Occupation Journal

by Jean Giono

  Monday, May 8

  Have since gone to Marseille. Beautiful days. But rough trip. The track destroyed at Bastides Blanches, two kilometers for the Manosque station. Bombs along the way at the canal bridge. Marseille clear and green but smelling very bad despite the high wind. It’s an ocean spring there.

  The attack in Voiron, sign of the times. A whole family shot dead from the eighty-year-old grandmother to a child, three years old, killed in its crib by three bullets in the neck and one in the belly. The murderers (what other word to use?) are students and teachers at the vocational school in the town! A group of Communist youths. Those children prepared for the murder by first becoming close friends with the family. That’s how they learned the password that friends used to have the door opened. They came to spend a few friendly evenings with the family. One evening they came back, chatted nicely at first, then massacred everyone including the little one. They’ve been arrested. They’ve confessed. They say they had orders to kill. They’ll be shot. These are the times we live in. All the teachers at the school are accomplices. The whole school is complicit and keeps quiet.

  Hélène Laguerre wrote to me asking the reasons for my silence. I haven’t sent the letter that I’ve copied out below:

  “You imagine that something separates us other than my disgust at the position you’ve put me in where I must watch you working servilely in the disaster. It is strictly that. I gradually learned to detest all of you, such as you are, my old friends, and then came a kind of contempt that has me inhabiting a country you will never enter. That’s all, and there’s nothing else. I’m not happy to have lost you, but thus freed, I hardly consider you good enough to follow the Braumans whom you deserve. I left you as one leaves a valley inhabited by monsters. Those are the only reasons for my solitude and my silence. On the other hand, I like it very much when you write to me. Each time I wonder if I’ll finally find a bit of that grandeur that I generously attributed to you all. Sadly, if you’re the ones we must depend upon to reconstruct the world, what an infernal cesspool lies ahead of us. Thinking of you, I exhaust myself with prayers and appeals for a flood to submerge your endeavors for good. If the gods heard me, you’d stop dying on your feet, believe me.”

  Thursday, May 11

  There has to be a revolution in Russia.

  Friday, May 12

  Two o’clock. I was going to lie down on the divan. Aline came running up the stairs: a German officer and a soldier down below. I heard Mémé calling Charles. I told Aline to have them come up. An officer and a soldier with a submachine gun enter. The officer salutes, approaches; he’s come to have me sign two books, for him and his commander who he says is an archbishop! He emphasizes archbishop, then tells me that actually his commander is a protestant archbishop. A little later, the books signed, they leave. Frightening but no harm done.

  Monday in Nyons the resistance surrounded the town and killed five people, among them Colombet of the Hôtel Colombet who made such good spelt in sauce and Dr. Gorgesco whom I knew at Lus-la-Croix-Haute.

  Between a rock and a hard place. Odd situation. Who would believe that those two armed Germans who came to see me were drawn simply by literary legend? It would be hard to make the people of Manosque or anywhere else understand that. And to make them understand as well that I simply and coolly signed their books, nothing more. As I write this, Charles returns from his forced walk. I reassure him. Holding lives in outstretched arms, and on all sides, those who threaten to tickle you under the arm – with machine guns! Will I succeed in getting all my people across the waters?!

  Sunday, May 14

  Not a bad summary of my actions: “Swallowing the least possible number of toads.” Which makes me stranger in my century than if I were dead. Because how they consume them! You’d think they liked them! This habitual diet that makes their nerves limp and their arteries watery.

  I heard by telephone that the Marseille newspaper announced the dress rehearsal for La Femme du boulanger last evening at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs. What good does that do? What I really need is a commercial success. Worries of this kind are returning after a break that followed the sale of my two manuscripts last January. I’ve been living on those sales until now. Nothing from Grasset and nothing from the N.R.F except 30,000 francs from the illustrated edition of Chant du monde. Already paid more than 60,000 francs in taxes this year. If the English attack and relations with Paris break down, I’m quickly going to find myself without money.

  Very happy with Deux cavaliers. Fragments is getting better.

  Gray-eyed weather. May dusty with celestial dust. Sky like a chalk road, hot. No rain. Concern over the wheat, and especially the fodder. If I want to keep my horses, I may have to sell my cows.

  Tried to read F. Cooper. Impossible. Flat, contrived, entirely without interest. I can’t understand why Balzac, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Stendhal, and Lamartine were infatuated with him. Reading Balzac, you get the sense that he would have liked to be Cooper. Fortunately that didn’t happen. On the other hand, read the Instructions nautiques that finally arrived and – Hurray! There’s the sea, the true sea, the vast sea, the winds, and the round earth. A large character: the sea; small characters: the sailors. The wracks, reefs, whales, moorings, and silence for the enormity of the waters.

  I just saw a matinée of a film that made a deep impression on me and left me with that perfect contentment so rarely obtained from a cinematic work. I don’t have the impression that it has ever met with great success, but I may be ill-informed on this point. It’s La Comédie du bonheur by Marcel L’Herbier. Very beautiful and precise dialogue by Cocteau. At every instant, moving strokes of genius. It’s a film that I would be very proud to have made. But how awful the theatre smelled! There was one matinée before the one that I went to at four o’clock. It stank like a lion cage. The odor you smell now in train cars and gathering places. Well, people decide to smell like what they are.

  Just now summing up the work I’ve completed since the beginning of the war, I’m finding that, in terms of numbers, it’s not negligible: I’ve written Pour saluer Melville, which is good, Triomphe de la vie, which is not as good. Two plays, La Femme du boulanger and Le Voyage en calèche. The latter will be good when I’ve redone the last scene in Act III. I’ve written the preface to La Terre du voleur and Virgile. And I’ve also written all the production notes, text, and action for Le Chant du monde, which I consider a major, perhaps even a great work, and that I would be happy to publish if Garganoff wasn’t afraid of having it published. This year, I think I can successfully finish Deux cavaliers, write a few passages of Fragments, and begin writing Grands Chemins. All things considered, maybe I could have worked better, but not more. And I’ve learned a lot.

  Aline passed her baccalaureate and is going to study Philosophy. I’m delighted to see her embarking on something other than university culture. Because here, from now on, will be subjects for personal discussions. Oh, also, she knows how to present herself perfectly, clearly and carefully, before “les études.” She gave her account very intelligently.

  Thursday, May 18

  Yesterday evening returning from Forcalquier, Charles pointed out that once again Signal published a photo of me with no authorization on my part. Behavior motivated by a desire to force me to adopt a certain position or at least the appearance of that position. Which I absolutely refuse to do or let be done. I haven’t good means to fight it. After thinking about it overnight, I’ve come up with the following solution: write a letter of protest to the editors of Signal (copy attached to these notes) and bring the case to the attention of a few friends through individual letters (copy of that letter and list of friends attached to these notes). Imagined last night the house invaded by submachine guns. In which case, I’d have to “go first,” jump out of bed and go downstairs to meet them. That’s the only way to protect Élise, my mother, and the children. But it’s no fun to think about. Truly, I’m not very b
rave.

  Nonetheless, I’d like to start writing the beginning of Grands Chemin at least, as I had a wild desire to do so yesterday morning walking to Forcalquier by the big oak. Everything was clear and it was only a matter of writing it and I made a plan to sit down to write this evening instead of continuing to dictate Fragments, which I mean to let rest a little.

  I’ve kept the Signal business from Élise. I’m sure that she would be frightened. This afternoon Mme. Meyssonnier told her about it. Élise’s terror. I tried my best to reassure her. I can’t reassure myself. The truth is I can no more be blamed for the appearance of that photo than for typhoid fever if I were to catch it. Wholly independent of my will. The risk of danger is indisputable. But I could bear it more easily if I were alone. Made a few arrangements this afternoon. The simplest way to reassure Élise would be to take her on a trip for eight or ten days, it doesn’t matter where. But that’s impossible with my old mother and my mother-in-law who would die of fear, and I understand that. At any given moment, Aline, who is with us, rebels and demands to stay near me. She nearly accuses her mother of making her leave for her own safety. She wants to stay here even though she’s afraid. She says so. Evening comes and no one has made the least decision. Because what is there to decide? Perhaps to protect the children, send them to sleep at Mme. Meysonnier’s house. A strange time. I imagine the Spanish Revolution must have started this way. That’s what the Spaniard in Forcalquier said yesterday at noon. Another possible solution, my departure. Yes, but only on the condition that it would be enough to protect Élise and the children, because that’s the whole question. That’s the only question.

  I don’t know if I wrote down that last Friday in Paris, the thousandth performance of Bout de la route and the first performance of La Femme du boulanger took place at the same time.

  At the end of Deux cavaliers Clef-des-Coeurs reappears. His fight in the chapter devoted to him is like Marceau’s fight with the devil. That’s why I will have him reappear to Marceau the victor near the village and at the end of the book to shape the conclusion. He introduces himself to Ariane as a friend of Marceau.

  Friday, May 19

  Discovered a book with an extraordinary style: Spanish tales by Scarron. Art with magical color. I found it this morning hidden in my library where I didn’t know I had it. It carried me back to his Roman comique that cast a spell over my youth, as well as Histoire de Francion, and I realized that there, as in Fielding, is where I’ll find the initial dynamism I need to begin writing Les Grand Chemins. Today I’m taking great pleasure in reading these texts, imitations but so originally French: light and multicolored. How vastly superior to L’Astrée. Almost as great (in style) as Cervantes. Maybe greater (in style). I was equally moved once again this morning by some passages in La Bruyère. There’s a whole region in my library that I’m going to revisit with pleasure.

  During the night Élise was horribly frightened by the slightest creak. She made me get up at 2 in the morning to do the rounds. Which I did to make her happy, but cursing as I went because I had just fallen asleep.

  Friday, May 19

  Élise is very frightened but very brave. She’s proposing that I go into hiding and she will stay here. But no, no.

  Scarron calls the Jews modern Christians.

  Saturday, May 20

  Last night Élise was terror-stricken. She was crying hard. I held her in my arms and reassured her. After a little while, she fell asleep.

  This afternoon the announced visit from the bishop, accompanied by a nurse – who addressed him as “tu” no less. A man with bright eyes under enormous dark eyebrows. He speaks of gentleness and peace, but makes war; of disaster, apocalypse, and at one point his eyes even fill with tears. It was embarrassing.

  Finally, rain. The sky black and angry, wind, heavy slanting showers, and that beautiful dark rain in the green leaves, so dear to my heart. Glorious scents and from all sides the sound of pouring rain that drenches the trees and fields. We need a very long, very hard storm.

  Since returning from Forcalquier I’ve done no work. Stopped a bit by worries and especially by the difficulty of what I must write: the fight between Marceau and Clef-des-Coeurs. What I’ve done doesn’t measure up to what precedes it, and the means by which to heighten it all have yet to appear.

  Friday, May 26

  Yesterday at noon an alert that lasted two hours. Apparently they bombarded Carnoules. This morning at ten another alert. The light is beautiful. Golden spring. No sound of planes. Clear, powder blue sky; a light veil of mist in the distance and all outward signs of an opulent peace.

  Work is picking up again in Deux cavaliers. The second battle between the man and Marceau gave me a lot of trouble. I think the benefit now is that it’s making me see soberly but clearly. I have stubbornly sought that clarity through these days that are difficult from every perspective.

  I’m reading a very beautiful book in English that hasn’t been translated: Turning Wheels by Stuart Cloete. Fleshy, wild, and dense. I will let Gallimard know about it but don’t have the time to translate it.

  Stopped work on Fragments. Decided to begin writing Grands Chemins and to translate Joseph Andrews by Fielding. Exhausting myself with work to achieve the peace of the mole.

  More and more I’m immersed in a very great solitude. I can’t say that it weighs on me. It goes well with such a taste for unsociability. But from time to time I have rushes of joy that are very hard to contain.

  Saturday, May 27

  Last night at midnight, an alert and a large fleet of planes could be heard flying over. This morning at nine, another alert. It’s eleven o’clock now and for the last two hours we can hear and see an enormous fleet of more than a thousand white and black planes flying from the east to the northwest. For the last two hours the noise hasn’t let up and every minute someone notices and points out new groups that rise, wings wide, from the chestnut leaves. Some squadron units pass directly over us. There’s a moment of silence, then new rumbles rising from the south now, coming closer and closer.

  A strange dream last night. We were in Switzerland at a hotel. Élise was there. I was condemned to death along with another man, a stranger, and I could see only his hands and torso. He was sitting at the corner of a table. M. Chaumeton (from Manosque) brought us the hemlock in a bowl. He told me that they had added sugar for me. Actually it was a lumpy green jam that I ate calmly with a spoon. Tasted good, moreover. Everything happened very peacefully with hardly any death throes. I made a few arrangements with Élise on the subject of the money from my manuscripts, without tears or gnashing of teeth. The hotel owner came to inform me obligingly that there was a discreet exit for funeral processions. At that moment a procession for a Swiss notable passed by under my window, accompanied by a choir of young girls and a line of cows. I insisted upon a similar ceremony. It was promised to me. At that point we began to walk with Élise. Remembering Socrates I told her that it would begin with my legs growing cold. I apologized to Élise for my thoughtlessness, explaining to her that throughout my life my work had required that I cultivate passions and lyric outbursts. I wrapped my cape around Élise and we walked side by side. We wanted to climb a steep embankment. My legs began to grow weak. But I kept going with the help of a camping knife I stuck in the ground. Mme. Talenti had given it to me, but in the dream it seemed to be a gift from Élise since I told her that the knife was one of the most beautiful things in my life. After that, I was in Manosque and I went into a tobacco shop – that old tobacco shop owned by Mme. Chaix and old Héloïse where I would go as a child to buy my father his two ounces of tobacco. There the dream faded. I was still condemned to death but I began to doubt the effects of the hemlock.

  This evening we learned that Marseille was bombed this morning. Only hearsay because the phone lines between here and Marseille are cut, and there’s no newspaper either. Guy whom I sent to the station for information on the fate of his mo
ther returned with the news that the station is cut off from everything as well. Everything seems to indicate that this time it’s true. They’re claiming that bombs fell in the center of the city; they’re saying Boulevard National, but that isn’t the center. Will try the radio tonight.

  Haven’t written anything. Succeeded in really envisioning and composing the “Clef-des-Coeurs” chapter, but not able to write a line. To top it all off, it’s essential that I start the translation of Joseph Andrews as quickly as possible. I would have done that yesterday if I hadn’t been half blinded by one of those irritations in my right eye that I suffer and that each time makes me feel like I’m living at the bottom of the sea. I see everything through salt water. Followed by a headache and nervous twitches in my eyelids. Very unpleasant. Continued reading with pleasure Roman comique.

  Élise calls me. The radio is reporting 600 dead and 1000 wounded in Marseille. The bombs fell on the center of the city. La Canebière, they say, in particular.

  Sunday, May 28

  Eight o’clock in the morning. I arrived at the post office where I went to telegraph L. and P. Many women sending telegraphs as well. The disaster in Marseille seems catastrophic. It was the whole inoffensive center of the city that was heavily bombed. La Canebière is on fire. The Maupetit bookstore must be burning. Worried about L., with his office at 44, and the Barthélemies, with their store close by. Rue de Rome. Rue de Rome is burning too. Bombs hit the central post office, a few dozen meters from the Hôtel de Paris where I usually stay. They’re talking about many thousands dead. I think it’s the first center of a large city to be bombed in France. Rue Beauveau is burning. All the small streets perpendicular to La Canebière are affected. I’m thinking of all my friends, the Aviérinos, Fluchère, the Barthélemies, whose lives may be completely shaken to their very roots, so far from the war. And how are they going to be able to leave? And it’s impossible for me to go help them: no trains until Tuesday.