Grand Illusion

My father had several times expressed a fear of being
buried alive. I insisted that the doctor should do whatever
was necessary. The doctor asked me to leave the
room. When I came back, he was able to assure me that
Renoir was dead!

jean renoir

It is not 1937 for long. A clump of ash trees and a walk

Down the the boathouse: inside linen is tacked up

In a long blank mural; the children sit on the wings

Of the dry dock, and then, over the water in a circle

Of rowboats, the aunts and uncles wait while

At their center the projectionist, Jean Renoir,

On a cedar raft, casts silhouettes of rabbits, birds,

And turtles for the sleepy children. Corks

Come out of old bottles, it is a few minutes past sunset

And, now, a swimmer beside the raft looks

Into the boathouse to the linens: at last, it is 1915!

A bird screams over the lake, two bats

Flitter back and forth through the beam of the lamp,

Interrupting the images, the grand illusion, cast over

Water the the acceptance of white tablecloths

On the darkening shore of the lake. A torch is lit

For its kerosene smoke is repugnant to the swarming insects.

This film and its prisoners exist between extreme borders,

Not music and algebra but

A war and, then, yet another war. . .

But we begin with the captured officers digging

A tunnel that will soon be outside the garden wall.

The Boches observe the Frenchmen working

With their hoes as from the trousers of a boy

Dirt from the tunnel secretly spills onto horse manure!

The prisoners dream of crossing a meadow filled

With snow, in the moonlight it is jade-green snow

While Germans with rifles on a hill

Are unable to kill them, for they have escaped

Into Switzerland with its feather-brushed trees

And patina of copper rooftops along a hillside village.

Isn’t this the ending of the film?

No! I’m sorry but

There is a single blossom

On the geranium, and when it falls, Captain de Boeldieu

Dies, discovering his afterlife along a November road—

He does not know that two men are hiding in the marsh

Beside him; nevertheless, it is at this moment that the film

Suffers its true conclusion. The two men hiding

In the marsh will escape across the border, only

To be returned to the continuing war. This is why there

Is no importance to your version of the story. And there

Will be another war. And more horror for the geranium!

So, to pass the time, the imprisoned soldiers receive

A steamer trunk filled with women’s clothing,

They will all perform in a revue: a chorus

Of boys and men, rouge and talcum, black stockings,

Garters, the tonneau dresses, false breasts and

Large paper carnations riding up like epaulets

On their broad shoulders. These poignant inversions

Are not ridiculous: the third boy from the right

Has delicate milky thighs, these women are not ridiculous

Until they begin to stiffen into men as they sing,

In this comedy, their national anthem! The Russian

Prisoners have been given a trunk, also, from their

Mysterious Czarina; the men open it expecting vodka

And sausages. The box is filled with straw

And books on cooking, painting, and algebra. In disgust

They burn these books—kiss good-bye the frontier

Of algebra and the desire for wedding tripe!

Now, these officers who are escape artists are moved

As an elite corps and north to Wintersborn. Later,

They are taken to a damp limestone castle

From which no one will escape. The Commandant

Is the stoic aristocrat, Rauffenstein, his head is in

A brace like a white egg in a silver teaspoon.

I mean no disrespect, but the balding Rauffenstein is

An abject picture of suffering. His villa has but one

Flower, a tall laden geranium.

Rauffenstein and the other aristocrat, Boeldieu,

Are friends. Both would know that to clear a monocle

One uses spirits of vinegar. They stand confirmed

In manner beside a squirrel cage. Rauffenstein feels

Superior to the other two principals, the rich

Jew, Rosenthal, and the charming emotional Marechal.

These two hide in the marsh while Boeldieu dies

Of a bullet wound. Only a king may kill a king!

And Rauffenstein did it with his pistol; taking aim

But missing the leg; he severed in three places

Boeldieu’s intestine!

The Captain is given a room in the turret that holds

The flowering geranium. Now comes the oratio obliqua

Of the marksman, Rauffenstein; the disfigured Commandant

Is sincerely saddened

At having killed the noble Captain. But before

The shooting and escape we sensed the Captain’s

Sacrifice was not sacrifice, or suicide, but

The grand escape—a country road into another landscape. . .

There are bells tolling down in the village.

Rosenthal and Marechal with ropes have dropped

Past the castle’s battlements to the ground.

They run away across snowy farmland. Marechal’s teeth

Are stained from chewing licorice-flavored tobacco.

Rosenthal and Marechal are extremes who have

Strong feelings for each other. They are befriended

By a German widow, Ulsa, and her daughter, Lotte;

Ulsa sleeps with the tall handsome Jew. He promises

To return for her when the war is over. He

Will lose both his legs at Mégéglise.

This is not known within the story, but he’ll bleed

To death beside a little bridge. He lived his illusion

In the Orient of Delacroix, his servants were Syrians

And Negroes. He loved the little ivory spoons that

Chinese women in the open markets use to bathe

And freshen the exotic tiny fish they sell out

Of huge clay bowls. . .

In the boathouse the children sleep, while Jean’s

Oldest cousin, drunken, falls out of a rowboat.

The lone swimmer has joined Renior on the raft.

The film now reveals the first diversion

As all of the prisoners of the fortress begin playing

Several hundred wooden flutes, the noise is like women

Crying over the fresh mounds at Verdun. This diversion

Is not illusion

And as the Boches collect the flutes, the drunken cousin

Tries to join Renior on the raft. Boeldieu flees

To the heights of the castle, the second diversion!

We hear: Halt! Halt! Halt!

A gunshot, and chowder with blood falls from Boeldieu’s

Opened stomach all the way down to the courtyard.

There are small fish bones in the viscera on the cobbled

Courtyard floor. Scissors cut the blue blossom

From the geranium. Boeldieu will die. . . dead,

He awakens on a country road where, now a peasant,

He walks a white horse under the looming, bare trees.

Rosenthal and Marechal are watching

As they hide in the dead marsh flowers of

An early November. They are alive. They do not

Recognize their friend. Renoir’s cousin, asking for

More wine, climbing onto the raft, spills

Everything, and the projector with its crude lamp

Sinks slowly to the bottom of the lake—

Its dusky lighted windows like a bathysphere

Lost off a cable that frayed, whoever is alive

Inside the iron bell is experiencing

An eternal falling through water without the promise

Of a bottom. . . it’s 1937, the children

Asleep in the boathouse are being aroused, they wake

To a bat caught in the wall of linen, they think it’s

Their uncle still casting images of animals for them. . .

Copyright Credit: Norman Dubie, “Grand Illusion” from The Mercy Seat: Collected & New Poems 1967-2001 (Copper Canyon Press, 2001). www.coppercanyonpress.org

Source: The Mercy Seat: Collected & New Poems 1967-2001 (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)