I was just now alone in your room | I was just now alone in your room

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by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

J'étais tout à l'heure seul dans ta chambre

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

J'étais tout à l'heure seul dans ta chambre, 
ma bien-aimée et sais-tu ce que je viens de faire ? 
J’ai baisé tes souliers qui étaient là en les priant 
de ne jamais te conduire que du côté de mon amour.

From a letter to Juliette Drouet dated May 27, 1860.This is a prose text; we have added line-breaks arbitrarily.

Text Authorship:

by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), written 1860 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Renaud Gagneux (b. 1947), "J'étais tout à l'heure seul dans ta chambre", 1990?, published 1990 [ soprano and piano ], from Quatre mots pour Juliette, Cycle de 4 mélodies sur des billets de V. Hugo à Juliette Drouet, no. 3, Éd. Durand [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "I was just now alone in your room", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Léa Pasquel

This text was added to the website: 2020-10-04
Line count: 4
Word count: 39

I was just now alone in your room

Language: English after the French (Français)

I was just now alone in your room,
my beloved, and do you know what I did?
I kissed your slippers that were there, begging them
never to lead you anywhere but towards my love.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), written 1860
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-09-16
Line count: 4
Word count: 35