Back when they used to celebrate my birthday

I was happy and no one was dead.

In the old house even my birthday was centuries-old tradition,

And everyone's joy, mine included, was as sure as any religion.

Back when they used to celebrate my birthday

I enjoyed the good health of understanding nothing,

Of being intelligent in my family's eyes,

And of not having the hopes that others had for me.

When I began to have hope, I no longer knew how to hope.

When I began to look at life, it had lost all its meaning for me.

Yes, that person I knew as me,

That person with a heart and family,

That person of quasi-rural evenings all spent together,

That person who was a boy they loved,

That person - my God! - whom only today I realize I was . . .

How faraway! . . .

(Not even an echo . . .)

When they used to celebrate my birthday!

The person I am today is like the damp in the wall at the back of the house

That makes the walls mildew . . .

What I am today (and the house of those who loved me trembles through my tears) --

What I am today is their having sold the house,

It's all of them having died,

It's I having survived myself like a spent match.