Mensonges (Lies)
If the blue in the opal is tender
Is this love's sadness? (With charm.)
The moonlight seems to wait for
A heart that will absorb it.
If the blue of want is sad
The smile of the blue sky sweetens the heart's lodestone.
If a soft regret persists
Does it love what does not exist
In this world? To love is sad.
(Calm.)
Your blurry eyes, your eyes grasping,
Your deep eyes alas! are empty,
As the skies are deep and alive
And the tenderness of pale blue (small
sacred slow)
Is a lie in the opal
And in the sky and in your eyes.
Marcel Proust, 1894
There also exists a different and extended version of Mensonges amongst Proust's manuscripts:~
If the blue of the opal is tender,
Is this love's shadow?
The moonlight longs for
A heart who will know its meaning...
The tender blue sky smiles on love's heart,
As a pardon to her lunacy.
Was nature's lie yet in the sky,
Before God's beginning?
If the blue of your eyes is sad,
Do you love what does not exist
In this world? To love is sad.
Your eyes are less deep than your heart is empty;
The sky is just as vacant and deeper.
Your blurry eyes, your avid eyes,
Your fathomless eyes, alas, are empty.
Deep empty skies,
And pale blue caresses
Is a lie held in opal
And in the sky and in your eyes.
If the blue of the opal is tender,
Is this love's shadow?
The moonlight longs for
A heart who will know its meaning...
So blue the sky, yet so soft,
Does it feel for us?
Love, solace, compassion,
So soft across the skies,
Is it then indefinitely
The substance that continues,
Or else is it God's beginning?
If the blue of your eyes is sad,
Is this love without love?
Is this to love what does not exist
In this world? To love is sad.
An enduring sweet regret,
Brings a sorrowful blue to your green eyes,
Moonlight on the seas.
Nature's indifference
Answers our heart's vacancy.
Blind man's bluff
In the opal in the sky in your eyes, Oh, vanquisher
Revolving ache, dreaming love.
The crystal's form, the eyeball's pigment,
The heaviness of the air deceive us again and again,
An attempt to deceive our eternal sorrows
Through nature, and the woman, and her eyes;
And the tenderness of pale blue,
Is a lie held in opal
And in the sky and in your eyes.