Original subtitles

Come in.

It's Laure from downstairs, Antoine's friend. She's come to see you.

I'm leaving, my child.

The one who has been can no longer not have been:

Henceforth that mysterious and deeply obscure fact of having been

is its ticket for eternity.

I'll wait for you by the gate.

WILL HAVE BEEN

THE DAYS I DON'T EXIST

So, you take him, but... you don't take the high-speed train.

Yes. As we are not expected for two days,

we won't go by high-speed train. We'll stop off at my castle

and go very exactly by car, by boat, on foot, on horseback, on foot,

by railcar.

Very well.

Will you excuse me for a moment, I'll be back.

Mecenas was a gentleman.

He said somewhere:

armless, as long as, after all,

I am more than happy.

We tell you as much. >>

Look children!

We think 2000 less 1920,

that's eighty years of life.

Well no: In his eighty years of life,

this man

has lived only forty.

And not only has this man lived only half his time,

but this grave, his grave

is empty.

Totally empty.

There is no one under there.

That man,

who lived in Montmartre and whose name was Antoine,

like you Antoine,

that man lived only every other day.

During twenty-four hours, from midnight to midnight,

he lived like we all do,

and during the next twenty-four hours,

his body and soul went back to nought.

As he kept no memory of the dead days,

and that full days fused with full days in his memory,

life seemed short to him.

So much so that he strove to make it gloomy.

To exist only every other day is revolting

to common sense.

It shocked Antoine himself.

He believed it was dangerous to have the world accept such an absurd reality.

That's why when he came to town,

he did his best in order that the secrecy of his discontinuous life

shouldn't perspire.

And during ten years that seemed like five to him,

he perfectly managed.

Now, we go to Sophie Vaudin for a traffic update.

The first traffic jams on the A6 at the Villefranche-sur-Saône toll.

5 kilometres of tailbacks north of Lyon.

On the Riviera motorway,

there are 50 kilometres of slow-moving traffic

between Valence and Montélimar.

Antoine didn't have to earn his living.

His uncle Alfred that you saw at the cemetery

gave him an allowance that enabled him to meet the needs of his half-existence.

In his situation, it was an uncommon piece of luck,

for there are few jobs that give the opportunity

to work only every other day.

And maybe there isn't even any.

He lived in Montmartre, Tholozé Street.

On the 6th floor, he had a little 2-bedroom flat

that he had furnished himself at low cost

and the annual rent was 48,000 FF.

He was a quiet tenant who never received anybody

and avoided conversations in the staircase.

The neighbours never complained about him,

and the woman caretaker had a high opinion of him

because he was quite handsome.

The days he existed...

The days he existed,

it seemed to him he had fallen asleep not 2 days before

but the day before,

and his heart sank at the thought of this day during which he had not lived.

By listening to what the passers-by said,

he wondered what the world might have been doing without him.

The word yesterday that he overheard

stirred him with curiosity, longing and regret.

It was for him the most painful time of the day.

Sometimes he felt overwhelmed.

To know nothing but the day during which he was living,

without yesterday and without tomorrow,

seemed to him to be the most terrible of all tortures.

Antoine was trying to push away his last memories of the day before yesterday

to leave some space to the events related in the papers.

Something else upset him: The time going by.

When reading yesterday's news, time slipped away at a frightening speed.

He avoided the centre of Paris

where the variety of the show didn't even enable him to spy on

the minutes evading.

One of his favourite walks

went from the north side of La Chapelle to the Ourcq Canal, at Pantin.

Walking up Riquet Street, he would come out on landscapes

of gasometers, railways, freight stations

that in their desolation had

an infinite unwinding.

In his best days, it seemed to him

that time slipped away more slowly

in these iron plains than anywhere else.

Suddenly, he would find out that one hour had passed by

and he didn't notice.

Then he would lose his mind,

resume his walk,

see the hands of his watch dance

and end up using tricks

of his own invention.

Pretending, say, that he had to catch the train,

he would arrive on the platform one hour early,

hoping that the time would seem incredibly long to him.

But the virtue of his trick had worn out.

And taking the suburban tramways, outside the rush hour,

even on a day of drizzly rain,

couldn't fool him more.

The hands speeded up around the clock

and all his efforts to hold time back

only helped to accelerate its escape.

He had tried to stay in the flat part of the day

and by staring at the wall, keep his mind

still.

But his thought wandered against his will

and the walls got lively

as if he were at the cinema.

The only moments of optimism Antoine had

were at lunchtime.

After having bought some food on the Abesses Street market,

he would go back home and cook his meal.

His morning walk opened his appetite

and eating

a beefsteak or a portion of chicory

would somehow comfort his melancholy.

Every other day, he would think,

it may not be a lot,

but it is still better than not existing at all.

It is better than being dead

or not being born.

When you think of all those who could've been born

but who didn't get the opportunity,

of all those who didn't even have one day to taste life,

nor half of one, nor a quarter,

you can't complain.

But wisdom and good reasons

wouldn't comfort him for long.

When the satisfaction of his stomach didn't support them any more,

they turned into basically nothing.

And the afternoons weren't less cruel than the mornings.

At midnight, he would disappear suddenly,

to reappear twenty-four hours later at the same place

and resume his dream.

Quite often, Antoine had had the curiosity to stay awake and wait for

the unimaginable moment when he wouldn't exist any longer.

He had never observed or perceived anything,

not even a move.

If during the second preceding midnight he was buttoning his pyjamas,

the second after, he was

busy doing the same.

But one full day had passed by,

and he only had to go down in the town to find evidence of that.

As he wasn't allowed the sensation of that dead time,

he had decided to go to sleep before midnight

to avoid the torment of a useless expectation.

In short, there were little chances

that anyone would ever know about the mystery.

Antoine would've had to be reckless enough to find himself at midnight

in a crowded place

and he carefully avoided it.

Falling in love was one of the things he was the most afraid of.

When he saw a pretty woman, he cautiously looked down,

fearing an affair might have unfortunate consequences.

How would a woman put up with a man such as me? he'd think.

It's certainly not pleasant for a woman to be a widow every other day.

And what will I look like the days I don't exist?

One day of September,

at a butcher's of Abesses Street,

25 francs. Is that all?

Yes, that's all.

- Miss? - A little slice between 20 and 25 francs.

She had such a sweet smile

that Antoine couldn't help

but confess his love.

I love you too, since the day of the entrecôte.

My name is Clémentine.

I live here, 100 Lepic Street.

My name is Antoine and I live Tholozé Street.

I am quite glad.

About to leave her, in Lepic Street,

he thought he couldn't do less

than ask her for a date.

If you wish, I am free tomorrow, all day.

Impossible. Tomorrow... I am not there.

But the day after?

Clémentine, I have something else to confess to you.

I exist...

only every other day.

He saw in Clémentine's gaze that she didn't quite understand

and he explained it all to her.

There you are. I'd rather you knew about it.

Obviously, every other day is not a lot...

It is! It's not so bad.

Of course, it'd be nicer to be together all the time, especially at first,

but that's how life is. You don't do all you want.

And the day after next, Clémentine left her room Lepic Street

to move in Tholozé Street.

In the first moment of disappointment, she almost got cross at him

for disappearing without even leaving a little smoke,

but her love almost immediately inspired in her the worry

that he might not come back.

She found it hard to imagine he'd stopped existing,

even temporarily.

And truly, it was something unimaginable.

Clémentine couldn't help but think that he was in the sky

and also a little bit in the bedroom,

like the dead prowling everywhere to overhear the thoughts of the living.

I'd rather believe he is here.

How can I believe he'll come back if really he's nothing any more?

So?

So? Well! Nothing... Do you understand? Nothing.

I didn't exist more than you did 100 years ago.

For me, all day yesterday is dead time.

But for you it's just past time and you remember it.

Tell me yesterday, tell me your day.

How do the hours go by when I don't exist? How do days adjust to days?

Give me back what escapes me, what can't find a place in my semi-existence.

The newspapers say almost nothing about it.

They don't know...

they talk about yesterday for people who have already lived it. Tell me...

This morning, I got up at 8.

Yes, but since I stopped existing?

I can't say how you disappeared...

suddenly I saw nothing any more.

I still felt your warmth, the pressure of your hands and you were already gone.

I wasn’t frightened, as you'd warned me, just a minute of surprise.

Stupidly, against my will, I raised my head and looked for you in the room.

There was a blue fly buzzing around the lamp.

Don't blame me, but I almost wondered if it wasn’t you.

Oh, no, certainly not.

I remember having seen it too, just before midnight.

If I were a blue fly, on the days I disappear, I'd consider myself happy.

You know, I can't find that natural:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...

Thursday... Friday... Saturday, Sunday.

I'm so used to Monday-Wednesday- Friday-Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday...

That is natural!

Luckily, weeks have an uneven number of days or I wouldn't know them all.

In one month, you have 30 days of bliss

and I have 15.

But we end the month together, that's what matters.

No, I don't have 30 days of bliss.

When you're not here, I'm bored. I'm even sorrowful.

The truth is, she could easily stand the days of solitude.

She caught her breath, enjoyed the pleasures of meditation and fidelity.

Her love had a whiff of wisdom and friendship

that tended to moderate Antoine's fervour.

After two years of union,

it led to a disagreement that remained long secret,

at least for him,

as Clémentine had enough time

to meditate over the strangeness of their situation.

Her love that had been lasting for two full years

didn't have the freshness or eagerness

of Antoine's only one year old.

Besides...

Your raw vegetables, sir. Enjoy your meal.

Besides, the days of widowhood encouraged thoughts,

judgements, examinations of the conscience,

which best moderate a passion.

Antoine sometimes had a swift feeling of being out of touch,

but he lacked time to give it more thought.

Michel Cifre, 61, resurfaced satisfied,

after two and a half months alone in the cave of Clamousse.

He says: Under the earth, you know, I no longer have a past,

at least I don't think about it,

and when I go back up, I don't try to catch up with lost news:

yesterday I learnt by chance that Yeltsin was no longer president.

You should meet him.

You were right, it's lovely here.

But a bit far, isn't it?

Yes, I love to come here.

We shouldn't go too late. I don't feel like disappearing here.

It's true, the countryside is lovely. It makes a change, doesn't it?

You often come here?

Yes. When you don't exist, I don't like to be home alone.

So I take the train and come here.

I'm glad you're here today.

You... come here every other day?

Almost, it depends.

And... have you been coming here long?

It has been two years. Since we met.

For you, one year.

But what do you do when you come here?

Nothing, I walk.

It's deserted, isn't it?

Today a little, but it is usually more crowded...

It's pleasant.

I'd like to go home.

Then, that Fray Luis de Leon, after 5 years of jail,

went back in front of his students and addressed them very naturally:

We were saying yesterday...

You see? Just as if these 5 years had counted for nothing!

Clémentine?

My darling?

Sorry, but I went to the cinema and the film ended later than I expected.

Are you cross because I went to the cinema?

I swear if I knew I would come home so late...

No. Why would I hold it against you?

You're free to go to the cinema, I imagine, and even anywhere you want.

What you do when I don't exist is your business. I have nothing to do with it.

Even if I were aware of all your moves,

am I allowed to judge them without having lived these days myself?

You're free to do as you please. Your life belongs to you.

It's not because from time to time, it coincides with mine...

Why do you say from time to time? Our lives coincide every other day.

Oh, I know it's not your fault.

You do what you can.

He suddenly felt the deepness of that dead time he had no control over

and all the events it might hold.

A near and unreachable hereafter,

on which he had had until then only information,

became a reality,

almost perceptible.

Clémentine's absence, that seemed to him to have lasted 2 minutes,

plunged into that other world,

had been going on for hours.

There was in his beloved's behaviour, in her physiognomy,

something unusual and distant,

a languidness,

an inattentive manner,

and maybe a regret, Antoine thought,

as if she were dwelling on the memory of that other world she had just left.

That was the way she probably undressed

on the days he didn't exist.

Her clothes fallen, she appeared in an irritating nudity

that certainly didn't lack presence

but still seemed to move around in a strange glow.

It was too easy to imagine her with a cortège.

Antoine hardly slept that night.

He listened to Clémentine's peaceful breathing,

thinking about the ghosts of the day haunting his companion's sleep.

What had been accidental

became a habit

and at least once a week, Clémentine came home after midnight.

These delays exasperated Antoine

but gave him only weak excuses to get angry.

One day, by chance,

I met Clémentine by the banks of the Seine

which became our regular meeting place.

And the evening before yesterday, were you on time?

My delays exasperate Antoine

but give him only weak excuses to get angry.

Every minute late is for him like an intrusion of dead hours

in his already shrunk existence.

He became taciturn

and remained so

until the day he decided to become jealous.

The suspicions

he tries to keep away

finally seemed reasonable to him.

A man that exists only every other day

is fated to be a cuckold

and for his wife to stay faithful, she'd need to have such a dark virtue

that you'd hardly dare to praise it.

That doesn't stop Antoine bombarding me with questions

that are also reproaches.

I protest by saying: Come on, now you're imagining things.

My serenity drives Antoine mad.

He grinds his teeth, sniggers, sobs, embraces me passionately

and asks the same questions again.

I think he has become quite unbearable,

but I wait,

considering that I'm alone at least every other day

and that my fate is still enviable.

Look,

the night has almost fallen.

And we feel so good here that we didn't even notice.

And you haven't been home since?

No, it's been a week since I last saw him.

A week?

But for him it is only 3 days.

3 days is just about all right.

And does he exist today?

Today?

No.

You know, I have an idea to help you both.

Are you sure he doesn't exist today?

If he doesn't exist, he won't realize if he doesn't exist any more.

And for him no longer to exist, his space just has to be filled before he reappears.

But that's terrible: You want to erase him!

You can't erase someone who doesn't exist.

On the contrary. It is his worries I erase.

It is 4 o'clock,

we have only 8 hours left.

It's for his own good.

Help me. We need to compact the most we can.

See, there should be no chink left

so there isn't the slightest space for him to exist.

And I even wonder whether we shouldn't sink all this in concrete

to be 100 per cent sure.

I already don't see how he could come back.

Still, don't you have some plaster or something?

There you are, it'll soon be over.

With that we can be sure he won't reappear again.

The place will definitely be well occupied.

Are you sure it's gone midnight?

It's even gone one o'clock.

Serge left Claire to take me to live with him in New York.

After one year, it turned out bad.

I came back last week.

I remembered Antoine,

but I was remorseful

and I didn't dare go back to Montmartre.

And I was told that the neighbourhood was being pulled down.

Antoine must have completely ceased to exist.

I remember now

what he said once in the car,

when for the first and last time we went on holiday.

He didn't want to go.

He was always afraid to travel.

It necessarily generated for him lots of complications,

and he was always afraid

to disappear in a place he didn't know,

especially if there was a risk of being seen.

Yes, he was right.

Actually...

Yet he'd come to accept the idea

that people must also take holidays and travel.

I think he was afraid I would decide to go without him,

and that something might happen to me on a day he doesn't exist.

So once, we went on holiday.

When my eyes are closed for ever,

they won't see the divinely, magnificently real landscape

appear any more.

After my heart has stopped beating,

my throat contracting,

my lungs filling with air,

after my blood has stopped pumping through my body

and has started thickening, drying

inside my arteries and veins,

after my skin has stopped feeling hard, and soft,

and cold, and warm,

but has become thin and crackly

like a cigarette paper

to let the dead entrails slip through;

after my bones have come apart

and smashed into powder like stone;

after water, fire, the grains of sand,

the oxides,

the roots of the trees,

have worn everything out, gnawed everything,

smashed everything under their weight.

After the generations of other men, the wars, the civilizations,

have thus been and gone on earth,

breathed the same air as me, drinking the same water,

and fed with parts of my body,

will there still be anything

tenuous, thrilling, tiny left,

not even a pain or a joy,

but a ghost,

a confused and distant memory

that will give me a soul?

And after these very generations have passed,

after the last men have disappeared,

after the earth and sun have been swallowed,

have blended with the void, like me,

will there be anything left of me in the smallest part of an atom?

Will there even be a speck of dust floating in absolute space

that will bear the sign that I have lived?

And that I have thought about these eternal things?

Well, we're not late today.

The cellar still needs cleaning.

A coffee, please.

Saturday 29th April 2000

Friday 27th April 2001

- Excuse me, sir... - Sir?

Summer 2000,

is it over?

Indeed, this is spring 2001.

You understand me? No, you don't!

People like me belong to a world apart.

A whole half of my life escapes you, you'll never know it.

Because that half has nothing in common with your life.

It is outside.

Tell me what they say about Jack Hammer.

In the lead at the start, she looked certain to win then.

But Giésolo de Lou, still seen in her wake,

dominated mid-straight, then appearing as a potential winner.

But that was without allowing for Jack Hammer who ended stronger with 1 '14",

a good time on that 1,000-metre track.

But today with the rain...

I see Three Wizards in the 7th.

I won on Midy-Mouse in the 7th today at 11 to 1,

everybody bet on Le Mage!

Well done. I know about it!

I advise you to look at Artas' last performance in the 3rd.

His owner is the boss of a pizzeria

where my wife and I sometimes go.

I always play this one.

Are you a gambler?

No, I don't have time to,

I don't exist enough.

I... almost don't exist.

I'll have a half-pint please.

I have just spent a year in limbo, one year without existing.

Usually I exist only every other day.

I had ended up finding that not so bad. But one year...

Notwithstanding what I heard an hour ago.

It's not enough that the average man lives every calendar day.

Some privileged people even have an additional existence!

I pity that girl whose lover has such a numerous life that half escapes her.

I complained about existing only every other day, and in reality,

when I don't disappear for a year,

I only exist one day out of four... maybe less...

There must be a category of men even more blessed than that man at the café.

I wonder why I didn't think about it earlier.

While I was living 1 day, Clémentine was living 2,

the guy from the café 4, another 8, and so on.

I come to the conclusion that I exist 1 day out of 1,000.

I exist so little that it's not worth it.

How much do I owe you?

Twelve.

There's a bit missing. I'll just go to my uncle Alfred's

and bring back the rest.

Thank you.

It's amazing, isn't it!

The stories people can think up.

I think he has Saturn in his Pluto square.

Poor guy.

Hello. A hot chocolate with a lot of chocolate, please.

I tell you.

He must have left in less than a quarter of a second!

He was there.

I'd just brought him a coffee, he asks for the bill,

I come to get it here, I turn around, gone! And no one saw him go!

He went from there to there without being seen.

Well, he forgot his jacket. If he comes back, we must get him.

So, in case I'm not here, his bill is here.

All right.

I'll have to pay for it!

But frankly, the chap was quick, I say bravo.

Tell me, is it possible to book that table for tonight?

Two of us, around 11 o'clock.

- Around 11? - Yeah.

All right.

A coffee please.

What time is it?

Midnight.

So, dear Antoine, we agree on this.

Without her, my micro-existence is impossible.

If she wishes, she may come to unbury me.

Otherwise I have only one regret:

Not knowing any more what will happen.

Abandon the world in motion, like in the middle of a serial: No.

I wish to come back from nought every 10 years, not more.

You'll just have to be here and do as we said:

One night, remove the soil that keeps me from reappearing,

and sit up until midnight, until I resume existing again.

Then in the morning I'll go to a newspaper stand

and I will buy some.

You will give me your news.

I will ask nothing more.

My papers under the arm, pale, skimming the walls,

I'll come back to the cemetery.

I'll read of the world's disasters until nightfall

before disappearing again, satisfied,

sheltered by the reassuring grave,

for 10 years.

Or less if she changed her mind.

It won't be long.

And don't forget!

For you, tomorrow, I'll be 23 years old.

The day after, 33.

And by the end of your week, 83 years old.

Sous-titrage: C.M.C.