Henri Michaux
THE MARCH INTO THE TUNNEL
*
First Canto
I heard words in the darkness. They had the gravity of perilous situa–
tions involving important personages in the dead of night.
They were saying- these words-in the obscure shadow. They were
saying confusedly. They were all saying: "Woe! Woe!" and did
not cease, crying always "Woe! Woe!"
I saw a man in bed and his disease was saying to him:
"Wretch," she was saying, " don't you know that your festering kid–
neys, your true enemies, are putting, from now on, your death
to bed with you. You will know my name later, but the beak
of the urinary bird inside you begins to peck and you will pay
dear for what little you've had. . . . "
Then I heard a stronger voice saying:
"Go,
don't delay, here is only one man. Elsewhere there are thou–
sands and thousands of thousands and still more of them and all
in great danger.
"Don't let yourself be distracted but look. After all, you have to live
your little life inside."
Then a voice burst out which was not recognizable and the flowers
of life began to stink, and the sun was no more than a memory,
an old mat put behind a door that you won't go through again,
and men, almost losing their faith, were silent, were silent with
a silence which takes your breath away, the kind that comes in
summertime, at evening in the country, when after the last birds,
and then the last insects, of the day have gone in, and before
those of the night have come, a tomblike silence suddenly falls.
A little later it began to sizzle.
*
Selections from a longer
poem.
