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16.11.2016
Negative Hands
Marguerite Duras 1978
Translated by
  • Elias Grootaers

    Les mains négatives (Marguerite Duras, 1978)

    We call ‘negative hands’, the hands found on the walls of the Magdalenian caves of sub-atlantic Europe. These hands were just pressed upon the rock, after having been covered with colour. Usually, they were black, or blue. No explanation has been found for this practice.

    In front of the ocean
    under the cliff
    on the granite wall

    these hands

    wide open

    Blue
    and black

    Blue like the water
    Black like the night

    The man came alone into the cave
    in front of the ocean
    All the hands are the same size
    he was alone

    The man alone in the cave looked
    into the noise
    into the noise of the sea
    the immensity of things

    And he cried out

    “You who have a name, who have been given an identity, I love you”

    These hands
    blue like the water
    black like the sky

    Flat

    Pressed outspread on the grey granite

    So that someone would see them

    I am someone who calls
    I am the one who called, who cried out, thirty thousand years ago

    “I love you”

    I cry out that I want to love you, I love you

    I love whoever will hear my cry

    On the empty earth, these hands will remain, on the granite wall, facing the ocean’s roar

    Unbearable

    No one will hear anymore

    See anymore

    Thirty thousand years
    these hands there, black

    The refraction of the light on the sea makes the stone wall tremble

    I am someone, I am the one, who called, who cried out, in this white light

    Desire

    The word has not yet been invented

    He looked at the immensity of things, within the roar of the waves, the immensity of its force

    And then he cried out

    Above him the forests of Europe
    without end

    He stands amidst the rock
    corridors
    paths of stone
    everywhere

    You, who have a name, who have been given an identity, I love you with an indefinite love

    He had to climb down the cliff
    conquer his fear
    The wind blows from the continent, it drives back the ocean
    The waves struggle against the wind
    They advance
    slowed down by its force
    and patiently reach
    the stone wall

    Everything crashes

    I love you more than you
    I will love whoever will hear that I cry out that I love you

    Thirty thousand years

    I call

    I call the one who will answer me

    I want to love you, I love you

    For thirty thousand years, I cry out, in front of the sea, the white ghost

    I am the one who cried out that he loved you, you

    Voice-over by Marguerite Duras from Les mains négatives (1978).

     

    Image from Les mains négatives (Marguerite Duras, 1978)

    • Marguerite Duras Les mains négatives

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