WE WERE GIVEN PASSION FOR THE WORLD, IN A QUIET LAND,
A NAKED BLADE LAID IN OUR HANDS
OUR HEART KNEW NOT THE DAY, WHEN THIS FIRE WAS GIVEN US,
AND ITS LIGHT FURROWED THE SHADOWS OF OUR FEATURES.
I WAS A CHILD DISPOSSESSED OF THE WORLD.
RULED BY A WILL ANTERIOR TO MINE,
I HAD TO RENOUNCE ALL POSSESSIONS IN THIS LIFE.
I've lost all bearings.
No clock marks my hours.
No calendar counts my days.
I have dissolved in time.
Rules, discipline, strict impediments,
all fell away.
THE TORRENT
BEATING FRANCOIS
"Day of wrath...
"that day will dissolve the world in ashes.
Exclamation mark.
How much tremor there will be
"when the Judge will come...
"investigating; everything strictly.
Period.
"The written book will be brought forth...
"where all our acts are recorded...
Semicolon.
"...From which the world shall be judged.
Period.
"When therefore the Judge will sit...
"whatever hides will appear...
"and nothing will remain unpunished."
Period.
...AND NOTHING WILL REMAIN UNPUNISHED.
Good.
Stand up.
NOW!
We must mortify our flesh.
You can't imagine the evil that rules us!
Are you listening, Francois?
I will discipline you after all.
Francois...
Francois, look me in the eyes.
Francois!
Look at me.
That's good, Francois.
I'll remember your ill will...
when the time comes.
BEATING FRANCOIS
FRANCOIS STROLLING BY THE STREAM.
To the clear spring
I strolled
The water so divine
Into it! swam
Under the oak in leaf
My skin I dried
While on the highest branch
A nightingale sang
We were always alone.
I was going to be 13
and had yet to look upon a human face.
- Come on! - Pull!
Come on!
Pull!
Come on!
Pull!
Pull, you old nag!
Come on!
Yes!
Eloi?
Work!
Francois!
Oh, Mother...
I couldn't have fathomed the scope
of the destruction you wrought in me.
To see a human form up close...
Day by day, this desire increased,
weighing me down like a sickness.
Sit yourself down!
So what do they call you?
Tell me. How old are you, my boy?
Do you know your stories?
No, huh'?
I sure got me some stories.
Quiet...
Must be fifteen, twenty years back...
Don't think you was born yet.
There was no one hereabouts, just cornfields.
Come springtime, I'd taken to going around...
the property lines.
In those times, they went crazy for Lent Thursday!
Some put on a pig's head,
some a horse's head,
then there were heads of martens, weasels,
cocks, goats,
COWS"
Let go of that child!
You, go back home!
Well, if it isn't fair Claudine!
Fancy seeing you here.
Everybody thought you were a goner.
Go away.
Go away!
Tall Claudine, once so sweet.
Don't get all worked up.
Tall Claudine...
A man's a beautiful thing, hey, Francois?
You must be happy to have seen one.
The world is ugly, Francois.
You mustn't touch it!
Give it all up and don't dwell on it!
Do what you're told and don't look about!
You're my son.
You carry me on.
You will fight your terrible instincts
until you reach perfection.
One day, Francois...
I'll go back to the village with my head held high.
Everyone will bow before me.
You understand?
You'll fight the Devil until you're perfect.
You will be a priest!
YOU ARE MY SON. YOU CARRY ME ON.
Every morning, rise at five.
Half past five: The Holy Mass.
Seven: Breakfast, then make beds.
Eight: Classes.
Noon: Lunch.
One thirty: Classes start again until six.
Before dinner:
Spiritual readings and visit the Blessed Sacrament.
It's here.
...Sepal, petal and stamen,
at the base of the filament with the anther.
In the center, we have the pistil, also known as the gynoecium,
with the pedicel at the base.
From here the stem grows...
Throughout my college years, I only wanted to hold on to
the external aspects of the subjects I studied.
I kept myself from real knowledge,
which is experience and possession.
Half past eleven:
Recite the rosary in the garden
and search our souls.
Be mindful, keep to your text, consult your notes...
And their triumph issued only from their defeat.
Like Christ himself, the priest is at once sacrificer and victim.
He had to mercilessly immolate himself on the altar.
Who, gathering Paris and all its environs,
leads with a steady gait and a light hand.
They wanted to turn me into a priest,
but the profound experience of faith was denied me.
I clung with all my will to the countless prayers I recited daily
so as to shield myself against the naked face of God.
I lost my friend
Without deserving it
For the rosebud
I refused him
Now I pray that the rose
Still lay on the rose tree
And that my sweet friend
Still loved me
The year of my rhetoric,
I finished first and won many prizes.
Still I was marked by an infinite disgust
which I could not master despite all my efforts.
Suddenly, I saw what my life could have been.
A brutal regret seized me.
I couldn't know joy.
It became a powerlessness, a sterility.
So, how many prizes?
Five.
And I won the bursary.
Show me.
Hand over the money.
You think I have time to waste? Hurry up!
Go change, then come help me in the garden before dinner.
I'll write the diocese tomorrow...
so you can attend the Grand Seminary this fall.
It will cost us all our savings.
At least you got the bursary.
I won't go to college next year.
I won't go to the Seminary.
I'll never be a priest.
You better not count on me to give you back your reputation!
I only understood much later...
that in the passing of a few seconds...
my destiny was sealed.
FROM THIS DAY ONWARDS,
A RIFT TORE THROUGH MY OPPRESSED LIFE.
Why does this emptiness fill my nights?
Will sweetness follow?
I know nothing of sweetness.
Take!
For you! For you!
She's your daughter?
It's her I want.
Take your things, then leave!
Enough!
Come here.
Amica.
I name her thus.
She likely has another name,
but I will never hear it spoken...
and the name I do hear
assembles itself in me for her to take.
The torrent suddenly took on the significance
it should've always had in my existence.
Of all the earthly sounds,
my deaf and sorry head retained only
the sporadic tumult of the rushing waters.
Self-possession...
Self-control...
Above all, never be conquered by self.
My mother no longer spoke to me.
Was she afraid to see confirmed
what she had without a doubt already felt?
That by her hand, I had been plunged into silence...
and that she must renounce her grand design for me.
Come on! Come on!
This beast resembled
the being of ardor and passion I wanted to embody.
I envied her.
The torrent would resonate so loudly in my skull
that fright would overtake me.
I would go down by the waterfall.
I was not at liberty to keep myself away.
Come here!
The first day of classes was approaching.
I knew that soon it would be useless
to avoid confronting Tall Claudine.
If grace exists, I have lost it.
Or rather, the one who's come before,
and of whom I am the continuation, has refused to grant me grace.
My mother is damned.
I partook in her damnation and she in mine.
Go away! Slut!
Be very careful.
Perhaps you thought you would never see me again?
Do you understand?
You'll have to do what I ask you!
Come, come! Follow me.
Leave me alone.
Go see for yourself.
Go see!
No...
There's nothing here!
Look closer!
Now do you understand?
You will listen to me!
EVERY MAN CARRIES WITHIN HIMSELF
A CRIME THAT HE SWEATS OUT AND EXPIATES.
Where were you?
I smell an unusual odour on her skin.
A rancid scent I thought I would never have to smell again.
The sacrilege is done.
The pillage of my innermost being is complete.
The torrent enthralls me.
The water's fury shakes me from head to foot.
The fever gains me.
My beginning is my end.
I lean over the boiling chasm.
I am bent over myself.
I'm thirsty.
I don't open my mouth...
only crave water in my mind.
I retain no mastery over my voice!
I don't know if I'm speaking out loud
or if I'm continuing my inner monologue.
Amica can read my thoughts.
My brain is laid bare before her.
Poor child
Poor little creature...
We could have been happy together...
if only you weren't already dead.
I know your holy name and love it.
I repent with all my heart,
with all my soul and all my strength,
with my spitefulness,
my iniquities and my crimes...
because you are the sole and only word of the all-powerful Father.
I beseech you, my God,
to bring back and reunite the sheep in the same pasture,
unleash the tethers of the heavens.
God...
don't let me fall under the spell of deceit.
Don't let the enemy find within me something belonging to him,
cast out the mean passions of my nature
so that sin is extinguished and vanishes from all my limbs.
Wait!
Francois?
CONSENT TO MY DESTINY IS INDEPENDENT OF MY WILL.
That man is lost.
You know it too.
Let's go!
What are you doing?
Later. Let's not stay here.
Come on!
What else must! renounce now?
Perhaps my very self?
My own drama?
Right now, I wish I could believe in God...
in his terrible righteousness...
and his perfect greatness
But the name of God is dry and crumbles away.
For me, no God ever inhabited this name.
I have only known empty signs.
I have borne my shackles too long.
They undid me from the inside.
I will never be a free man.
I lean as far as I can.
I want to see the chasm as close as possible.
I want to lose myself in my adventure,
my only and terrible blessing.
BASED ON ANNE HEBERT'S "THE TORRENT"
Copy editing by Oana Avasilichioaei Subtitles by Daniel Canty
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal