Balys Sruoga, La Forêt des Dieux

Pour la dissémination de mars de la Web-association des auteurs, sur le thème « écritures clandestines » proposé par Grégory Hosteins, je vous invite à lire un extrait de La Forêt des dieux, de l’auteur lituanien Balys Sruoga. Le problème, c’est que ce texte n’existe pas en traduction française. En 1967, une version française a certes été publiée par les Editions du Progrès de Moscou, mais traduite du russe, et expurgée, d’ailleurs cette version traduite du russe est introuvable. Sur Gallica, un article paru dans le n° 145 de la revue La Pensée ( juin 1969) recense l’ouvrage.

Curieusement, l’auteure de la recension omet de préciser que les soviétiques n’apprécièrent pas du tout le style ironique et grotesque de Balys Sruoga, qui échappa de peu à la déportation en Sibérie, et disparut en 1947 sans avoir pu publier son récit rédigé quelques mois après sa libération. Censurée jusqu’en 1957, La Forêt des dieux, historiquement le premier témoignage littéraire sur les camps de concentration, est aujourd’hui considérée comme une oeuvre majeure de la littérature lituanienne. En attendant sa re-traduction en français, pas d’autre choix que d’essayer de la lire en version anglaise, (ou allemande), disponibles en numérique. A noter que personnellement, je n’aurais sans doute jamais entendu parler de Balys Sruoga si je n’avais passé trois semaines à Sztutowo (Stuthof). C’était quelques mois après l’explosion de la centrale nucléaire de Tchernobyl, dans le cadre d’un « chantier de jeunesse ». Une expérience dont le récit est en cours d’écriture, dans la série Pays Lointain.

Once in the neighboring block a loud uproar began in the early morning hours. Screaming, shrieking, swearing like devils, even the barrack walls barked. Nine people died in the block over night. The block secretary undressed them, wrote the numbers on their chests, lined them up neatly in the washroom, and presented the notice of the number dead with their appropriate numbers and the block chief’s signature, to the camp government. The block chief, it seems, having boxed a respectful number of ears, turned into the washroom to wash his hands. He splashes his little hands around the tap, hums « Marsz, marsz Dąbrowski. » He glances over his shoulder, just in case, at his numberlings laying in the corner like Northern Pike.

— Hm… hm… what the devil? — the block chief is amazed, — crazy ?!

He quickly strides over to the corpses.

— One, two, three… seven, eight… Well, yes, eight! Of course, eight… Franciszek, Franciszek! — rants the block chief, calling his secretary, — Franciszek, why don’t you croak in the john!

Franciszek, the one being called, canters up breathless.

— You, son of a bitch, you stuck me a piece of paper to sign, saying that nine had died today ? There’s only eight left ! Of counting, pig, you’re incapable ?

— What do you mean eight? — Franciszek is astonished — there were exactly nine, cut and dry. I counted them myself.

— Then count, idiot, how many are laying there ! — the block chief gets hot — for this prank I could lay you out like a dead cow in place of the ninth corpse !

Franciszek is visibly saddened. Looks here, looks there — there’s no ninth, no matter what ! What retards could have stolen a corpse ? Having stolen it, maybe they started eating it ?! The heads of the entire block swarmed and streamed, not incomparable to cockroaches being steamed. Milling around the room. Looking for the corpse. Looking under beds, along beds, under pallats, grappling everywhere, anywhere it’s possible to grapple… looking and swearing, swearing and looking. Meanwhile from the john emerges some kind of indefinite creation of the shadows, once perhaps similar to a man. Perhaps he once was a man, who knows. Now he was out of joint, crooked, doubled over, with protruding ribs, jutting cheek bones, naked, with a number painted on his chest… no — now he has very little left in common with a man. The block chief, seeing him, even bent over in the corridor like a bulldog readying for an attack on a gendarme’s calf.

— You, dead man’s crap, where are you hanging around now ? Huh ? Where are you hanging around, dog shit ? Where’s your place ?

— Panie blokowy — meaning Mister block chief — complained the ghost, once similar to a man —my stomach hurts so bad, brzuch boli, hurts so bad — hurts so bad I couldn’t stand it… I went. I’m sorry… panie blokowy…

— Tch, you, pig slime, you dare to talk to me ? Where’s your place ? March to your place! Now hurry !

— I’m very sorry, panie blokowy, — gasps the hunched up ghost, once similar to a man — soughs and sways to his place. And he swayed away. He laid down naked on the cement next to the other eight corpses. A broom’s bristles he took for a pillow. He laid down and died. What was there left for him to do ? In the concentration camp everyone obeys one law : he who is sentenced to death, dies. Oh, forget it !