TRAGEDY OVER THE MORNING COFFEE
IT'S ALWAYS THE SMALL THINGS....
DEJEUNER DE MATIN by Jacques Prevert (1945)
He poured coffee
Into the cup
He put milk
In the coffee
He added sugar
To the café au lait
He stirred it
He drank the café au lait
And he put the cup down
Without speaking to me.
He lit
A cigarette
He blew smoke rings
He ashed it
In the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
He got up
He put
His hat on his head
He put on
His raincoat
Because it was raining
And he went out
Into the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me
And I took
My head in my hands
And I cried
And here is the poem read by Serge Reggiani.
Like so much Prevert, so simple, so much emotion and meaning. As you'd know, John, Prevert wrote the script for Le Crime de M. Lange. Renoir was unhappy with the script because, he said, it gave him nothing to do. Fortunately that wasn't quite true.