Nusch

Time has been broken, letting flow its content of suffering as in a kind of overflow. This death is personified, vampiric, it "drinks and eats," "comes and goes," has "the mask of snow"—the white color of corpses, it is visible then invisible "beneath the earth." Through a list, without punctuation, of antithetical elements—"visible, invisible," "on the earth, beneath the earth"—Eluard creates a piling up effect, a crushing weight of death, that weight which has destroyed the balance. This death, unlike in Verlaine's "Pierrot," is not the "visible" aspect, the shroud, that Eluard emphasizes, but the theme of burial. Nush, clearly mentioned, is "buried," "beneath the earth," "the earth has closed its fist." [Prechorus] Our life you made it, it is buried Aurora of a city, a beautiful May morning On which the earth has closed its fist Aurora in me, seventeen years ever brighter And death enters in me as into a mill Our life, you used to say, so happy to live And to give life to what we loved But death has broken the balance of time Death that comes, death that goes, death experienced Visible death drinks and eats at my expense. [Bridge] Dans la nuit masque d'aveugle Mon passé se dissout je fais place au silence. [Bridge Prechorus] **Death experienced as a rupture, a turning point** [Chorus] and death suddenly becomes omnipresent, overwhelming—obsessive. Death has forever shattered the happiness of the couple, it has broken "the balance of time," yet it is a natural, common event, familiar in a way. Death comes and goes, strikes at random. "Death has broken the balance of time" Time has been broken, letting flow its content of suffering as in a kind of overflow. This death is personified, vampiric, it "drinks and eats," "comes and goes," has "the mask of snow"—the white color of corpses, it is visible then invisible "beneath the earth! —"visible, invisible," "on the earth, beneath the earth" This death, unlike in Verlaine's "Pierrot," Nush, clearly mentioned, is "buried," **[Prechorus]** Our life you made it, it is buried Aurora of a city, a beautiful May morning On which the earth has closed its fist Aurora in me, seventeen years ever brighter And death enters in me as into a mill [Chorus] Our life, you used to say, so happy to live And to give life to what we loved But death has broken the balance of time Death that comes, death that goes, death experienced Visible death drinks and eats at my expense [Verse] Visible death, Nusch invisible and harder Than hunger and thirst to my exhausted body Mask of snow on the earth and beneath the earth Source of tears in the night, blind man’s mask My past dissolves, I make way for silence -Mask of snow on the earth and beneath the earth Source of tears in the night, blind man’s mask My past dissolves, I make way for silence. [END]. “Don’t… don’t stop… stop…”