Original subtitles

A beggar girl.

Insane?

That's it.

Yes, I remember.

She follows the rivers.

She comes from Burma.

She's not Indian.

She comes from Savannakhet.

She was born there.

One day...

She's been walking for 10 years.

One day, the Ganges is before her.

Yes. She stays.

That's right.

12 children died while she was walking to Bengal.

Yes, she left them.

She sold them, forgot them.

On the way to Bengal, she becomes barren.

Savannakhet, in Laos? Yes.

17 years...

She is pregnant.

17 years old.

Her mother throws her out.

She goes away.

She asks for directions to lose herself.

No one knows.

In Calcutta they were together.

She and the white woman? Yes.

Through the same years...

He had followed her to India...

Yes.

For her, he had left everything.

In one night.

The night of the ball.

Yes.

Michael Richardson was engaged...

to a girl from S.Thala...

Lola Valérie Stein.

They were to marry in autumn.

Then there was that ball.

The ball in S. Thala.

She arrived late.

In the middle of the night...

Dressed in black.

So much love at that ball!

So much desire!

That light?

The monsoon.

That dust?

Central Calcutta.

The smell of flowers...

Leprosy.

What is this?

The French Embassy

in India.

The distant murmur?

The Ganges.

After she died...

He left India?

Yes.

Her grave is in the English cemetery.

Yes.

She died over there?

In the islands.

Found dead one night...

A black Lancia...

races along the Chandernagore road.

It's there

that she once...

Yes.

What are you afraid of?

Anne-Marie Stretter...

They would dance in the evening.

They're dancing.

Why are you crying?

I love you...

to the point of not seeing...

or hearing.

To die.

Do you know...

Lepers burst like dust bags.

No suffering?

No. Nothing.

Funny.

She's back on the Ganges, under the trees.

She has forgotten.

The French Vice Consul in Lahore...

Yes.

Sent to Calcutta in disgrace.

He went back to the park?

Yes.

He comes every night.

The empty tennis courts...

Anne-Marie Stretter's red bicycle.

Where's the black dressed girl?

Out for a walk.

Every evening.

She comes back with the night.

The embassy's black Lancia

just entered the park.

At night, she hunts around the Ganges.

To eat.

Died in the islands.

Her eyes full of light...

Dead.

Yes.

Under the stone over there.

Around her, a curve of the Ganges...

Four o'clock.

A dark night.

No one sleeps?

No one.

It's so hot!

Impossible.

Terrible.

Another storm.

Moving towards Bengal

It comes from the islands.

From the estuaries, inexhaustible.

What's that noise?

It's her, she's crying.

She doesn't suffer, does she?

No.

A leprosy of the heart.

Can't bear it?

No, can't bear it.

Can't bear India either?

She's sleeping.

He loved her more than anything in the world.

More than that.

Michael Richardson had set up

an underwriting office in Bengal

so he could remain in India.

Listen!

Ganges fishermen.

What a night!

How hot it is!

Completely.

Fatally.

She watches from behind the plants in the bar.

It's only at dawn

when the lovers walked towards the doors...

that Lola Valérie Stein cried out.

They were past hearing...

Past seeing.

That crime was behind them.

Yes.

The rain...

Yes.

The coolness...

Her music... It was in Venice.

A promising artist.

Never gave up playing?

Never.

Ana Maria Guardi...

Yes...

The first marriage?

The first post?

Savannakhet, Laos.

Wife of a French administrator.

18 years old.

Ah, yes... a river.

Already.

She's sitting on the bank,

looking at it.

The Mekong.

She's quiet?

Crying? Yes.

They said she wouldn't get acclimatised.

That she should be sent to Europe.

Couldn't stand it already...

Already.

These iron bars around her?

The government house grounds.

Those guards?

Official.

Couldn't bear it already... No.

One day...

a ministerial boat appears.

Mr Stretter

is inspecting the Mekong posts.

He carries her off to Savannakhet?

Yes. He takes her away.

She's with him for 17 years

around the capitals of Asia.

She's seen in Peking,

Then in Mandalay.

And Bangkok... She's seen in Bangkok.

In Rangoon...

In Sydney...

And also in Lahore...

17 years...

She's seen in Calcutta...

Calcutta...

She dies.

That man sleeping?

Passing through.

A friend of the Stretters...

She yields to whoever wants her.

Gives herself to whoever takes her.

Love.

Yes.

Splendour.

"Anne-Marie Stretter" is written on the grave?

"Ana Maria Guardi"...

but worn away.

Every night...

looks at her.

Never talked to her...

Never.

Never approached a woman.

A virgin man from Lahore?

Yes...

Those gleams?

The crematorium.

To burn those who've died of hunger?

Yes.

Day is coming.

In Lahore, he fired...

From his balcony one night in Lahore

he shot at lepers in the gardens of Shalimar.

Couldn't bear it?

No.

Couldn't bear India? No.

What in India?

The thought of it.

There was a receptionist at the French embassy?

Yes.

The park stretches down to the Ganges.

The offices are on this side.

Those grey buildings...

Away there, the tennis courts...

empty during the monsoon.

Few people dance.

It's the heat... How could you?

There's only one remedy, immobility.

Slowness.

To calm the blood...

That smell of silt... Insipid.

The Ganges...

Low tide.

The new Austrian attache

arrived one month ago.

He can't acclimatise to India.

Yes.

He'll come back.

He'll go to the islands.

Why do you think that?

That anguish in his eyes.

She hates people who get used to India.

The ambassador invites people

to the islands for her, for his wife.

She goes alone to the islands.

The ambassador goes hunting in Nepal.

Her lovers are English,

don't mix with the diplomats,

and the ambassador knows.

A friend of the Stretters.

Unknown in Calcutta.

It's so damp the pianos go out of tune.

The French Vice Consul just entered the park.

At the last minute she sent him a card...

"Come."

What did he do?

The worst.

He killed.

In Lahore?

The official version?

Nerves gave way.

It often happens.

Easy to say.

Yes.

What a face!

It seems grafted.

He's extremely pale.

She could have spared us his presence.

An outcast in Lahore too?

There too.

He just escaped being dismissed.

The ambassador intervened.

The closed circles in India

make me think of leprosy.

He drank, maybe.

No, drunkenness is the same for everyone here.

We talk about going home.

No, he didn't drink.

The ambassador told the young attache...

It would please me if you talked to him.

They go to him.

He turns away.

Can't stand it.

No, nothing.

He laughs.

As if suddenly mad with joy.

Look...

Maybe he has spotted Mrs Stretter.

What a funny idea!

I just thought of it.

Did he talk about Lahore?

Only to her.

At the end of the night.

At night, he used to shoot in the Shalimar gardens

at lepers, at dogs.

But many bullets had been found

in the mirrors of his residence in Lahore.

He shot at himself.

Every day, roses arrived from Nepal.

She gave them away at the end of the ball.

After lunch, people sink into heavy sleep.

Yet everyone waits for something like that.

Storms are expected.

Just a hole in the sky.

It fills at once.

How white she is!

How white the Calcutta girls are!

For six months they only go out at night.

To avoid the sun.

She seems the prisoner of a sort of pain.

No one knows exactly what is happening

behind those walls,

what she does.

Cycling early in the morning

in the park...

Playing tennis

She is said to read.

Parcels of books arrive for her from Venice.

She goes to the islands.

Appearances...

Just one person sees him...

the manager of the European Club.

A drunkard.

All he told the manager

was repeated to the ambassador.

It's hateful.

You don't understand.

He talked to the manager

because he knew his words would be repeated.

A way to reach

that woman.

He said he was entitled

to Mrs Stretter's solicitude

and her love.

Just as much as the others,

her lovers in Calcutta.

At night, near the tennis court.

That bicycle.

He said it was lucky she had touched...

No, it can't be repeated.

She said nothing about that passion?

Nothing.

He said he regretted

not realising with conviction...

Conviction?

I remember the word.

What's known of his origins?

Very little.

His father was a minor banker.

The mother left him, then he died.

He was often expelled from schools.

At 15 years old he went to a reformatory.

An aunt writes sometimes.

Look at his eyes.

He's crying.

He doesn't seem to know it.

He seems in a state of tears.

What do you want/

To talk to you.

What about?

Your impending appointment.

The voice is expressionless

as if he's resisting shouting...

You're not acclimatising either?

No... it's this heat.

And the monotony.

That light.

No colours.

But you, before Lahore...

Would you have preferred something else?

Nothing.

Lahore was what I wanted.

Let's go to the bar.

What are you afraid of?

Would you like Bombay?

I wish to stay in Calcutta.

I'm afraid it isn't possible.

Then I leave it to the authorities.

They can send me where they like.

Bombay is quieter, with a better climate.

The nearness of the sea is pleasant.

I haven't asked to see my record.

What does it say?

In Lahore...

What you've done in Lahore.

What you've done there can't be understood

however you look at it.

By anyone.

Anyone?

What's that?

Come on...

I'm listening to "India Song".

I came to India because of "India Song".

It gives me the desire to love.

I've never loved.

I had never loved before.

He saw himself pictured in a rocking-chair

near the Gulf of Oman.

Then one morning

going to his office, he saw her in the park,

near the tennis courts.

In white.

What a story! What a passion!

He left everything to follow her.

Some intimate friends stay after the party.

Sometimes passion also...

Those suicided of Europeans increasing with famines

which don't touch them...

Somewhere inside oneself...

That sense of guilt...

It's absurd, of course.

Shanghai... You saw the bombing photos?

The first attempt at Savannakhet...

Because of a dead child

abandoned by its mother, a beggar...

In the park of the Central Administration.

In front of his room.

No girl in Lahore knew him enough

to shed any light on...

None.

How horrible!

No one ever went to his residence in Lahore.

He wanted to stay...

a virgin, alone.

Waiting to love.

Dead while living.

He'd never join you.

You talk about what?

The French Vice Consul looking for Mrs Stretter.

She often leaves parties.

More and more, recently.

It was inevitable... Look.

The Vice Consul walks towards Mrs Stretter.

You saw that?

How subtle!

The ambassador saved his wife.

Where are they going?

To the second room.

The ambassador was bound to talk to him.

So you see...

They'll have champagne.

Am I to understand you want Bombay?

You can't expect to get the post you had in Lahore.

It's too soon yet.

If you stay here for a while

people will forget.

I can keep you in Calcutta if you wish.

Yes.

A career is a mysterious thing.

If you forget Lahore, the others will forget too.

I won't forget Lahore.

There are remedies

for that nervous condition.

You know what they're called? No.

At first everyone, including me,

all felt the same.

It's a question of finding...

inventing...

a way of seeing things.

I haven't found a way.

I see nothing.

Go back to Paris.

No, that's impossible.

The Mekong, at Savannakhet,

flows wide and yellow between woods and fields.

In those days the boats were very slow.

It took many days.

At dusk, the mosquitos.

Impossible to see.

They pressed against the mosquito nets.

The ambassador was writing.

She'd have discouraged him.

The banks can't be seen when the rains come.

The sky is low,

the water muddy.

When he met her, she was so young

and he already...

There's a great friendship between them.

He took her from that administrator?

Not much is known.

At Savannakhet she was about to die.

So young?

We'd like to see you in the islands.

The residence was built long ago.

You must see it.

And the islands of the delta.

I'd be glad to go.

Perhaps she was playing music

behind those walls,

prisoner of that pain,

that ancient pain.

Painless.

Leprosy of the heart.

Yet sometimes, in the park... those tears.

The light of the monsoon...

so harsh.

Her eyes were so clear that tears...

Can you speak about her?

Irreproachable.

Nothing was ever seen...

That's what we mean here by that word.

After Venice she never gave concerts?

No, never.

They know each other?

They must have met in the park.

What is he looking at?

The French ambassadress dancing with the attache.

Listen carefully...

The voice has foreign inflections.

That's maybe why she lacks presence...

that origin.

Partly, yes, perhaps.

I'd like to be in your place.

To arrive here during the rains.

Don't you feel dull?

What do you do at night?

On Sundays?

I read, I sleep.

I don't quite know.

You know boredom is a personal matter.

One doesn't know what to recommend.

I don't think I'm bored.

It's perhaps not as serious as they say.

Thank you for the books.

You brought them very quickly.

Don't mention it.

Almost nothing is possible in India.

One could certainly say that.

Meaning?

Nothing.

That general despondency.

It's neither hard

nor pleasant to live in India.

Neither easy nor difficult.

It's nothing.

You see... nothing.

You mean it's impossible?

Well... maybe, yes.

But that might be a simplification.

The French Vice Consul is looking at you.

He's been doing so since the start of the evening.

Haven't you noticed?

Where does he wish to be posted?

Here in Calcutta.

Really?

I thought you knew.

They say you're Venetian.

My father was French.

My mother was Venetian, yes.

I kept her name.

At first I thought you were English.

It happens often.

Do some people never acclimatise?

Almost everyone gets used to this.

We would like to have you in the islands.

I'd be glad to go.

You write, I think?

I thought I could write, once...

You were told?

Yes, but I could have guessed it.

It's the way you keep silent.

I renounced it.

Did Mr Stretter write too?

He did, yes.

And then...

What about you?

I never tried.

You think it's not worthwhile?

That's...

Yes, if you like.

Do you play music?

Sometimes.

In recent years I've played less.

Why?

It's hard to explain.

Tell me.

There's a certain grief attached to music.

I've felt that for some time.

In Venice, I was so young...

Just 18 years old.

Music to the point of madness...

to the point of suicide.

Already...

She plays no more.

She says she doesn't know any more.

What's happening?

The Vice Consul has invited the Spanish ambassadress.

They talk about leprosy.

Will you have to dance with him?

I won't have to, but...

He was in the park last night,

near the tennis courts.

He doesn't sleep well.

She left him during the dance.

What happened?

Maybe he said something to her

which frightened her.

What are people afraid of?

Repulsion is a feeling unknown to you.

I don't understand.

How can it be unknown?

Horrible...

Come near the bar.

I'm an old friend of Anne-Marie Stretter...

My name is George Crown.

You must help yourself.

There's no one at the bar.

Her words are a diversion.

Look at him, ready to get away

and at the same time...

He's still looking at you.

She doesn't seem to dare enter the park.

What are they talking about with that man?

About childhood. And about her, the French ambassadress.

Why is he waiting before he leaves?

To be thrown out, probably.

The mad beggar woman. Look...

It's said she's from Laos.

It seems impossible.

A beggar girl entered the park.

I know.

The girl who sings, you know.

Of course, you're new to Calcutta.

I believe she sings

a song from Savannakhet...

That's in Laos.

She puzzles us.

I think I must be mistaken.

Indo-China is thousands of kilometres away.

How could she have done it?

I heard her in the avenue

early in the morning.

It's a happy song.

Over there, children sing it.

She must have come along the rivers.

But how could she walk through the Cardamoms?

She's quite mad.

Yes, but she's alive, you see.

She comes to the islands sometimes.

How?

No one knows.

Maybe she follows you.

Or follows the whites?

For food...

Where is he?

At the bar.

He drinks too much.

It'll end badly.

At night, he was seen through his window

walking...

Walking, day and night.

Day and night.

Summoning death to Lahore.

And fire.

Shouting too.

Incoherent words.

And laughing.

Wouldn't there be, in each of us,

a possibility, just once,

to be like him in Lahore?

Leprosy... one knows about these things before coming.

No.

Perhaps he didn't see

there were people in those gardens

in that light,

that mistiness...

Look at the sky... sick. That thickness,

that dirt, through the night.

He said he wanted to become a leper.

That man is anger itself!

Against whom? Or what?

Is it necessary to have an object?

They're dancing, look.

She's always loved dancing.

Some months ago, in Chandernagore,

they were found in a flophouse.

They wanted to die together.

It seems incredible now.

An ambulance took them to Calcutta.

People heard about it.

People said, it's for nothing.

Or it's indifference to life.

Or the contrary...

People get mixed up.

No, there is equivalence there.

The appearance remains the same.

She has always been talked about.

A lot.

That love.

Those islands too.

Those islands in the delta.

Their only regret when they left India...

What would they have done without them?

Heat...

Fear...

Leprosy and hunger...

The Vice Consul in Lahore.

Those dead...

That gentleness...

One wondered...

Those books...

The sleepless nights at the delta residence.

Those tears...

"India Song"...

Walking to his office

he whistled "India Song".

He told the club manager

"At my home in Neuilly, in the drawing-room,

"there's a big black piano.

"'India Song' is on the music stand.

"My mother used to play 'India Song'.

"It's stayed there since her death."

It's dawn already. Nobody leaves.

They seem to be waiting.

The tennis courts were empty.

There was a bicycle there.

I saw they were empty

after she went by...

There was a tearing of the air...

Her skirt brushing the trees.

She looked at me.

I didn't know you existed.

Calcutta has become a sort of hope for me.

I love Michael Richardson.

I'm not free of that love.

I know that.

I love you as you are, in Richardson's love.

I don't care.

Hear my voice?

It has a false tone.

It frightens them.

Yes.

Who is she?

In Lahore I shot myself, but I didn't die.

The others separated from Lahore.

But I can't separate from it.

Lahore is me.

Do you understand?

Yes. Don't shout.

Yes.

You're with me, facing Lahore.

I know.

You're inside me.

I'll take you away inside me.

And with me you'll shoot at the Shalimar lepers.

You can't avoid it.

I didn't need to dance with you

to know you.

And you know that.

I do.

It's useless for you and I

to go any further.

We've nothing to say.

We are alike.

I believe what you just said.

Have love affairs with other people.

We don't need that.

I wanted to smell the scent of your hair.

That explains why I...

After the party your friends will stay on.

I'd like to stay with you once.

There's no chance.

They'd turn me out?

Yes. They have to forget you.

Like Lahore.

Yes.

What will become of me?

You'll get a post far from Calcutta.

That's what you wish?

Yes.

No!

When will it end?

With your death, I think.

What's this pain, my pain?

Understanding.

Of you?

I'll ask them to keep me here tonight.

Do as you like.

In order that something happens

between you and me.

A public scandal.

I can only shout.

At least they'll know that love can be cried out.

I know they'll feel awkward.

Then they'll start talking again.

I also know you'll tell no one

you agreed with me.

Let me stay!

I'm staying here tonight.

With her!

Once, with her!

Do you hear me?

What's going on?

Something must be done.

Terrible.

It was bound to happen.

I'm staying!

I'm staying at the French Embassy!

I'll go to the islands with her!

I beg you!

I beg you, keep me!

Such hardness!

Terrible.

She just keeps still.

Once!

Just once!

I never loved anyone but her!

You should go home.

You drank too much.

He's looking for scandal.

No sense of...

What happened?

Covered in shame... It's strange.

What a pity!

He's taken away.

He doesn't resist.

He's outside.

They shut the gate.

He laughed and cried.

He tried to force the gate.

The beggars are scared.

He's gone.

Suddenly it's all clear.

What?

Lahore.

He's still shouting.

Where is she?

In the private drawing-room.

With him.

In a way, everyone should be crying.

Don't you think so? Yes.

It's a manner of speaking...

Who's shouting? The Vice Consul?

Yes. Again.

After he goes to the islands, his trail is lost.

He tenders his resignation.

The records stop there.

Soon after?

A few days.

What is he shouting?

Her Venetian name

in an empty Calcutta.

All night long he cried her name.

That noise of wings, of birds?

Dawn.

It's growing light

all around...

And over there.

The air smells of mud.

And leprosy.

And fire.

Not a puff of air. No.

Very slow movements,

very slow shifting

of odours.

The sun.

The light! Terrible!

Yes. Exile.

She is listless.

Yes. Deeply absent.

The heat is rust-coloured.

Above, there's smoke.

The factories.

This continent, suspended?

The monsoon.

Bengal is below...

Further...

Lower...

Under the sky...

Look...

In a curve of the Ganges,

that whiteness.

Over there?

The English cemetery.

A car rolls along the straight roads

by the Ganges.

They've left for the islands.

These junks?

Rice.

On the slopes

those dark spots?

People.

The highest density in the world.

Those black mirrors, multitudes?

Indian rice fields.

The black Lancia has stopped.

Rain.

The roads are cut.

They took shelter.

There, the young attache said

"Before I left I saw the Vice Consul.

"He was still shouting in the streets.

"He asked if I was going to the islands.

"I said no, but to Nepal with the ambassador."

Did she approve of the lie?

She almost never spoke a word

about the man from Lahore.

That green colour

is increasing.

The ocean.

The islands.

Which is it?

The widest,

the central island.

They've arrived.

That large white building?

The Prince of Wales.

An international hotel.

There's a heavy sea.

There's been a storm.

In front, the landing wharves.

Those are the South Pacific ships.

Behind, there's a marina for yachts.

Through the trees, the same flat horizon.

The islands are alluvial.

The mud of the Ganges.

Where is the French residence?

On the other side of the hotel, facing the ocean.

She wanted to swim when she arrived?

Yes.

The sea was heavy.

Impossible to swim,

with the power of the waves.

She took a bath with him.

And the nets in the sea?

Against the delta sharks.

Where is she?

She'll come.

She's coming.

That night, she was the same?

Smiling.

Dressed in white.

Who comes to that hotel?

White India.

I'm not very clear...

She doesn't go to the French residence?

She only slept there.

She had dinner at the Prince of Wales

when she went to the islands.

She asked for the servants from the residence

to go back to Calcutta.

How long ago? A few weeks.

"India Song..."

Yes.

There's dancing in the hall.

Tourists from Ceylon.

These birds...

Prisoners of the islands

because of the storm.

They stay in the mango trees,

spoiling them.

They'll leave at dawn.

Suddenly that smell of death?

Incense.

He arrived on the last sloop?

Yes, the seven o'clock.

He hadn't been home all day.

He never went back to Calcutta.

The mist blew down the wind.

She asked for the blind to be raised.

She wants to see the sea, the sky,

above the estuary.

They are very tired

as a result of the previous night.

She looks out.

I remember...

A wall of mist advancing towards the islands.

Yes.

She says something about Venice.

About Venice in winter.

Yes, that's it.

Venice? Yes.

Maybe, on certain evenings in winter,

there's a similar mist in Venice.

She says the name of a colour.

Violet.

The colour of the delta mist.

It was an evening in September

during the summer monsoon...

in the islands...

in 1937.

In China, the war went on.

Shanghai had just been bombarded.

The Japanese were still advancing.

In the Asturias the war was raging.

They were still fighting.

The Republic is butchered.

In Russia the Revolution is betrayed.

The Nuremburg Congress has just taken place.

Already, the beggar girl hunted in the warm delta waters.

Michael Richardson and the young guest

were already back in the residence

along the beach road.

The two others had gone rowing.

She had wanted to go home alone

by the inland route.

Behind her

was the Vice Consul of Lahore.

He followed her to the park.

Michael Richardson and the guest

arrived after her at the French residence.

She had gone to meet them in the park.

They're walking towards each other.

Then they meet.

It seems they're talking together.

They go back to the residence.

They had tried...

They tried to die together

without succeeding.

In a brothel.

In Chandernagore.

They were discovered.

During the night she brings champagne

and glasses.

She serves it to them.

It's still dark

when Michael Richardson takes the young guest away.

He tears himself away,

leaving her.

Later,

music was heard near the residence.

The lovers of the Ganges had agreed

to set each other free

if, one day, either of them chose to die.

The young guest had returned to the residence

during the night.

Yes, he saw her.

She was lying in the park,

leaning on an elbow.

He said "She unfolded her arms

"and put her head on one of them.

"The Vice Consul of Lahore was ten yards away.

"They didn't speak."

She must have stayed there a long time,

until dawn,

then taken the path.

Her robe was found on the beach.

Once more the heat was that of Calcutta...