A
Short Extract from Casse-pipe
By Céline[1]
Ferdinand?... fils d’Auguste… né Auguste…
mon canard ! Maréchal des logis Rancotte…
fils de Rancotte, adjudant-trompette, 12e dra-
gons. Ça te la coupe, hein, fayot ? Enfant de
troupe…Oui parfaitement. Enfant de la troupe.
C’est clair…C’est clair…C’est net ! ça !
merde !
Auguste…assurances…employé…Voyez -vous
ça ? l’Assurance ?...Qui c’est
l’Assurance ?
Connais pas l’Assurance moi ! Ah ! Hein !
Qu’est-ce que ça branle l’Assurance ? Vous
êtes prétentieux ! mon ami ! Prétentieux !
Aud-
cieux ! Oui ! Hein ! Moi Rancotte !
Vous avez
compris ? Fixe ! Repos ! Garde à
vous ! Talons
joints ! Talons joint ! La tête dégagée des
épaules !
Là ! Fixe !
Ferdinand ?...
son of Auguste !...born
Auguste…de’
fuck ! Maréchal of
the
House of Rancotte…son of Rancotte,
Adjutant
trumpet, 12th dragoons. That
just
about cuts it, eh, brown noser!
Child
of the troops. It’s clear…It’s clear…
Absolutely
clear ! I think!... Shit!... Auguste!...
Insurance?...
What the fuck! Never been
insured…
me! Ah! Well! What the fuck has
insurance
got to do with anything? You’re
pretentious,
my friend! Very pretentious. Audacious
even!
Yes!... At ease!....Stand to attention! Rancotte my foot!
You
understand! Heels together!... Heels together!
The
head disengaged from the
shoulders!...
There now! Keep it fixed…!
The above extract is based on the writer’s own
experience when he joined the 17th Cuirassiers, the famous breast-plated
cavalry who fought with such distinction during the Napoleonic wars. However,
the year now is 1912, so just a couple of years before the massacre of 1914
when armed cavalry were made a thing of the past.
Céline himself, when speaking about this period of his
life, admits that he must have been a bit “con” to have volunteered for
military service, but this was after the hindsight that he had after having
been quite seriously wounded; he suffered in both his arm and hearing all his
life having been subjected to a bombardment, a shell landed next to him
wounding him on impact.
What I find fascinating about this short text, it is
around 100 pages in total, is the very musical quality of the language. The
beautiful turns of phrase, a lot of them quite popular and which are full of slang.
This is the army slang of the pre-war period, but some of it is still used a
lot, and mainly thanks to Céline.
He is like Shakespeare, Dante and Rabelais, in this
respect; a guardian of language, to quote Heaney on Hughes! I don’t know how
much more I’m going to translate, perhaps I will put up some more efforts on
this blog, but I do so for the pure pleasure of doing as it is reward enough in
itself.
[1] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Casse-pipe suivi du Carnets
du cuirassier Destouches, Gallimard, Collection Folio, Paris, 1970, p.20.
[1] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Casse-pipe suivi du Carnets
du cuirassier Destouches, Gallimard, Collection Folio, Paris, 1970, p.20.
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