My Life with the Wave
by Octavio Paz
Translated by Eliot Weinberger
Octavio Paz / Ma vie avec la vague (A short story in French)
When I left that sea, a wave moved ahead of the
others. She was tall and light. In spite of the shouts of the others who grabbed
her by her floating clothes, she clutched my arm and went off with me leaping.
I didn’t want to say anything to her, because it hurt me to shame her in front
of her friends. Besides, the furious stares of the elders paralyzed me. When we
got to town, I explained to her that it was impossible, that life in the city
was not what she had been able to imagine with the ingenuity of a wave that had
never left the sea. She watched me gravely: “No, your decision is made. You
can’t go back.” I tried sweetness, hardness, irony. She cried, screamed,
hugged, threatened. I had to apologize.
