Scene 1

LOUIS. – It feels like night in the middle of the day, we can’t see a thing, I hear noises, I listen, I’m lost and I can’t find anybody.

THE MOTHER. – What did you say?
I didn’t hear, say it again,
where are you?
Louis!


Scene 2

SUZANNE. – You and me.

ANTOINE. – As you wish.

SUZANNE. – I could hear both of you, you were screaming,
no, I thought you were screaming,
I thought I could hear you,
I was looking for you,
you were fighting, you’ve found each other again.

ANTOINE. – I lost my temper, we lost our temper,
I didn’t think he would be like that,
but “usually”, on other days,
we aren’t like that,
we weren’t always like that, I don’t think so,

SUZANNE. – Not always like that.
On other days we each go our own way,
we don’t touch each other.

ANTOINE. – We get along.

SUZANNE. – That’s love.


Scene 3

LOUIS. – And then, in my dream still,
all the rooms in the house are far away from each other,
and I can never reach them,
I have to walk for hours and I don’t recognize anything.

THE MOTHER (off). – Louis!

LOUIS. – And then, in order not to be afraid, like when I walk through the night, I’m a child and I have to come home very quickly,
I repeat something to myself,
or rather I sing something to myself so that I hear only the sound of my own voice,
only my voice,
I sing to myself that
the worst thing would be,
“I know it very well,
the worst thing would be,
to be in love,
the worst thing,
to want to wait a little,
the worst thing...”


Scene 4

SUZANNE. – What I don’t understand.

ANTOINE. – Me neither.

SUZANNE. – You’re laughing? I never see you laugh.

ANTOINE. – What we don’t understand.

CATHERINE (off). – Antoine!

SUZANNE (yelling). – Yes!
What I don’t understand and have never understood.

ANTOINE. – And probably will never understand.

SUZANNE. – And probably will never understand.

THE MOTHER (off). – Louis!

SUZANNE (yelling). – Yes? We're right here!

ANTOINE. – What you don’t understand...

SUZANNE. – It’s not that far away, he could have visited more often,
and nothing that tragic either,
no disasters, no treacheries,
that’s what I don’t understand,
or can’t understand.

ANTOINE. – “That’s the way it is.”
No other explanation, nothing else.
He’s always been like that, desirable,
if one can say that,
desirable and far away,
distant, that’s right, distant.
Gone without ever feeling the need, or more simply the obligation.