Le temps passé [English translation]

In over-complex calculations

twenty years, thats a lot of happiness.

My 20 years ended up in the war

on the far side of the field of honour.

If I've known a rotten time, certainly,

it was indeed the time I was twenty!

Nevertheless I mourn its loss,

it's lost and gone so it was the good time.

The time gone by is always nice.

Once they've all died1,

we forgive everyone who has offended us,

the dead are all good guys.

In your little memory like a sieve2

Bécassine3, you still have the memory

of our wry-mouthed love affair,

love that was null and void,

halfpenny love that certainly didn't go

any further at all than the end of the bed.

Neverthless, we mourn its loss,

it's lost and gone it's grown more attractive.

The time gone by is always nice.

Once they've all died1,

we forgive everyone who has offended us,

the dead are all good guys.

I've put on my darkest outfit

and my funereal face

to send off a bundle of old bones

to the kingdom of the shades.

The world has certainly never produced

a nastier piece of work.

Nevertheless, we mourn her loss,

she has died, she's been embalmed.

The time gone by is always nice.

Once they've all died1,

we forgive everyone who has offended us,

the dead are all good guys.

1. a. b. c. literally: broken their pipes2. lit: hare's memory3. a character in an early 20th centuy comic strip, an often blundering female