Suggested translation M2 January exam.

 

PS: if you send me an email I will send you photos of your corrected work.

He pressed the switch on the lamp which stood on the bedside table. This filled the large, barely furnished bedroom with a dim light. He had no need to look at his watch to know that it was five in the morning. He woke every morning without fail[1] at the same time. He pushed aside the covers with a brusque gesture and got out of bed. The wooden floor creaked under his bare feet in the silence of the dawn.

 

He quickly got dressed, putting on a  tracksuit which was  lying on the quilt, and moved towards the window. The closed curtains allowed through lines of light and shadow. He opened them and half-opened one of the windows. These were automatic actions among other everyday actions which almost forty years of living alone had weaved into his life. They were some of so many automatic reactions which had become essential.

 

He suddenly felt dreadfully cold. Despite the hesitant dawn, the moon was still shining icily. The stars were going out one by one. The day was dawning to a sky heavy with milk-white clouds. “It is going to snow,” he thought.

Near the dirt track, he could make out the rocky foothills of the Caïros riverbed, the river which flowed into the Roya, a small waterway which flowed along the coast of France and Italy, and then into the sea near Vintimille. He could hear the bubbling of the water flowing across the dark rows of rocks. Its journey had begun higher up, 1900 metres below Devil’s Peak. Barely four kilometres further on, at the foot of Saint Claire’s chapel, the sudden drop in altitude turned it into a bold torrent. It rushed then down the steep slopes of the valley, polishing as it passed the rocks and pebbles of the river bed. Its impetuous waters pulled it to the River Roya, which it joined by the villages of Fontan and Saorge, 1500 metres further down.

That was where he had set up home, in this vallée of Caïros. The tiny hamlet of only a few scattered houses sat on the left bank of the valley, on an ever sunlit stretch overlooked by the Ceva Plateau. It was wonderful.[2] 

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[1] Always a good idea to avoid latinate words like « invariably ».

[2] We avoid sentences without verbs.