I would like to share a song called “Drouot” by the French composer and singer Barbara (1987, Chatelet 1987, Vol. 1). It is the story of an older woman selling for auction a few souvenirs from a distant past. It is only as the auction is complete that memories from a long gone lover suddenly come back to her. But it is already too late. How much place is there for regrets and memories as one reaches the end?
In the wicker basket of the auction room,
A forgotten figure of the 1930s,
Had put for auction, among other antiques,
an old jewel, that a lost love had once offered her.
She was there, frozen, superb and heartbreaking,
Her hands, restless and shaking,
Her hands still beautiful, distorted and bare,
As bare as some trees are in November.
Every morning in the auction room,
swarmed a crowed, feverish and impatient,
Made of those who buy to later trade,
The fabulous treasures of others’ distant pasts.
In this old rosewood bed,
Embraced shadows dreamt and waited for each other,
Objects own secrets, things withhold legends,
Yet those objects will talk to those who know how to listen.
The hammer was raised in the auction room,
Once, twice, then, breaking the silence,
She cried, ‘Let me buy them back,
Those things you sell, they are my own past.’
But it was already too late in the auction room,
The hammer hit the table again, covering her voice begging,
She saw, among other antiques,
The last souvenir of her past love taken.
Near from the wicker baskets, in the auction room,
A lady cries her 1930s,
And could see her history pass,
Her past disappearing, her past going.
Because, from the bottom of her memory,
Had reappeared, a long-gone visage,
A loved figure, from the past,
The only one she truly loved as a woman.
Dazed, she walked out of the auction room,
Holding a few notes in her trembling hands,
Holding a few notes, from the tip of her bare fingers,
A couple of crumpled notes given for her lost past.
Dazed, she walked out of the auction room,
I saw her, her back bent, heartbreaking,
From her longtime gone past, remained nothing,
Not even this last souvenir, that had now disappeared.