Original subtitles

In collaboration with

This restoration was funded by the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée

as part of the support plan

for the restoration and the digitization of the film heritage.

With the support of

I dedicate this film

to the memory of my dear young wife,

Ida Danis, dead at age 27.

THE WHEEL

Tragedy of Modern Times in a Prologue and Four Acts

Assistant: Blaise Cendrars

Cameramen: BUREL, Bujard, Duverger

Scenario by Abel Gance directed by the author

PROLOGUE a scarlet twilight

The engineer Sisif, returning from work,

was fortunately on hand to direct rescue operations.

"Shut the safety locks,

you chicken-hearts!

45 seconds to block track 4 for the 2020!"

"Close the 24-14 and 17 and all the full stop signals."

"The track is still open!

The semaphore is open for the 2020 which is going to collide with all this!"

"An axle is jamming the semaphore switch. The express is headed right for us..."

Rescue train.

Suddenly, at nightfall,

Sisif remembered that under the rose bush, next to the track...

"She would make a nice sister for my little boy!..."

"Charming?"

Sisif, taking the child,

unwittingly plucked

the rose of the rail hidden by the child's dress...

...and these words were written:

"Happily there will always be

a rose in the Wheel..."

Sisif had a son, Elie, whose mother had died bringing him into the world.

In the morning.

The inventory of objects found in the accident.

Dear Madame,

...finding myself obliged

to leave England...

you know how poverty

has affected me and my little Norma

since the death of my poor husband.

I should find... a modest position...

hope to raise... daughter...

The father dead,

the mother killed in the accident,

no one the wiser.

What would become of this orphan

as a state charge?...

"How about you, Sisif, no statement?"

"I do have one!"

"While all these bigwigs

were running around and yelling,

I prevented the 2020 from crashing

by releasing the semaphore."

"In short, you have nothing interesting to say!"

"I do!"

"We others aren't used to seeing flowers

between the tracks, and yet, gentlemen..."

"On the track... I found..."

"this rose!..."

"That's Sisif!

The best engineer on the line. Stubborn as a mule, but indispensable!"

"Very good with his hands.

He invents little improvements

for the engines for our patents office.

Hush! Keep it to yourself!"

Dear Madame,

...finding myself obliged...

to leave England...

The only proof of Norma's presence in the accident disappeared.

"Would you like me to give you a little brother?"

"She can't talk like everybody else."

And seeing this toy accident,

a mirror image in miniature

of the previous day's catastrophe...

Sisif sensed that the Wheel of Life

would grow heavier with the fate of Norma.

The years pass and pass...

The two children grow up, believing they are brother and sister.

But the Wheel turns... turns.

THE WHEEL First Part

THE ROSE OF THE RAIL

"I know that Creation is a Great Wheel

that cannot move without crushing someone!" VICTOR HUGO

15 years passed.

At the railwaymen's canteen on payday....

The engineer Duterne drinks wine.

The engineer Chaume drinks water.

The fireman Sarment drinks beer.

The fireman Léger drinks vermouth.

"What's gotten into poor Sisif?"

"Feeling sorry for a fool

who gambles his money away?

Look at him!

He thinks he's some barroom Christ

with a halo..."

Sisif, engineer 1st Class, drinks huge quantities of alcohol.

Me, Machefer, fireman for a drunk like him? I'd be risking my life.

THE PAVEMENT VIRGIN

Sisif lives nearby in a small house...

...surrounded by rails...

...and capped in smoke...

...in the company of his son, Elie, a violinmaker...

...and Norma, whom Elie believes to be his sister...

THE PAVEMENT VIRGIN

"That cheat Jacobin is a real bastard!

The other day he was giving your daughter the eye..."

"It's time for the 6:07.

Go on... Duty first!"

"If any of you so much as looks at my daughter... take this as a warning!"

Secret report on first class engineers.

Sisif: Conduct for the past year

absolutely incomprehensible,

gambling, drinking,

fighting, without any visible reason.

I draw your attention to his case,

Mr. Inspector.

"Why am I angry with Sisif?

I have no idea!

And it's worse than if I had a reason."

"Rail, wheels, smoke,

how gloomy it all is!

This hectic modern life exasperates me."

How I wish I had been a violin maker centuries ago, and married

to a pretty woman like you.

Mr. Jacques de Hersan, civil engineer and inspector of construction materials.

High social situation. Large personal fortune.

Every day for the past six months,

Hersan had been vainly prowling around Norma.

"When will you allow me to ask your father for your hand?"

"The three of you

are strangled by poverty.

Your father sinks into the abyss

a little more every day.

Our marriage, Norma,

would make you all happy."

My dear Sisif, the patent office

is asking for the plans

to the slide valve vaporization process

I had promised. Get them ready.

I'll come by tomorrow with the 300 francs

agreed upon for this invention.

THE PAVEMENT VIRGIN

"Elie, didn't I forbid you

from spending your days with your sister?"

"You must get away from here, Norma,

far, far away and never come back."

"Have you gone mad, Papa? What has she done?"

"An old worker's hand, like those of the comrades..."

"That's all?"

"Then... you don't see clearly..."

That evening... as usual.

My dear Sisif, the patent office

is asking for the plans

to the slide valve vaporization process

I had promised. Get them ready.

I'll come by tomorrow with the 300 francs

agreed upon for this invention.

"Hello... the director of materials is asking for me?"

"The plans for the slide-valve process?

I'll be finished with them tomorrow.

I'll work on them all night."

Night.

Daybreak.

My dear children,

I'm making you very unhappy.

It would be best if I'm the one to leave.

Don't try to understand why and forgive me.

I embrace you both to my poor heart.

Sisif

"You see how misery is forcing him to leave

and that I have to get married."

"Murderer!"

That day,

as dusk enveloped the fever of the Rail...

"I forbid you from wearing short skirts and silk stockings, you hear me?"

"You obviously haven't been working for me!"

"Moreover,

this morning I intercepted and destroyed

a report on your behavior:

gambling, fighting, drinking.

What is going on?"

"What is going on?"

"Listen, Hersan. I'm going to tell you

the most appalling story

that ever happened to a man."

"First of all, Norma isn't my daughter, as she and my son were led believe."

"For years, I never dared to say anything.

She thinks I'm her father.

It would have caused her

too much pain to know the truth."

"It was the spontaneity and heavenly face of my little 'Rose of the Rail'."

"I wasn't aware of what was awakening in me so insidiously..."

FEWER WRINKLES IN FIVE MINUTES

"One day, the veil was torn away."

"I was in love with Norma!"

Sisif caught his breath.

His heart was racing

like a connecting rod,

as the twilight trains

blurred in the phantasmagoric mists.

"You can't imagine the hell my life became that day."

"And the nights, the horrific nights!"

"Chained to the Wheel of Life, always,

from despair to despair." KIPLING

What do you suggest I do?

Leave?

Kill myself?

"I can never tell her

about her origins now.

This secret is my protection.

It's the mask of my love.

She'd flee to the ends of the earth

if she ever knew..."

"I'm afraid to be in her presence

when my face isn't blackened by smoke.

Behind my mask of soot,

she can't see my suffering."

"Your father just made a confession to me."

"Gambling and poverty

have reduced him to this state.

The two of you are a burden to him.

He must get away of here

or else something bad will happen him."

"I don't love you enough, Mr de Hersan..."

"Think it over...

I'll come by tomorrow for your answer."

"Don't marry him, my dear Norma.

I'm afraid that man's no good for you.

I'll come up with my own Cremona varnish

and my violins will become famous.

Have patience..."

END OF THE FIRST PART

THE WHEEL Part two

THE TRAGEDY OF SISIF

That night, Sisif awaited the quietest moment to die.

Go to bed. I'll put the engine away by myself.

So this must be hell. I can't even die!..

Engineer Sisif has a screw loose.

Tried to get himself killed by his engine.

His suspension is mandatory.

"And it is said that they themselves

cannot free themselves of the Wheel." KIPLING

Dear Mr. Hersan, this letter contains

my decision to become your wife.

Come see my father tomorrow. Norma

I have an order for ten violins.

The next day.

Secretariat report: First reprimand

against Engineer First Class Sisif.

Attempted to have his locomotive run him over,

at the risk of causing his engineer other catastrophes.

Nota: Retirement to be officialized after second reprimand.

"I heard about what you did, my poor friend!"

"There is only one way to escape your nightmare, Sisif..."

"Let me marry me Norma!"

You love her, so do I. I've thought it over and I've decided

to remove this child from the danger you represent for her.

My resolution is... implacable.

"You'll never have Norma, you hear? Never! Never!"

"Then I'll tell her

about her origins and your feelings.

She'll choose

between your love and mine."

"Quick! I have 40 seconds to clear the track for the express."

Reading Norma's letter of acceptance, Hersan didn't waste a moment.

Dear Mr. Hersan, this letter

contains my decision to become your wife.

Come see my father tomorrow. Norma

"I'll wait for Norma outside to tell her what she risks under your roof.

You'll see if she doesn't flee in horror to find refuge under my roof."

"And what will you have left?

The shame of having crushed

the illusions she preserves...

illusions which I'll always let her keep...

if you give her to me."

"No, no, I love her too much. She's mine.

I'll tell her everything and she'll stay here. Everything!"

"Just try!"

Then, to make you rich and happy, I accept.

My little Norma, marry him. Since you love him.

"Besides, it's better for me... better for me."

The same evening.

"I drink to Norma's marriage."

"It's better that I never hear of her again,

Never! It was the only way for me to avoid..."

"I drink to the end!...

"of my bachelor life!"

I'll try to behave... yes, my darlings!

With a nice little wife of the Rail I'm damned keen on...

And with a pair of legs...

"I want to drown my love, my atrocious passion

in the well's moon, in the green moonlight..."

"You'll water them, won't you?"

"Swear she'll eat every day!"

"I swear, but come quickly, my darling!"

Sisif awaited his day to drive the E108 express

to personally take her to the big city.

At a stop, Sisif recalled a voice 20 years earlier

which had screamed: "Kidnapper!"

Laugh, you bastard! Think she's going to escape me?

No, my old, red one-eyed friend. She won't reach his arms alive.

"The Man of the Wheel and the Rose of the Rail

were made to die together...

A little courage and it will be over in a moment."

"Since I'm feeling light-hearted, Mâchefer,

I allow you to drink to her health."

Lost in the fumes of intoxication,

Mâchefer thought they had just run an advance signal.

This time, he was sure.

They had just run a full-stop signal.

Paris: City of the Great Gallows and the Wheel... BLAISE CENDRARS

"For it is written, none shall escape the Wheel."

The return.

The Man of the Wheel,

alone with his inexpressible sorrow,

would try to transfer his love

to his old smoke-haired companion.

"It's the new name for my locomotive."

And understanding, as only things can be,

Norma Compound sometimes uttered in her steely language:

I will always remain faithful to you.

And when you are too sad, I'll speak to you of her.

And you will again hear her aerial melancholy in the song of my wheels,

in the feverish beating of my connecting rods and in my sighs of smoke."

That same evening.

Monsieur de Hersan, if you value your life,

I would advise you never to let Norma

hear a single word about what I told you,

and, as for your marriage, to act with men of the law

with diplomacy, so that she remains

in complete ignorance about her origins.

This is my command. Follow it.

And unable to escape the Wheel of his inexpressible love,

Sisif resumed his desperate vigils every night, as if Norma was still there.

"You're stupid to eat here."

"Do I reproach you for loving your violins?

I think I love my locomotive.

I'm a kind of artist too."

"Look. Isn't this cloud of light worth your music?"

My dear Papa, Why don't you answer me

and why do you refuse the money I send you?

Please accept it or give it to Elie.

Your despairing daughter

POSTAL ORDER 5000 FRANCS

Refused by the consignee. Sisif.

Months passed.

Another melancholy.

What she saw.

The empty house.

How secrets vanish.

"My sister isn't registered in the official family record?"

"Norma isn't my sister?"

A horrible thought crossed Elie's mind. Other memories would confirm it.

"I want to drown my love, drown my atrocious obsession,

in the well's moonlight, in the green moon."

"You must have had a serious reason.

It's a serious matter to hide this secret.

I want to know. I have a right to know!"

"The days passed too quickly.

She would have suffered to learn it.

And then habit set in

and I didn't dare after that."

"Your entire behavior becomes clear: You're lying, Papa!"

There are disgraces that must be silenced! OEDIPUS THE KING.

"There are never flowers

between the tracks for us.

And faced with the miracle

of seeing one appear one day,

we can be excused for extending a hand.

"On the Wheel... bound, always bound!" KIPLING.

THE PAVEMENT VIRGIN volume 154

CANCER Like father, like son. Old proverb!

"I would have liked to have been married

to a pretty woman like you!"

These innocent words from long ago

took on a deeply disturbing meaning...

Now that she was coming back,

couldn't he continue his tender romance

to declare his love at last,

without her taking offence?

And you're no longer my sister in this charming tale.

You are nothing but an open heart who listens to me as she weeps,

Because I know such words never touched your ear and your ineffable senses...

...and then I can adore you in this disguise!

The night comes mysteriously to my aid

to soften on my brow the harsh specter of branches,

crowning yours with your white stars...

And my shadow is lost in Tristan's shadow!

I love you! I'm mad...

Forgive Elie's words. My love is unable to speak...

...it stammers!

It rises in me like a fiery sap,

from the flaming heart of the ground to the heart of the blue trees,

and makes me so dizzy that my words ramble.

"Well, old man, you know how to tell a joke!"

"The Wheel that will wound you and me,

will destroy my pure soul and yours." Omar KAYYHAM

My dear Elie,

your little sister is very unhappy.

My husband loves me very much

but I can't return his feelings,

our world is too different.

How I wish I could kiss you.

I'm learning the violin all by myself,

because this way I feel closer to you.

"I'll never forgive you for making me miss my happiness with Norma!"

"So, you too... My poor Elie... you too."

On his boat, next to the man whom I loath

and whose love defiles me

a little more each day,

I write to you for the 10th time,

my little Elie,

but I will probably

tear up this letter too,

since you never answer me,

and then I will cry

looking at my dream trains

go by on the sea

and listening to the motor that reminds me

of the sound of tracks...

the sound of the Wheel.

There are true damnations,

men who bear the word "bad luck"

stamped in mysterious letters

in the folds of their brow." BAUDELAIRE

"And you too, Norma!"

"I never want to hear your voice ever again, understand?"

"He's going mad with his station girl!"

The bad thing is that it's Jacobin

who's going to drive "Norma".

If you call in sick he's going

to smash it up, damn it to hell!

Confirming our diagnosis

as to the weakening of the optic nerve,

and despite the pleas of engineer Sisif,

we maintain our request for retirement,

all active service being impossible

"They won't answer my letters: I'm coming to scold you."

"We were there, both peaceful.

You come back and misfortune enters with your laughter!

My little Norma, you must never, ever come back again."

"Isn't that so, Elie?"

"Hello, my dear Norma."

I see that you recognize me, you sigh more quickly.

My eyesight is going, old girl.

I can't see any further than 30 yards and they want to force me to leave you.

NO, SISIF!

Wouldn't you rather die than fall into the hands of Jacobin?

Ooh... Yes...

They chattered mysteriously well into dusk.

The death of "Norma Compound".

Sisif just left like a madman on 7. What's his switch?

He'll only break his own neck. He's on buffer stop 22.

The agony of Norma Compound.

"You won't be angry with me, will you Norma?"

"Farewell, old girl!"

Norma Compound was dead.

The punishment.

Report: Second reprimand Engineer Sisif,

following the accident at buffer 22,

will be transferred, demoted and,

due to his good services,

assigned to driving

a funicular railway on Mont Blanc.

"Farewell, old girl!"

END OF THE SECOND PART

THE WHEEL Third part

RACE TO THE ABYSS

RÉSUMÉ OF THE PREVIOUS PARTS Following a railway catastrophe,

the locomotive engineer Sisif takes in a little orphan named Norma.

He raises her in total ignorance of her origins

alongside Sisif's son, the violinmaker Elie,

who himself believes her to be her sister.

Love: one of these loves that are the cause of all human tragedies,

awakens gradually in the melancholy soul of Sisif

on which no woman's face had ever smiled.

Believing himself liberated from his nightmare,

Sisif marries off Norma to a Company administrator named de Hersan.

But "like father, like son": the cancer now eats away at Elie

and instills the same tyrannical passion in the violinmaker,

in despair over her departure from their lost paradise.

Norma, ignorant of the dramas she incites, becomes the hub of the Wheel of fate

that carries off in its gyration,

the tormented hearts of the father, the son and the husband.

Dismissed from the Great Railway, the greatest of the "Black Faces,"

the man of the Wheel, finds refuge in the snow-capped mountain where,

in a mockery of fate, he drives a wheezing cable car.

And Tragedy seems to nest in the wretched cabin

where the two men cohabit next to the stars.

But to annihilate me, alas!

I know all too well that all the suffering

can do nothing to me.

That if my sad life in the past was saved,

it was reserved for greater evils;

O, may my fate be all accomplished!

OEDIPUS THE KING

A house 3000 meters above the valley,

where it is forbidden to pronounce Norma's name.

"The bitch has leaks all over! Let her rot outside!"

My dear ones What harm have I done you?

Haven't my letters reached you?

Have you left our dear railway house

without warning?

I'm suffering like a little girl and...

But Norma peopled their silence.

On holiday.

The former, tenacious girlfriend was also on holiday.

"Mr. Kalatarikarascopoulos, My husband since last week!

Huge fortune. Fanatical about mineralogy. He doesn't speak a word of French.

A decent sort of nincompoop. Isn't that so, Bibi?"

That night, the shadow of the Stradivarius must have quivered.

"The secret of Cremona varnish,

lost for the past 200 years,

I've found it.

Here it is! I've suffered so much

for the past five years...

suffered so much!"

"We'll be rich soon! You can heal your eyes, my old papa."

"Go to bed, you big fool!"

Hersan's fortune compromised.

"The Wheel turns, old man. You're falling. The pound is down to 44. General panic.

Come immediately and don't do anything rash! We'll come out of this."

"I don't know what I have, Tobie,

but this old steel snail is beginning to touch my heart.

So I was born to love locomotives?

A Norma III is coming. What an old fool I am!"

"I know these expressions.

You have money problems."

The delight of Kalatarikarascopoulos

seeing a block of rock crystal

was equaled only by that

of his wife seeing Hersan.

"If I can oblige you!"

"I love my wife and I've become an honest man again.

That surprises you, doesn't it? Good evening!"

My dearest, it's 4 in the morning. I'm ruined.

My pistol is on my desk and I'm hesitating because I love you too much.

I beg you to understand that a new man has been born in me since our marriage.

My little rose of the rail, in my delirium last night,

you appeared to me like the center of an inexorable wheel

that innocently carries all fate in its spokes...

And I am caught up like all the others.

Sisif and his son attend the major competition at the Majestic Hotel,

where a soloist will gladly perform on the young man's instrument

for a select public of famous violinmakers.

"15 cents to have a good time, you are stingy my boy!"

From the whiteness of the summits to the flashy colors of the Palace.

"These high-life places aren't made for a railwayman.

I'll use the time to go consult the oculist

who will see me in the evening on account of my work."

"I didn't say anything... but my eyes

have been hurting a little lately."

Triumph! Verified by the violinmakers present.

It was the end of Elie's agony, it meant fame and fortune.

"I need to know the truth, sir,

the absolute truth, for my work.

Even if..."

"Lost?"

"My violin? Very happy, papa... Success... Bravos."

"What about your eyes?"

"Like you, my boy, very happy..."

Increasingly withdrawn,

Sisif watched the moonlight play

amid all the humble, mundane things,

which he had never seen so beautiful...

"I have no luck. Besides, you understood all that long ago."

In search of agate, amethyst and carnelian.

"Don't go see father, Norma, please."

Faced with Norma's candor,

Elie again felt he was the brother with the pure conscience again.

The awful feeling would perhaps never return.

Voluble, he related his working life.

"Life with my husband

has become intolerable.

I never loved him

and I have only one desire:

to return to my old place

with the two of you, my loved ones."

"You look at her and you smile...

And as you smile, an atrocious thought

comes to mind, against which your entire being

shudders with repugnance..." D'ANNUNZIO

"The idea grows in force,

becomes monstrous, overbearing...

And your entire soul is infected...

and everything inside you

becomes a stain and contamination!

Oh! Is that believable?" D'ANNUNZIO

"Don't question me, Norma,

but remember father's words:

Never find yourself in our presence,

if you want to avoid misfortune!"

"Your train is whistling. Go on!"

"I was sure of it. She's cheating on her husband!"

That same evening.

Night.

"Did she come?"

"So there's a cancer in the family, papa?"

"What unfortunate beasts

the two of us are, my poor child!"

The Wheel of despair turns in the ruts of heaven

and splatters the face of God with mud! Blaise Cendrars

My little Elie,

bring me one of your finest violins,

so I can continue to learn.

It will bring you a little closer to me,

because I no longer dare look back at you

and I spend my time

looking for an explanation

to your behavior and my father's.

Norma III or Sisif's third love.

"Let's think this over, Tobie!

Obviously, it runs less quickly,

it's not as beautiful, but it has good legs!

What would my old "Compound" have done on hills like this?

We can't be too contemptuous, eh, Tobie?"

I adore you, Norma.

I'm not your brother...

I adore you, Norma. I'm not your brother

and love torments me like nothing else can.

And I engrave my heart in the soul of this violin before I die.

Thus my secret will remain hidden

but much closer to your lips.

And when you play in the twilight,

sliding the bow over my secret,

you will say to yourself, captivated, turning your head:

"Has someone just spoken to me of love?"

You'll play on my heart, not understanding...

"Father won't allow your coming back now. Later... much later maybe..."

"You wrote me such mad things, Norma."

Evening.

"Norma, this place isn't worthy of you. We'll leave tomorrow!"

"It hurts me to see you suffer, my friend.

I beg you, let us separate

and let me return to my old railway life."

"Your old life, but you're mad! You belong to me!"

My dear Elie:

Hersan's bestiality has shattered my last scruples.

I've come to beg you to talk to papa

so I can go back to my old place at the house.

We're leaving this morning to avoid scandal.

But I'm selling off everything and I'll be back.

My dear Elie:

Hersan's bestiality has shattered my last scruples.

I've come to beg you to talk to papa

so I can go back to my old place at the house.

We're leaving this morning to avoid scandal.

But I'm selling off everything and I'll be back.

I adore you, Norma. I'm not your brother

and love torments me like there's no example.

And I engrave my heart in the soul of this violin before I die.

MONT-BLANC RAILWAY

"Thief!"

"Artist!"

"Don't look at me! You have poison in your eyes."

What have you done to my boy?

You killed him, didn't you?

"Where is Elie?"

Is he dead?

"I... don't... know..."

"Little rose of the rail, I loved you as much

as the one who you believed to be... your...!"

Hear that, Tobie?

I hear him shouting!

Guided by the calls...

Courage, Elie, I'm coming!

Hurry, Norma. Hurry, hurry!

"I'm coming, child! Hold on!"

Explain, you know I can't see anything from a distance.

"Because... because of you he's dead! Get out!"

"This place is mine!"

END OF PART THREE

THE WHEEL Part four

SYMPHONY IN WHITE

And when the moon rose over the glacier...

The first train the next morning.

And we, the examining judge,

conclude that the legal action

is rendered null and void

as the two adversaries killed one another.

Halt! The mountaineers are here!

"You're all I have now."

A visitor on holiday.

I'm Mr. Mâchefer, qualified engineer first class,

and I'm looking for my old friend, Mr. Sisif.

Where it is shown that horse-power is not enough.

And where it is shown that Mâchefer is no mountaineer.

She's a good companion too. She climbs at 27%.

I'd like to see you with your "Pacific".

And over there?

Engineer first class of a Pacific! I'm in charge.

It hums and my fireman is always on the button!

During strikes, I even drove without a fireman.

They called me Napoleon.

"And Norma?"

"And Elie?"

"He'll be back in 27 years."

It takes the glaciers 27 years to give up their dead.

From the tragedy of the summit to the small dramas of the valley.

And then,

one morning when all humble things

were happy,

in the luminous cross of the window...

"I must have slept all day. It's evening, isn't it?"

"You must be seeing things, it's broad daylight!"

I can't see anything at all...

"Go on, leave without me. Duty first.

The Wheel has to keep turning."

"Watch your lubrication."

"So where are the mountains?"

From now on and until his last day,

his pupils were filled with bright snow.

Winter came.

The Company, out of compassion,

let Sisif live in the cottage on a tiny pension.

Here, he spent the long cold evenings,

his poor pale seemed to emerge

from the kingdom of shadows.

Unaware of Sisif's total blindness,

Norma came from time to time

to watch the old man,

but seized with fear when he turned to her...

...and the pain snowed in her as well...

Then came the great day, the anniversary of Elie's death.

A same thought...

"For we must bear the cross before the cross bears us." (Claudel)

Blind!

Then, at twilight, came the prayer.

Evening.

"We have to tighten our belts, old boy. We're out of money!"

Night.

"I've arrived."

That night, Tobie explained to Elie

many joyous things which the echoes carried.

The next day.

"Where's my shoe, Tobie?"

"So there's someone here!"

Here comes Norma III... What pull! It does the heart good, Tobie.

"Give the oil system a good purging

and take good care of it.

I can hear my Norma grumble."

"Strangers here! Never! I want to be left alone.

Alone... all alone! I'll die alone!"

That evening,

she tearfully came to tell Elie how happy she was to come home.

Similar days passed.

Norma remained silent

for fear of being rejected.

If, despite her sorrow,

she forced the Rose of the Rail

to return to her

with her youth and gaiety,

she might restore some joy

to his poor white-haired face...

Sisif imperceptibly

grew used to the enigmatic presence,

at times with sudden starts of rebellion.

"Did you forget my glass, Tobie?"

Old people love the explanations of miracles.

Transformations!

Their first words.

"Is that the Joan of Arc or the Norma III coming up, Tobie?"

"It's the Norma III, papa. The compressor isn't working right."

They have kids drive them! So, you understand...

The final leap came unexpectedly.

She had arrived for good!

She learned another heartwarming secret

from the old man:

Sisif had received the 50,000 francs

won by Elie

for his discovery of the Cremona varnish,

but had given the entire sum

to the region's guide union,

in the hope of finding his son's body.

Night and day, the guides

vainly probed the dangerous glacier.

Norma could now tell the wary blind man

if the guides truly earned their wages.

And Sisif now understood that, for the past 20 years,

the toy accident had been a miniature recreation

of the catastrophe the day before...

...and that his fate was inextricably

linked to that of the little blond doll,

and that he had to keep her with him

until the tragedy of the wheel ceased with last breath.

"From black to white through the rainbow of stormy ends."

And like in the endings of fairy tales, they lived happily...

...for the spokes of the Wheel

were now bedecked with Norma's smiles.

Came the young woman's name day.

And the Festival of the Guides on this light-hearted morning.

On the first day of winter, before the high mountain became impassible,

the guides and the pink-cheeked girls have a custom in this region:

At dawn, as they climb, they burn the last tree

they find before access to the glacier

and they dance around it.

Then they climb to the highest peak.

"Miss Norma, as you will be spending winter here,

far from the world, without distractions,

we thought you might come dance with us today."

"Some powder and I'm yours."

"Shaking your head again, Norma.

So you're not cheerful today?"

"I'm not cheerful, papa. I'm happy.

It's not the same thing.

It's gentler and sadder!"

As the last glimmers of the sacrificial tree died,

the round dance rose higher into the snow.

And everything turned...

Even the clouds which are

the white shadows of the mountains,

danced the eternal tragic dance

of the Wheel among the peaks.

4300 meters! On the little plateau of Mont Blanc!

No guide could remember having danced so high.

"Tell me, Tobie. Is the Wheel still turning up there?"

Gently, Sisif had just left life

like a ray of sunlight leaves a window at twilight...

Taking wing, Sisif's soul caressed

the carefree little Norma

as she prolonged the Wheel...

END

Translation: Lenny Borger

Film restored between 2016 and 2019

by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé from a nitrate negative and positives

from Cinémathèque française's collections,

copies from Cinémathèque suisse, Cinémathèque de Toulouse,

Národní fimový archiv and Lobster films.

4K digitization and restoration by L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna and Paris.

The reconstruction of the February 1923 version,

divided into a prologue and 4 parts, is accompanied by the music

selected by Arthur Honneger and Paul Fosse for the Gaumont-Palace release of the film.

The reconstruction of the music adaptation

was carried out from the music list found in Paul Fosse's records.

Music scores were gathered thanks to the editors

and the copyright holders of the musical works,

to the Bibliothèque d'orchestres and Radio France's Documentation musicale,

to Sacem's Service des Archives,

Promotion des Répertoires and Commission Mémoire and Patrimoine,

to Fondation Paul Sacher

and to the music department of the Bibliothèque national de France.