| | La Chute / The Fall | |
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J'ai fait une chute un jour. C'était à Baie-Comeau, province de Québec. On était au mois d'octobre. Il faisait une mauvaise brume. Un peu avant huit heures je suis monté sur le dessus d'un grand réservoir. Le temps de faire quelque pas hors de la coursive, j'ai glissé. Sur le sommet du réservoir il y avait de ces rivets à tête conique. J'ai tenté de m'y accrocher, mais je ne pouvais m'empêcher de rouler. Au bord du réservoir j'ai aperçu un tuyau qui s'en venait vers moi. Un peu de chance et je le saisissais. C'est tout ce que je me rappelle. Je me suis réveillé seize heures plus tard avec une chute de trente-cinq pieds dans le corps. Ça m'a valu deux mois d'hôpital et une tige d'argent dans l'épaule. Je la sens parfois. Quand même, je pense que j'ai eu de la chance.
Harold McComber, narrateur de Charpentier du ciel, Office national du film |
I had a fall one day, when I was a student. It was in Bognor Regis, on the Sussex coast, where I was working as a bus conductor during the summer holidays. I was standing on the open platform at the back of the bus in the conductor pose, left hand in my pocket, right hand nonchalantly holding onto the bar, watching the world go by. The bus was going slowly through the centre of town. Suddenly I saw a girl I knew standing on the pavement. She smiled at me and waved to me. I smiled at her and gave her a wave with my right hand. Just then the bus accelerated, and I found myself on my bum in the roadway with coins spilling out of my bag all around me. Too embarrassed to look at the girl, I started to pick up the money, helped by a Good Samaritan who came to my aid. A few minutes later the bus driver came running up, his face as white as a sheet. By the time the story of what had happened had passed from mouth to mouth from the back of the bus to the front, he had visions of my needing a stretcher to the mortuary. One of the other bus drivers had a reputation as a story-teller. And so several days later, when I was at the bus depot in nearby Chichester, an inspector came up to me to ask if I was the conductor who had seen his girlfriend with another man and jumped off the bus to go after him...
Russon Wooldridge, with thanks to Albert Camus and Gerard Hoffnung |
