Letters from my Windmill Part 3

Are you laughing, Gringoire? Heavens! I'm quite sure you are on the goats' side, and not Monsieur Seguin's. We'll see if you manage to keep laughing.

There was general delight when the white goat arrived on the mountain.

The old fir trees had never seen anything nearly so lovely. She was received like a queen. The chestnut trees bowed down to the ground to stroke her with the tips of their leaves. The brooms opened up the way for her and brushed against her as best they could. The whole mountainside celebrated her arrival.

So, Gringoire, imagine how happy our goat was! No more tether ... no more stake ... nothing to prevent her from going where she wanted and nibbling at anything she liked. Hereabouts, there was lots of gra.s.s; she was up to her horns in it, my friend. And what gra.s.s! Delicious, fine, feathery, and dense, so much better than that in the enclosure.

And then there were the flowers!... Huge bluebells; purple, long-stemmed foxgloves; a whole forest full of wild blooms br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with heady sap.

The white goat, half-drunk, wallowed in it, and with her legs flailing in the air, rolled along the bank all over the place on the fallen leaves in amongst the chestnut trees. Then, quite suddenly, she jumped confidently onto her feet. Off she went, heedlessly going forward through the clumps of boxwood and brooms; she went everywhere; up hill, and down dale. You would have thought that there were loads of Monsieur Seguin's goats on the mountain.

Clearly, Blanquette was not frightened of anything. In one leap, she covered some large torrential streams, which burst over her in a soaking mist. Then, dripping wet, she stretched herself out on a flat rock and dried herself in the sun. Once, approaching the edge of a drop, a laburnum flower in her mouth, she noticed Monsieur Seguin's house and the enclosure far down on the plain. It made her laugh till the tears came.

--How small it all is! she said; how did I manage to put up with it?

Poor little thing, finding herself so high up, she believed herself to be on top of the world.

Overall, it was a jolly good day for Monsieur Seguin's kid goat. About midday, scampering all over the place, she chanced upon a herd of chamois munching on wild vines with some relish. Our little minx in a white dress was an absolute sensation. All these gentlemanly bucks made way for her so she could have the very best of the vines.... It even seemed--and this is for your ears only Gringoire--that one of the black coated young chamois caught Blanquette's eye. The two lovers got lost in the trees for an hour or two, and if you want to know what they said to one another, go and ask the babbling brooks who meander unseen in the moss.

Suddenly, the wind freshened; the mountain turned violet; and evening fell....

--Already!, said the little kid goat, and stopped in astonishment.

In the valley, the fields were shrouded in mist. Monsieur Seguin's enclosure was hidden in the fog, and nothing could be seen of the house except the roof and a faint trace of smoke. She heard the bells of a flock of sheep returning home and began to feel very melancholy. A returning falcon just missed her with his wings as he pa.s.sed over. She winced.... Then there was a howl on the mountain.

Now, the silly nanny thought about the big bad wolf; having not once done it all day. At the same time, a horn sounded far away in the valley. It was Monsieur Seguin making one last effort.

The wolf howled again.

--Come home! Come home! cried the horn.

Blanquette wanted to; but then, she remembered the stake, and the rope, and the hedged enclosure; and she thought that now she couldn't possibly get used to all that lot again, and it was better to stay put.

The horn went silent....

She heard a noise in the leaves behind her. She turned round and there in the shade she saw two short, p.r.i.c.ked-up ears and two s.h.i.+ning eyes.... It was the big, bad wolf.

Huge and motionless, there he was, sitting on his hindquarters, looking at the little white goat and licking his chops. He knew full well that he would eventually eat her, so he was in no hurry, and as she turned away, he laughed maliciously:

--Ha! Ha! It's Monsieur Seguin's little kid goat! and he licked his chops once again with his red tongue.

Blanquette felt all was lost. It only took a moment's thought about the story of old Renaude, who became the wolf's meal after bravely fighting all night, to convince her that perhaps it would have been better to get it over with, and to let herself be eaten there and then.

Afterwards, thinking better of it, she squared up to the big bad wolf, head down, horns ready, like the brave little kid goat of Monsieur Seguin that she was ... not that she expected to kill him--goats don't kill wolves--but just to see if she could last out as long as Renaude....

As the big bad wolf drew near, she with her little horns set to into the fray.

Oh! the brave little kid goat; how she went at it with such a great heart. A dozen times, I'll swear, Gringoire, she forced the wolf back to catch his breath. During these brief respites, she grabbed a blade or two of the gra.s.s that she loved so much; then, still munching, joined the battle again.... The whole night pa.s.sed like this.

Occasionally, Monsieur Seguin's kid goat looked up at the twinkling stars in the clear sky and said to herself:

--Oh dear, I hope I can last out till the morning....

One by one the stars faded away. Blanquette intensified her charges, while the wolf replied with his teeth. The pale daylight appeared gradually over the horizon. A c.o.c.kerel crowed hoa.r.s.ely from a farm below.

--At last! said the poor animal, who was only waiting for the morning to come so that she could die bravely, and she laid herself down on the ground, her beautiful white fur stained with blood.

It was then, at last, that the wolf fell on the little goat and devoured her.

Goodbye, Gringoire!

The story you have heard is not of my making. If you ever come to Provence, our tenant farmers often tell you, of _M. Seguin's kid goat_, who fought the big bad wolf all night before he ate her in the morning.

Think about it, Gringoire, _the big bad wolf ate her in the morning._

THE STARS

_A tale from a Provencal shepherd._

When I used to be in charge of the animals on the Luberon, I was in the pasture for many weeks with my dog Labri and the flock without seeing another living soul. Occasionally the hermit from Mont-de-l'Ure would pa.s.s by looking for medicinal herbs, or I might see the blackened face of a chimney sweep from Piemont. But these were simple folk, silenced by the solitude, having lost the taste for chit-chat, and knowing nothing of what was going on down in the villages and towns. So, I was truly happy, when every fortnight I heard the bells on our farm's mule which brought my provisions, and I saw the bright little face of the farm boy, or the red hat of old aunty Norade appear over the hill. I asked them for news from the village, the baptisms, marriages, and so on. But what particularly interested me, was to know what was happening to my master's daughter, Mademoiselle Stephanette, the loveliest thing for fifty kilometres around. Without wis.h.i.+ng to seem over-curious, I managed to find out if she was going to village fetes and evening farm gatherings, and if she still turned up with a new admirer every time.

If someone asked me how that concerned a poor mountain shepherd, I would say that I was twenty years old and that Stephanette was the loveliest thing I had seen in my whole life.

One Sunday, however, the fortnight's supplies were very late arriving.

In the morning, I had thought, "It's because of High Ma.s.s." Then about midday, a big storm got up, which made me think that bad road conditions had kept the mule from setting out. Then, just after three o'clock, as the sky cleared and the wet mountain glistened in the suns.h.i.+ne, I could hear the mule's bells above the sound of the dripping leaves and the raging streams. To me they were as welcome, happy, and lively as a peal of bells on Easter Day. But there was no little farm boy or old aunty Norade at the head. It was ... you'll never guess ...

my heart's very own desire, friends! Stephanette in person, sitting comfortably between the wicker baskets, her lovely face flushed by the mountain air and the bracing storm.

Apparently, the young lad was ill and aunty Norade was on holiday at her childrens' place. Stephanette told me all this as she got off the mule, and explained that she was late because she had lost her way. But to see her there in her Sunday best, with her ribbon of flowers, her silk skirt and lace bodice; it looked more like she had just come from a dance, rather than trying to find her way through the bushes. Oh, the little darling! My eyes never tired of looking at her. I had never seen her so close before. Sometimes in winter, after the flocks had returned to the plain, and I was in the farm for supper in the evening, she would come into the dining room, always overdressed and rather proud, and rush across the room, virtually ignoring us.... But now, there she was, right in front of me, all to myself. Now wasn't that something to lose your head over?

Once she had taken the provisions out of the pannier, Stephanette began to take an interest in everything. Hitching up her lovely Sunday skirt, which otherwise might have got marked, she went into the compound, to look at the place where I slept. The straw crib with its lambskin cover, my long cape hanging on the wall, my shepherd's crook, and my catapult; all these things fascinated her.

--So, this is where you live, my little shepherd? How tedious it must be to be alone all the time. What do you do with yourself? What do you think about?

I wanted to say, "About you, my lady," and I wouldn't have been lying, but I was so greatly nonplussed that I couldn't find a single word by way of a reply. Obviously, she picked this up, and certainly she would now take some gentle malicious pleasure in turning the screw:

--What about your girlfriend, shepherd, doesn't she come up to see you sometimes? Of course, it would have to be the fairy Esterelle, who only runs at the top of the mountain, or the fabled, golden she-goat....

As she talked on, she seemed to me like the real fairy Esterelle. She threw her head back with a cheeky laugh and hurried away, which made her visit seem like a dream.

--Goodbye, shepherd.

--Bye, Bye, lady.