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Twice a day, however, at half past ten in the morning and four o'clock in the afternoon, the silence is shattered by a sound of tumult.
Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles, translated by Rosamond Lehmann, Penguin, 1964, p. 7.
PLACE: Paris
TIME: early 20th c.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Young boys leaving their school
He lay prostrate on the ground. A stream of blood flowed from his mouth, besmearing chin and cheek and soaking in the snow. Whistles rang out. Next moment the Cité was deserted.
Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles, Jean Cocteau, translated by Rosamond Lehmann, Penguin, 1964, p.12.
PLACE: Paris
TIME: early 20th c.
CIRCUMSTANCE: a snowball fight gets rough
Suddenly a cry was heard, two plaintive notes. Piercing, human they swelled, inhuman; the panes rattled; the fire brigade went storming by. Through chinks in the frosted glass Gerard could discern the bases of the fire engines, the scarlet ladders, the firemen standing motionless, gold-helmeted in their niches, like allegorical figures on a monument.
Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles, translated by Rosamond Lehmann, Penguin, 1964, p. 20.
PLACE: Paris
TIME: early 20th c.
CIRCUMSTANCE: a fire
Paul slept. Elisabeth kept watch beside him, listening to his breathing, her passionate anger spent, or rather turned to a passionately tender contemplation. Sick and asleep, he was exposed to scrutiny, immune from teasing. She could examine the mauve stains beneath his eyelids, the fullness and forward lift of the upper lip; she could lay her head against the boyish arm. What is this uproar in her ears? Blocking one ear, she strains to listen, hears her own hammering pulses amplifying his. Louder, louder? ... She panics. Surely if this goes on it must mean death. Wake up! She must wake him up.
Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles, translated by Rosamond Lehmann, Penguin, 1964, p. 32.
PLACE: Paris
TIME: early 20th c.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Elisabeth nurses her ill brother Paul
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