A Shooting Star
by Robert Desnos
One lovely summer evening a shooting star appears in the sky. it passes over a town and is seen by a girl on a balcony who makes a wish: "to be loved, to be loved forever." It passes over a crossroads where a young man also makes a wish: "to love, to love forever." It passes over an orchard where a girl makes another wish, the third: "never to love."
And, naturally, the three characters meet during a dance at a country festival. Naturally the young man will fall in love with the second girl, who will not love him. The first girl will be alone. It is she who will become the young man's confidante.
Finally, the young man will succeed in marrying the one he loves, and life goes on, sad for the unloved lover, empty for the woman who does not love, dismal for the one who wants to be loved and is not. The drama becomes more and more entangled around the three characters, because as time goes by, the man sees his desires crystallizing, bit by bit, in his confidante. The action will go on building up to the day when, during a fire, the young man will choose to save, not his wife, but the woman who wants to be loved.
Above the smoking ruins a shooting star will prompt their last wish: "to love each other."
Around this scenario must be a town, the work of the fields, the procession of the seasons, the aging of the world.