I almost felt myself blush.

From then on, his visits were like that.

We rarely saw him in uniform.

First he changed,

then he knocked on our door.

Was it to spare us the sight of an enemy uniform,

or to make us forget and become used to him?

Probably a bit of both.

He knocked and entered without waiting for the answer

he knew we wouldn’t give.

With a candid casualness, he'd warm himself at the fire,

his excuse for visiting us.

We knew it full well and so did he.

He didn't even try to disguise it.

He didn't come every night,

but he never came without speaking to us.

He stood by the fire,

warming various parts of himself

while his voice droned on quietly

about topics dear to his heart: his country, music, France

in an endless monologue.

Not once did he try to obtain a response from us, an agreement,

not even a look.

He never spoke long,

never longer than the first night.

He said a few sentences, sometimes punctuated by silence,

sometimes flowing onward with prayer-like monotony,

sometimes still as a statue by the fireplace,

sometimes moving to examine an object or drawing,

then he'd fall quiet.

He'd bow and say:

I bid you good night.

He once said, during one of his first visits:

How does my fire at home differ from this one?

The wood and fireplace are similar,

but the light isn't.

It depends on the objects and people it falls upon.

Why do I love this room so much?

It isn't especially beautiful.

I'm sorry!

I simply meant it's no room in a museum.

You don't say, "What marvelous objects!"

However, this room has a soul.

The whole house has a soul.

Balzac, Baudelaire, Corneille, Descartes, Fénelon, Gautier, Hugo.

What a list. And I'm only up to H.

Not to mention Moliere, Racine, Rabelais,

Pascal, Stendhal, Voltaire, Montaigne, nor any of the others.

For England, Shakespeare immediately comes to mind.

For Italy, Dante.