by Jean Giono
We can hear heavy gunfire in the direction of Aix, sometimes so close and so loud it shakes the windowpanes.
Durieux’s son came to thank me for the help and shelter I gave him as a resister. And I have an explanation for the bombing that we’re hearing. An armored division of Germans leaving from Cavaillon is heading toward Manosque, and there’s fighting in Pertuis and in Apt. (Just now I was told there’s fighting at the Granons crossroads, eight kilometers away). Durieux was appalled by the mobilization order. Ludovic Eyries arrived, telling me about all his passive defensive maneuvers and strategies for avoiding danger. The whole time from lunch until about four o’clock, gunfire dully shook the country, sometimes close, then distant, then near at hand. André and Marcel are nervous, also appalled by this mobilization that terrifies them. They’ve taken down the French flag from the Saint-Sauveur steeple. And they’ve had all the flags along the streets removed. What a change since yesterday. How quickly the atmosphere of political conflict returns.
Monday, August 21
Rising early to visit Élise at Margotte, I see American infantry passing, heading toward Volx in trucks.
In town, bugles sound for reveille, meals, general salutes, saluting the flag, whatever, not to salute the Americans who passed through very quickly in the end (five or six cars at most) but out of military vainglory. Everything is military these days, despite the fact that everyone individually is trembling over the mobilization or else seeking the most cowardly ways to avoid it.
Tuesday, August 22
I finally succeeded in going to see Élise at Margotte. When I arrived in my sandals that make no noise, Sylvie gave a shout. She saw me on the doorstep and cried, “Papa!” and we all three embraced. At the Mort d’Imbert pass, there was a sentry. A man in a sailor jacket and jersey sitting on a bank by the road surrounded by an arsenal of rifles, machine guns, revolvers, and grenades. He watched us pass and said hello. Three kilometers on we were stopped by miners from Saint-Maime blocking the road. They asked us for our identity papers and let us pass. (I was with Marcel). Coming back we were examined closely but cheerfully at three roadblocks. At the second, someone said, “Oh, you’re Giono from Manosque, okay.” At the third roadblock at the pass, some young men came rushing down the mountain when they saw us arrive. But at close range, one of them said to me as I was reaching in my pocket for my papers, “No, I know you, go ahead through, it’s fine.” The whole country was thick with the smoke from a huge fire in the direction of Pertuis. The rumbling of gunfire continued. We arrived in Manosque and near the cemetery we saw two Americans. They’re in Manosque. They were coming through all day long in large numbers.
In the evening Maurice Chevaly came to see me. He’s disgusted by the recanters. Farelacci, for example, who was vice-president of the Legion and now walks around shouting and gesturing in uniform and boots despite the horrible August heat, a thick white cord adorning his collar. His wife runs about wailing La Marseillaise and accosts Americans, dragging them to their house and their dinner table. He also told me about Julien Léon who has decked himself out with the two-barred Cross of Loraine; Signoret who putters about on his motorcycle with the resisters that he fought; the Aubert family, formerly of the Croix-de-Feu, Legionnaires, you name it, now parading around with their chests stuck out, braids and embroidered flags on their sleeves. Regarding the alert of two days ago when a German armored division coming from Cavaillon reached Manosque, Maurice Chevaly said, “If you could have seen those cowards fighting over the flags and garlands, decking themselves out at top speed.” I told him that the real game is being played in the back rooms and this noisy masquerade will very quickly be supplanted by the first brutalities of the real poker party. He told me that a local Liberation Committee has been named representing the National Council. Vital Besson, a Communist, is president. This committee has four members, two of whom are Communists, among them Camoin, my daughter’s English teacher, with whom I’m doing the translations of Fielding’s Joseph Andrews.
Someone called this afternoon, apparently, from the Café Glacier; someone wants to see me. Who?
I’m not leaving the house and not going into town. It would be difficult for me not to say what I have said. I’m hearing rumors.
Back from his night of so-called heroic guard duty, Guy says that he passed his time simply riding his motorcycle around the Valensole plateau. They brought home tobacco and American food items. They can only be called items. These are synthetic products: Dextrose tablets, chemical products, pastilles, citric acid flakes to replace lemon. Everyone plays greedily with all that. But today, one American soldier, having filled his helmet with fresh carrots, was eating them hungrily as though a gift from the gods. Here we’re tired of gifts from the gods. How appealing these laboratory products are! To remain an honest man. I’m taking advantage of these idyllic times by reading L’Astrée. It’s good. Sometimes it’s like Stendhal – how strange – despite the difference in style.
Just to note that fear over the mobilization continues. We all reassure one another that it’s a long way off, that there are no uniforms, no barracks, and in the end, who knows? But everyone is talking about it, everyone says, “No, they couldn’t, it’s impossible, reassure me, I’m telling you, I have no desire to be mobilized.”
The mobilization order is signed Édouard. Neither first nor fourteenth, Éduoard, that’s it.
Blavette brought me an American. He’s Spanish and lives in Los Angeles. Don Juan Rafael Lopez. I gave him a copy of The Song of the World, which he wanted. He gave me his pen (with which I’m writing). Then Don Juan pulled out four medals from his wallet and arranged them, three on the right and one on the left.
The telephone call yesterday was an American from the photography division of the army who says he’s read all my books and would like to meet. He speaks perfect French. I told him to come whenever he likes. He said to me, “How extraordinary it is to hear your voice.”
A huge cloud of wine-colored smoke from the direction of Marseille, which they say is burning.
Wednesday, August 23
The American who called came last evening at nine o’clock. His name is Freddy, he says, and he brought two others with him, Sidney and Gordon. I think that he’s claiming to be called Freddy because clearly he’s French and Jewish. He speaks better French than English and at one point whispered to me that he wanted to speak in French slang to me to explain that he did not like America very much. That surprised me. He saw it. The three soldiers are part of the photography division of the Army. With Freddy acting as interpreter between Gordon and me, they questioned me about the future of France. They are pessimistic. I am, too. Gordon wants to do an article on our conversation for The New Yorker. They stayed until midnight and we’re going to see each other again today.
Wustner who accompanied the Americans to my house said, “If anyone bothers you, let me know.” He has, he says, “heard talk.” I tell him that I wish everyone had done as much as I did for the poor wretches hunted down by the Gestapo, the Jews (Meyerowitz, Lévine, Mme. Ernst), as well as the Communists (Charles Fiedler), as well as the resisters (Francis Dessaud, Roger-Paul Bernard, Durieux, the two Bonnefoy boys, Jules de Cavaillon). The first refuge for resisters in the Basses-Alpes was with me at the Contadour. They stayed there for several months, until the dispute with Lucien. And I forgot to mention the Fradisse sisters, and I forgot everything else I did. We’ll see if they forget, too (which is what I expect anyway). And I’ve forgotten André. The smoke from the fires entirely covers the whole country. Any slight movement of air is like the hot breath of an oven. Turmoil. Noises, cries. Cheering, endless explosions. Toward evening the smoke turns blue and wine-colored and settles heavily. There must be fighting near Aix.
Chess games with Blavette. I won one of them.
Oh, Tibet! If I can, I’ll go spend part of the winter in the mountains. Near Valgaudemar. To have cold, and solitude and silence! What a p
rospect of happiness, it seems unreal and unrealizable.
Sunday, August 27
It’s been a few days since I’ve written anything in this journal. I note in it my mood at the time in the face of events, sometimes hour by hour, always at the very moment. On-the-spot. Nothing is meant to be read. It’s my self-portrait; it’s not a portrait of events. This allows me simply to gain my footing, not to be pulled under. Friday they arrested Aubert, Brel, Guérin and many others, fourteen in all, I believe. This morning a parade of the “resisters” in town at the monument to the dead, salutes to the flag. From my house I could hear them singing “La Madelon.” At noon my two cousins André and Marcel arrived and ate lunch here. They’re sporting tricolor cockades and their Communism is very military. This afternoon Camoin came to see me. It seems that Fluchère is the big boss of Information. They’re all preparing violently and in good faith to shed their illusions. They’ve already made a good start. Camoin talked to me about the political games that everyone has already begun to play. Noting that Y. brought them files of denunciations. But he had the courage to sign them. Which, Camoin said, is rare. Because he also said that anonymous denunciations are pouring in. And he added that after turning in his files, Y. went to offer his legal services to the Guérin family. Basically he seems quite disgusted by all this.
It’s hot. Terrible heat, stifling and nauseating.
Decided to begin work again first thing tomorrow. Finish Deux cavaliers, then immediately begin Les Grands Chemins.
Blavette brought an American here who sells tobacco and chocolate, which I did, in fact, buy, tobacco for my pipe and strange, chemical-tasting chocolate for the children. Élise returned from Margotte yesterday with half a bucket of butter that isn’t real butter and doesn’t melt in the pan. It hardens and sticks. Everything has a horrible laboratory taste. Everyone delights in it and swears to high heaven they’ve never eaten anything so good. Perfect.
Last evening, trucks full of German prisoners passed through Manosque to booing and hissing. I don’t like that. Such outbursts lack nobility and dignity. We won’t create a “beautiful France” with feelings like these. When I say this to Blavette and André, they laugh smugly or try to outdo one another, telling me about alleged offenses that the prisoners supposedly committed. I say “alleged” because the “cutting-off-the-hands-of-children” myths are circulating again. They are broadcast to justify our little acts of cowardice. A great country has other responses.
Monday, August 28
Dr. Petit came to see me as he does every Monday morning. I gave him a bit of American tobacco and two tablespoons of that strange butter that doesn’t melt. He said, “Yesterday I went to the ‘procession’.” He said, “At the hospital I’m caring for a German with eye wounds. I’m doing all I can so that he won’t go blind. How beautiful my profession is!”
Began to write again this morning. Two pages of Deux cavaliers.
Tuesday, August 29
Excessive heat. The air is unbreathable. 38 then 39 and then 40 degrees in the shade. Stifling wind from the south. My mother is truly suffering. I’m forcing myself to work in my office, which is hot as an oven. The country noisy, the sun overpowering, the air thick, the land appearing entirely reddish and burnt, the light dazzling, all too much. My only recourse is work. Wrote three good pages of Deux cavaliers this morning. I’m beginning to read Proust again. Also the letters to Trébutien from Barbey d’Aurevilly; also Saint-Simon’s Mémoires, and from time to time a little of L’Astrée. I keep cool thinking of autumn and then winter, wonderful winter, imagining that maybe I’ll be able to spend some time in the mountains, maybe even by myself. Putting my hopes in work alone, and if there’s more ahead for me, so much the better. And if that’s all I’m left with, it’s worth something nonetheless.
Crébely stopped by again last evening, as is his habit every Monday evening. Analyzed a Winawer-Steinetz chess game with him. At a certain point I experienced an intense sensation of pure classical beauty. This morning he sent his wife over with the analysis of the center gambit declined that we had discussed last night, Alekhine versus X.
At about four o’clock the heat is unbearable here. I’m sweating standing still, not moving. I open the shutters a bit. The sky is chalk white. The light wind barely stirring the linden leaves is burning hot. Across the valley, in the meadow, I see men lined up (about thirty of them) and I hear an order: Present arms! I also hear the gunshots of those doing target practice. I must recognize and admit that I was wrong to believe in pacifism. It wasn’t made for man. War must be exalted. Then you “get respect.” Because it’s deeply human. It’s what everyone demands and desires. When there are huge massacres, don’t be outraged, be content with polite expressions for the survivors. Make use of the “most common of commonplaces” like: I offer you my deepest sympathy. Don’t forget the deepest. Make a sad little face (that’s enough), and move on to something else. That’s the perfect attitude for winning the highest regard. At fifty years old, with these very simple precepts, you can attain the reputation of a perfect gentleman; you can be at ease anywhere and peacefully enjoy everything.
Manosque, or the Nietzschean bourgeois.
“I have long favored reviving such games in France; a nation’s tone is maintained by bloody spectacles.”
Marquis de Sade (Juliette)
Wednesday, August 30
Last evening about six o’clock, Joffre Dumazedier came to visit. He was at officer training school in Uriage (thus field marshall training); now an official representative, he’s going from Grenoble to Toulouse in a car protected by machine guns. He stopped in Manosque to see me. He said to me, “Your actions lower you,” that’s the expression. I have no interest in that. He said, “Explain this to me: I’ve been told that you wrote to the Marshal of France and said that you wanted victory for the Germans.” I answered, “Think for a minute. If I’d written to the Marshall (supposedly to praise his farm policy – which contradicts my actual actions, for example, defending the farmers around Margotte, as I’ve noted earlier here), if I’d written to the Marshall, you would have seen evidence of that writing. Reviews like France, on the look-out for anything that could help Vichy propaganda, would have reported on such letters, rest assured. Have you seen anything even resembling that? No. So? Draw your own conclusions. Someone told you that I said, etc. To whom did I say it? Did they give you details so that you had grounds to believe it, or do you believe such things simply because it’s easy and pleasing to believe bad things you hear about those you’re used to admiring?” He admitted it. I added that I never wanted to be admired and that I wrote in Le Poids du ciel: “I write neither to be loved nor to be followed, I write so that all readers can decide for themselves.” Decide for yourself with precise and proven facts. You can see very well that these aren’t that. He admitted this as well. I quickly laid out for him my activities during the occupation: coming to the aid of individuals in need, Jews, resisters, and Communists. I cited names, I gave evidence. He shook my hand and left. That was all.
This morning the French army came, heading toward Grenoble. A lieutenant with the tanks, Michel Lemaignand, stopped his column on the road and came to see me to shake my hand. This combatant is brighter, sharper. A good exchange of ideas lasting two hours. We’re entirely in agreement.
Increasingly unbearable heat. It borders on torture. Racked by the light, heat, and noise. No rest anywhere. I long for the mountains, cold, winter, peace, dark days, silence, and physical joys in keeping with the heart. The heart is degraded without joys. The nobility of physical pleasure. What there is of it seems only to diminish.
Reading is truly the sensual pleasure of uncertain times. Hence the success of the literary arts in the Middle Ages. Never has Proust been so vivid, so poetic, from so powerful a magic source as with this reading that I’m doing now, tortured by the noise of passing armies and mass delirium. As though there weren’t enough natural base
ness, a public notice advises, demands, charges us to denounce, even anonymously, those in the ancien régime. That’s going to be a beautiful sight.
Wrote two good pages of Deux cavaliers.
Eight o’clock at night. For the first time in a long time, I’ve just heard a train whistle! I’m leaning out the window. Yes, there it is, it’s coming, there’s smoke. Soon there’ll be mail, I hope.
Thursday, August 31
Visit from Effantin. He’s the garage mechanic from Lalley with whom I took walks in the mountains eight years ago. I introduced him to Gide who played a game of chess with him, I wrote about it in my journal at the time. Gide lost and afterward had a very beautiful chessboard sent to Effantin. He just drove a big shot to Saint-Tropez. He’s part of an F.F.I. group. He told me, “You were often attacked in front of me. I defended you every time. I said, ‘I know him; he can’t possibly be other than what I know him to be.’ ” (There it is. Plain and simple.) He smiled and when he asked me if I remembered our walks in the mountains, I told him, “Yes,” and I added, “With you the mountains were twice as beautiful. It was a joy to hear you speak.” This man who has simply retained his trust in me does me much good. What a difference from Joffre Dumazedier, not bad either, but a quibbler. It’s true that Dumazedier did not know me. If that’s all it takes, it’s very flattering to me. And frankly, just between us, I actually believe that is all it takes. Knowing me is enough (what arrogance, they’ll say. Well, why not, since it’s the truth, why not be proud of that? Is it so common?)
