12.7.10

Papillon

J’aimerais bien partager un extrait du dernier livre que je viens de lire.

Le livre s’intitule Papillon, écrit en 1969 par Henri Charrière un ancien bagnard.

Papillon, le nom du livre est en faite le surnom de l’auteur Henri Charrière…

Cet homme qui dans les années 30, fut accusé d'un meurtre qu'il dit ne pas avoir commis.Il a été condamné au bagne à perpétuité. Et là commence alors une bataille sans relâche entre lui et l'administration pénitencier, grâce à sa farouche envie de vivre, celle de quitter "Le chemin de la pourriture", sa farouche envie de s’évader. Après multiple évasions échoués, celle de 1941 lui a permis de recouvrir définitivement sa liberté. Cet extrait est du Cinquième chapitre intitulé :

Le retour à la Civilisation.

Dans ce chapitre, Papillon exprime son profond regret, il regrette quitter les Indiens de Guajira qui l’ont accepté parmi eux.

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« So here I was, in a filthy hole that flooded twice a day. The heat was so stifling I took off my shirt, then my pants, then my shoes, and hung them all from the bars.

To think I’d gone fifteen hundred miles to fetch up here! Some great success that was.

God had been good to me, but it looked as if He was abandoning me now. Maybe He was angry because He’d already done the best He could do for me: He’d given me freedom, real freedom, and a community that adopted me completely. He’d given me not one but two wonderful wives. The sun and the sea. A hut in which I was lord and master. And a life with nature, an existence that may have been primitive, but so calm, so peaceful. He’d given me the unique gift of freedom without police, judges, or mean and envious men. And I hadn’t appreciated it.

The blue of the sea____when it wasn’t green or almost black____those dawns and sunsets that brought such sweet serenity, living without money yet lacking nothing essential ___all that I had spurned. And for what? A society that had no intention of helping me. Men who couldn’t be bothered to find out if I was worth salvaging. A world that had rejected me and cast me beyond the reach of hope, into holes like this, where they had only one thing on their minds: to kill me off, no matter what.

When the news of my capture got out, they’d have a good laugh over it___those twelve cheeseheads on the jury, that rat Polein, the cops and the prosecutor. For there was bound to be some journalist who’d send the news to France.

And what about my own people? When the police announced my escape, they must have been so happy to learn that their boy had given his executioners the slip!

And when they learned I’d been caught once more, they’d suffer over again.

I’d been wrong to renounce my tribe. Yes, I have every right to say « my tribe, » for they had truly adopted me. I’d been wrong and I deserved my fate. And yet…I hadn’t done a cavale in order to increase the Indian population of South America!

Dear God, you’ve got to realize that I must live among civilized people and show them I’m capable of taking part in their lives without being a threat to them. That’s my real goal__with or without Your help.

I must prove that I can be, that I am and will be, a normal person. Perhaps no better, but certainly no worse than the rest. »