by Jean Giono
It could have been about three-thirty when the man, having finished his meal, got up. He paid.
Antoine did not want any money for the water. The man said:
“For the corner of your establishment where I sat.”
And he forced him to take a coin. But as he was going out, the entire hoard of Boniface’s men arrived, blocked the door, and came in knocking things over with:
“Hello, everyone!”
And there was the smell of sausage.
This hoard was made up of the absolutely biggest woodsmen.
The man faintly tried to pass between them; then he fell back into his shadowy corner, and, with all of the other big men stationed in the middle, he no longer dared.
He was like, so it seemed, a beast caught in a trap; he turned his head in all directions to see which way to go. His beautiful, distraught eyes were supplicating.
Besides, all that is according to Antoine and perhaps his memory is foggy about what happened next.
Thus, the man was back in his corner where there were shadows, and the café began filling up again.
With regard to myself, it was almost at this very moment that I got up from my siesta, and I recalled that my first task was to go to the skylight in the attic to check the sky. The blue had grown smaller. And more of the clouds were piled up over Montama, which still remained immobile and damned hard. There were two or three bad clouds which extended over the mountain to see what we were doing.
“It will not come over this evening,” I said.
And in fact…
As for me, I had gotten up right away at four o’clock. There was only one thing to do: go to Antoine’s, or to the “Center,” which, it is understood, meant the same thing.
That is how I arrived when it had already begun.
Upon approaching I said to myself:
“They are arguing.”
I heard Boniface bawling.
I entered:
They were all turned towards the back of the room, towards something which the shadow revealed after a moment, the man. He emerged from the shadow as if from water. I do not know if it was an effect of the day which turned around the village and came up a bit abruptly, or if this man’s strength radiated outwards and off-set the shadow. But, the fact is that I saw him all of a sudden. He was standing very sadly, overwhelmed by a great thought which shaded his eyes to black. On his shoulder a wood dove had set itself. And it was with those two, him and the dove, that Boniface, lost in his wine, was angry.
It seemed that it had begun humorously enough. At first, I have to say: the entire troop of big men, woodsmen of size XL, up there beside Garnezier, arrived straight out of the high woods after more than a hundred days of solitary encampment. They came in after having lived for a hundred days, I tell you, with just the sky and the rocks for companions. The forest was not their companion: they were killing it. Which they had to do, even so, just to live! This friendship which they were forced to have with the great, steely sky, with the hard air, with this cold ground like dead flesh, gave them the desire to kiss the trees like friends, but then, look, they were there to kill them. I am explaining it poorly, what do you want?… It was a little, if you don’t mind my saying so, as if you who love Bertha, I know it, and she merits it, they required you to kill her so that you could live, and to make puddings with her blood. Excuse me, it was a manner of speaking, but now you know.
Well, to get back to those men, the things contained in their desire and in their love was transformed into cruelty towards men and animals. They were there with their beards like moss, with their gestures accustomed to the open air, and that were larger than ours. Boniface had brought the little wood dove in the pocket of his velour vest. He had gotten it into his head, up there, to tame it, and because each time that he released it, it spurted around the cabin, knocking over the candle, and flew like a crazy woman against the window curtain; it had broken one of its shoulders.
Yes.
Can you see it?
That was pretty bad, and he did it coldly, deliberately, of his free will, with his big hands which are like burdock leaves. Yes, he pressed the grey bird into his palm, and he twisted its wing until he heard the bone crack. What do you expect?
So it was there, the poor beast, all crippled, dragging its wing as a dead weight; it was there with this dead thing that weighed on it. Just like that, in one gesture he had taken away from it all of the sky, all of the goodness of flying through the air at the speed of the wind… It was there, dragging itself across the table in the spewed out wine.
There he was, propped up on his chair with his full stomach overflowing his pants, laughing. He laughed, and he looked at the poor little thing. He had weighed his strength against it; and of a clump of feathers, he had made this awkward little ball which stumbled against the glasses, which was there dragging about and crying out. When it drew itself away from him, he hit it with the back of his hand, and sent it back amid the spilled wine. And then the bird tried to open its wings, and the wound on its shoulder cracked, it let out a long cry of complaint, and it remained for a long time with its beak open, all trembling with its head crazed.
When this had happened three times, the man in the back said:
“Let that creature be.”
From the surprise of hearing a voice in a corner where he had thought that no one or nothing else was, Boniface turned around. And the dove was touched by that voice too. And that voice must have been a little hope for it. It must have known the voice from instinct, because seemingly right away, there it was gathering itself together. There it was suppressing its pain with a stroke of will. There it was stretching suddenly the expanse of its feathers and with a cooing threw itself towards the voice. It was all dirty with wine. One heard it, there, beside the man, cooing for joy, and one also heard the man. He was speaking to the dove. He spoke to it in the language of doves and the dove responded to him with its sad voice.
“Who is that?” Boniface asked.
Now the café was filled with people, but no one knew who it was —that man.
It was at that very moment that I came in. It was at that very moment also that one of those clouds, earlier all white, all massive like a cake, passed over the village, reflecting the sun. A ray of light struck the panes of glass. The back of the café was lit up. The man was visible.
“Leave us alone. You, boy, give me back my bird,” said Boniface extending a hand.
The man had the dove on his shoulder. He turned towards it and spoke to it in the language of doves. He sighed. Boniface’s large hand was still outstretched beside him.
“Come on…”
“I am keeping it,” said the man.
“So!…” Boniface just had the chance to say he was so overwhelmed by the calmness of the man. “So that’s it!” and he stood up making the chair creak. He was in our drinking room standing like the trunk of an oak tree.
And he stood there, because the other went on in his little, calm voice. Once you had heard that voice you could not move either your arms or your legs. You asked yourself: “But haven’t I already heard that somewhere before?” And you had your head filled with trees and birds, rain and wind, and the trembling of the earth.
“I am keeping it,” said the man. “It belongs to me. By what right did you go and take it, and twist it? By what right did you, strong, solid, ruin this gray creature? Tell me! It has blood, it does, like you do; it has blood of the same color, and it has a right to the sun and the wind like you do. You have no more right than this creature. The same things were given to you and to it. You take enough with your nose, you take enough with your eyes. You must have ruined things to be as fat as that…in the middle of life. You have not understood that up until now it has been a miracle that you could go on killing and murdering, and then live just the same, your mouth filled with blood? You have not understood that it has been a miracle that you could digest all of the blood and all of the pain that you’ve drunk in. But still, why?
We were like dead logs lined up along the roadside.
“That man is crazy,” said Boniface.
“No, he is not crazy,” said the man. “It is you who are crazy. Isn’t it insane to murder that, look!”
He gently took the dove down from his shoulder. He had soft gestures with it. It was there, in his hands cooing happily. And he displayed the poor dead wing, and he made everyone see, hanging, lifeless, like something withdrawn from the world. And then we said: “Oh! Oh!” all together. And it was not to Boniface’s glory.
“One more time,” the big man said to him, “are you going to give my bird back to me?”
“I told you, no. I am keeping it. You treat it badly.”
Then we looked at them because, Boniface, we knew him. He was not too bad a chap, but when one opposed him, when one went too much against him, my faith, he was not the last one to take out his fists. And we thought:
“This stranger has gone a little too far.”
Antoine appeared in the kitchen doorway.
The drinking room is not very big; with a step Boniface could be at the back of it. He took this step, he raised his arm which was like a big branch, his fist at the end like a gourd…
And he remained like that with his fist in the air.
The man had set the dove back on his shoulder. He made a little murmur towards it, as if to tell it not to fear, to stay there. And he turned his goat’s face towards us with his two big, sad, illuminated eyes. He stood reflecting a moment with an eye on us. Then he decided.
“I would say that you need to be taught a bit of a lesson,” he said. “Maybe in the mix you will find clarity of heart.”
He pointed his index finger slowly at Antoine and said to him: “Go fetch your accordion.”
Like that.
And there was, all around, a great silence from everyone; except for outside where the festival continued to moo like a big cow. And for myself, who was there, I can tell you, it was exactly as if I had a mouthful of cement that was drying, and for the others it must have been the same, and for Boniface too. No one made a gesture, not even with their lips. The weight of the entire earth was upon us.
Up above the café we heard Antoine’s step as he went to fetch his accordion from his room, then it was on the stairs, and then he reappeared.
He was there with the instrument between his hands. He was ready. He was awaiting the command.
“Play,” said the man.
Then he began playing. Then those who were near the door saw the clouds come over.
Big Boniface let his arm fall slowly. And at this very moment he lifted a leg, gently, in the cadence and in harmony with the music which was softer than a May wind. Even so, what Antoine was busy playing was still the standard fare: the “Mie dolce amore” and his medley of songs that he had made up; but they had taken on a certain something…
Then Boniface raised his other leg, and he rounded his arms, and stuck out his haunches, then he shook his shoulders, then his beard began to flap in the movement. He was dancing.
He danced there, right in front of the man who did not take his eyes off him. He danced like he fought, against his will, with movements that were still sticky. It was like the birth-of-all dance. Then, little by little, his entire apparatus of bones and muscles, oiled with music, caught fire, and he began leaping crazily and emitting deep “han hans.” His feet struck the wooden floor, his feet raised up a dust which smoked up to the level of his knees.
We were there, overwhelmed, watching. For myself, I was no longer the master of either my arms or my legs, nor of any part of my body except for my head. It was free, it could leisurely watch the shadow of the storm rise, listen to the evil wind blowing. For the others, I think, it was the same thing. I remember. We had all been wrapped up together in the same power. The most terrible thing, was this completely free head which took everything in.
In a stroke, from the moment when the man had become the leader, we all had our eyes directed upon him, and we could no longer detach them. He had a thin beard growing wild, like dry grass, long, and all tangled. Below we saw that he hardly had any chin. He had a long nose, straight and wide, and a little flat on top. It ran from the middle of his forehead down to his mouth. His beautiful lips were plump like a peeled fruit. He had beautiful oval eyes, filled with color down to the base of his eyelashes, without a spot of white, but oily like the eyes of dreaming goats. From them flowed glances that were like streams of compassion and suffering.
Now Boniface leaped like a tree that had fallen victim to the wind. And everyone was overcome with the desire to be with him, haunch to haunch. We just awaited the order.
It came in one of those regards which passed through us like a ray of light, and each took its own shape. It fell, first on André Bellin, from the hoard; and once touched, there he was up and off dancing. Then on Jacques Regotaz, then on Jean Moulin, then on Polyte des Coriardes who from the start had been repeating in a low voice:
“Look. Look. Look…”
…without our knowing why. Then on the two from Trièves, then on one of the Oches, then on the serving girl Amélie. Then, at this very moment, a clap of thunder rang out like an overwhelming blow, and his gaze fell on me, I was struck as if by a rifle shot, and sent into a full dance without knowing why. And then the others, and then the others…
Things turned. Things revolved.
We had dust all the way up to our waists, and sweat flowed off us like rain, and there was a thunder of feet on the floor, and we heard the “han hans” of big Boniface, and the tables which broke, and the glass of the glasses and the bottles that we crushed under big feet with the sound that pigs make when eating chick peas, and there was a thick smell of absinthe and syrup which clasped our heads like pincers.
To tell the truth, in all of that, Antoine did not amount to much. In the middle of all the commotion we no longer heard his music. It was lost in all of that. Only we saw him by chance turning about clutching his instrument with the same fervor that the rest of us put into our dancing. It was not the music which captivated us so, but a terrible thing which had entered into our hearts along with the man’s sad glances. It was stronger than us. We seemed to remember ancient gestures, old gestures from the end of man’s chain of development, which the first men had made.
It had opened in our hearts like a cellar door and it had brought out all of the black forces of creation. And then, as we were now too small for it, it agitated our sack of skin like cats shut up in a linen sack. That is told in my fashion, but, I do not know how else to say it; and then, it is already quite beautiful to be able to put it like that, drawn from the mixture of all that wildness.
The dove was set on the man’s shoulder. It caressed its wounded wing with its beak.
We had not danced like that since, who knows? We did not know.
And all of a sudden I felt welling up like a furor within me the abomination of all abominations.
The man advanced towards us. We made way for him. He went to the door, he spread the curtain, and he went out. Then, like a cow pulled by the forehead, Antoine straightened up and followed him. And we felt the desire to follow along too, and one after another the dance hurtled us outside, into the village like seeds. The day was the color of sulfur. It was cooking up a big storm under its cover. The clock sounded six o’clock in the evening.
The man was seated on the side of our fountain. With his hand he dipped water out of the basin and let the dove drink.
But the festival!
From the schools to the Liberty tree, the roads were filled with men drunk with our drunkenness. It revolved, it flowed, it struck the walls like a wash of water. It was like a water of men, of women and children mixed together, and it danced until it was out of strength. We had there, in the middle of our waists and the middle of our shoulders a sort of hand which pushed us and forced us on. From time to time, a door opened, and a house released its house-keeper into the dance with her soup spoon in hand or
her stick of wood to add to the fire; or even the girl who was torn away from fiddling with her make-up, in a dress on the bottom and a shirt on top, and who danced right away in the middle of us, raising her arms, revealing the great tufts of red hair in her armpits. Thérese and the Balarue son came like that, married since the night before and not having gotten up since. Yes, these two arrived naked and already sweating with their skin lustrous from their caresses. And that entered into the dough that the man kneaded with just the power of his eyes, and it entered into the dough of the great bread of evil that he was in the middle of kneading.
Now the entire village was in a trance. There were no more tables, no more trestles, no more bottles. The awning over the candy stand, torn from its posts, floated for a minute above our heads with its garnished cloth like a ship’s sail; then it fell at our feet. We danced at times in a dough of caramel candy, and then it was hard to lift our feet. We danced in wine, in beer, in the piss which people let go, straight ahead without thinking in their pants or in their skirts. At times I passed by Boniface and I heard his “han han” like before. I was next to Polyte who kept repeating “Look. Look;” and other times I was with girls who had lustrous hips, and I had their moanings whispered in my ears like lost grasses.
A large bolt of lightning flew over our heads like a bird.
Then the door to the stables broke open. Mules and horses fell upon us, and colts and single-minded donkeys which were all in heat.
Then the hen houses opened up like nuts, and we received in our faces chickens and cocks that scratched with their nails into our cheeks, pigeons fell upon us like snow, the air was boiling over with all of this fowl. From the depths of the valley all of the swallows that had amassed during the preceding days before taking off, from the depths of the valley, all the swallows surged up from the willows and copses, and the warm fields. In the sky it was like a great river of the sky. It turned for a moment then dumped itself upon us, and it was a rain of swallows, and swallows were streaming, we were covered by them, we were weighed down by them, we were inundated, and wiped out as if by gushing water.
