C’était l’hiver [English translation]

She said: "I've walked too much,

my heart is too heavy with secrets,

too heavy with penalties. "

She said: "I can no longer continue,

what awaits me, I have already experienced,

it is more pain. "

She said that life was cruel,

She no longer believed in the sun,

Nor the silence of the churches.

Even my smiles scared her,

It was winter in her heart.

The wind has never been colder,

Nor the rain more violent than that night,

The night of her twentieth birthday,

The night she put out the fire

Behind the facade of her eyes

In a white flash.

She surely meets the sky,

She shines beside the sun,

Like new churches.

But though I have cried since that night,

It's because it's cold

At the bottom of my heart.

• Artist:Francis Cabrel
• Album:Les Chemins de traverse (1971)