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 LETTERS FROM-'MY Ml'lib;^ 
 
 TAKING POSSESSION. 
 
 ' T WAS the rabbits who were astonished ! So 
 long had they seen the mill-door closed, the walls 
 and the platform invaded by verdure, that they had 
 come to think the race of millers was extinct ; and 
 finding the place convenient, they made it, as it 
 were, a sort of headquarters, a centre of strategi- 
 cal operations, — the Jemmapes mill of rabbits. 
 The night of my arfival, there were fully, with- 
 out exaggeration, a score sitting in a circle on 
 the platform, warming their paws in the moon- 
 shine. One second to open a window, and, scat ! 
 away went the bivouac, routed ; all the little white 
 behinds scurrying away, tails up, into the thicket. 
 I hope they will come back again. 
 
 Another much astonished individual was the 
 tenant of the first floor, a solemn old owl with 
 the head of a thinker, who has hved in the mill 
 for over twenty years. I found him in the upper 
 chamber, motionless and erect on the horizontal 
 shaft, in the midst of the plaster rubbish and fallen 
 roof-tiles. He looked at me for a moment with his 
 
2 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 .rpund eye.;, th£n,:alarmed at not knowing me, he 
 ifeegan *tV i^; "f^'Hoo ! hoo ! " and to shake his 
 :A^/ing:s. heavily, /gfajr with dust — those devilish 
 'tKirtkerS ! 'they-riev€f brush themselves. . . Well ! 
 never mind, whatever he is, with his blinking eyes 
 and his scowling look, this silent tenant pleased 
 me, and I hastened to beg him to renew his lease. 
 He now occupies, as before, the whole upper part 
 of the mill with an entrance from the roof; I re- 
 serve to myself the lower room, a small white- 
 washed room, low and vaulted like a convent 
 refectory. 
 
 It is from there that I write to you, with the 
 door wide open to the good sun. 
 
 A pretty pine wood, sparkling with light, runs 
 down before me to the foot of the slope. On the 
 horizon, the Alpilles outline their delicate crests. 
 No noise. Faintly, afar, the sound of a fife, a cur- 
 lew amid the lavender, the mule-bells on the high- 
 way. . . All this beautiful Provencal landscape 
 lives by light. 
 
 And now, think you I could regret your noisy, 
 darksome Paris ? I am so well-off in my mill ! It 
 is so exactly the spot I was looking for, a warm 
 little fragrant corner, far from newspapers, cabs, 
 and fog ! . . And what pretty things about me ! 
 It is scarcely a week since I came, and yet my 
 head is already stuffed full of impressions and 
 memories. Tenez ! no later than last evening I 
 watched the return of the flocks to the mas (farm) 
 which stands at the foot of the slope ; and I de- 
 
Taking Possession, 3 
 
 clare to you I would not give that sight for all the 
 *' first nights " that you have had in Paris this 
 week. You shall judge. 
 
 I must tell you that in ^rovence it is the custom, 
 as it is in Switzerland, to send the flocks to the 
 mountains on the coming of hot weather. Ani- 
 mals and men spend five or six months up there 
 under the stars, in grass to their bellies; then, 
 at the first chill of autumn, down they come to the 
 mas and feed after that on the little gray foot-hills 
 that are fragrant with rosemary. So last night 
 they came. The gates awaited them, wide open ; 
 the folds were filled with fresh straw. From hour 
 to hour the people said : '' Now they are at Eygui- 
 eres — now at the Paradou.'* Then, all of a sud- 
 den, towards evening, a great shout : " Here they 
 come ! *' and away off in the distance I could see 
 the flocks advancing in a halo of dust. The whole 
 road seemed to be marching with them. The old 
 rams came first, horns in front with a savage air ; 
 after them the ruck of the sheep, the mothers 
 rather weary, their nurslings beside them ; the 
 mules, with red pompons, carrying in baskets 
 the day-old lambkins, which they rocked as they 
 walked ; then came the dogs, their tongues to 
 earth, perspiring, and two tall shepherd rascals 
 swathed in red serge mantles which fell to their 
 heels like copes. 
 
 All this defiles before me joyously with a pat- 
 tering sound like rain, and is swallowed through 
 the gateway. You should see what excitement 
 in the farm ! From their high perches the green 
 
4 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 and gold peacocks with their tulle crests, have 
 recognized the new-comers and hail them with 
 a formidable trumpet-blast. The poultry yard, 
 which was going to sleep, wakes up with a start. 
 All are afoot, pigeons, ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowl. 
 They all seem crazy ; even the hens talk of sitting 
 up all night! One would really think that each 
 sheep had brought back in its wool with the fra- 
 grance of the wild Alp a little of that keen moun- 
 tain air which intoxicates and sets one dancing. 
 
 In the midst of all this racket, the flocks regain 
 their abode. Nothing can be more charming than 
 this re-entrance. The old rams are tenderly moved 
 at seeing their old cribs ; the lambs, even the little 
 ones born on the journey who had never seen the 
 farm, look about them in amazement. 
 
 But most touching of all are the dogs, those 
 brave shepherd dogs, full of business about their 
 flocks and seeing nought else in the mas. In vain 
 does the watch-dog call to them from his kennel ; 
 the well-bucket full of fresh water entices them in 
 vain ; they see nothing, hear nothing till the flocks 
 are housed, the big bolt run on the wicket gate, 
 and the shepherds at table in the lower room. 
 Then and not till then, they consent to go to 
 kennel, and there, while lapping their porringers 
 of soup, they tell their farm comrades what things 
 they have done up there on the mountains, a 
 gloomy place, where there are wolves, and great 
 crimson foxgloves full of dew to the brim. 
 
The Beaucaire Diligence. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE BEAUCAIRE DILIGENCE. 
 
 It was the day of my arrival at this place. I 
 had taken the diligence of Beaucaire, a worthy 
 old vehicle that has no great distance to go before 
 she gets home, but which loiters, nevertheless, by 
 the way, to have an air, in the evening, of coming 
 from afar. We were five on the imperial, not 
 counting the conductor. 
 
 First, a keeper of the Camargue, a small, stocky, 
 hairy man, smelling of his wild life, with big, 
 bloodshot eyes and silver ear-rings. Then two 
 Beaucairese, a baker and his journeyman, both 
 very red, very short-winded, but splendid in profile, 
 two Roman coins bearing the efiigy of Vitellius. 
 Lastly, on the front seat, beside the conductor, a 
 man — no, a cap, an enormous squirrel-skin cap, 
 who said little or nothing and gazed at the road 
 with a melancholy air. 
 
 All these persons knew each other, and talked 
 aloud of their affairs very freely. The man of the 
 Camargue told that he was coming from Nimes, 
 where he had been summoned before an examin- 
 ing-judge to answer for a blow with a scythe given 
 to a shepherd. They have such hot blood in 
 Camargue ! — and in Beaucaire too ! Did not 
 these very two Beaucairese try to cut each other's 
 
6 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 throats apropos of the Blessed Virgin ? It seemed 
 that the baker belonged to a parish church that 
 was vowed to the Madonna, the one whom the 
 Provencals call ** the good mother" and who car- 
 ries the Httle Jesus in her arms. The journeyman, 
 on the contrary, sang in the choir of a new church 
 dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, that beau- 
 tiful smiHng image represented with pendent arms 
 and her hands full of sun-rays. Hence the quarrel. 
 You ought to have seen how those two good 
 Cathohcs treated each other, they and their 
 madonnas : — 
 
 ^' She is a pretty one, your immaculate ! " 
 
 '* Get away with your good mother ! " 
 
 "She saw queer things, that one of yours, in 
 Palestine ! " 
 
 *^ And yours, hoo ! the fright ! Who knows 
 what she didn't do? Ask Saint Joseph." 
 
 As if to remind me of the harbour of Naples, 
 knives were on the point of glittering, and, upon 
 my word, I believe the theological battle would 
 have ended that way if the conductor had not 
 come to the rescue. 
 
 " Let us alone with your madonnas," he said, laugh- 
 ing, to the two Beaucairese ; *' all that is women's 
 talk, men should n't meddle in such things." 
 
 Thereupon he cracked his whip with a^ scepti- 
 cal little air which brought every one round to his 
 opinion. 
 
 The discussion ended ; but the baker, set a-go- 
 ing, felt the need of letting out the remains of 
 
The Beaucaire Diligence. 7 
 
 his ardour ; so, turning to the unfortunate cap, sad 
 and silent in his corner, he said with a jeering air : 
 
 " And your wife, knife-grinder, what' parish does 
 she belong to now? " 
 
 It is to be supposed that some very comical 
 meaning was in those words, for the whole impe- 
 rial went off into roars of laughter. The knife- 
 grinder alone did not laugh. He seemed not to 
 hear. Observing that, the baker turned to me. 
 
 " You don't know about his wife, monsieur ; a 
 queer one, I can tell you. There are not two Hke 
 her in all Beaucaire." 
 
 The laughs redoubled. The knife-grinder did 
 not stir ; he contented himself by saying in a low 
 voice : — 
 
 ** Hold your tongue, baker." 
 
 But that devil of a baker had no idea of holding 
 his tongue, and he began again, more jeering than 
 ever : — 
 
 " Vi^dase ! The comrade is not to be pitied for 
 having a wife like that. Can't be bored one minute 
 with her. Just think ! a beauty who gets some one 
 to elope with her every six months has plenty to 
 tell you when she comes back. But for all that, 
 it is a queer little household. Just imagine, mon- 
 sieur, they hadn't been married a year when, paf! 
 away went the wife to Spain with a chocolate- 
 maker. The husband, he stayed at home, weep- 
 ing and drinking. He was almost crazy. By and 
 by the wife came home, dressed as a Spanish girl 
 and carrying a tambourine. 'We all said to her: 
 ' Hide, hide, he '11 kill you ! ' Kill her, indeed ! not 
 
8 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 he ! They Hved together as tranquil as ever, and 
 she taught him to play the tambourine/' 
 
 Here a fresh explosion of laughter. In his 
 corner, without raising his head, the knife-grinder 
 murmured again : — 
 
 ^' Hold your tongue, baker." 
 
 The baker paid no attention, but continued : — 
 
 *' You may perhaps think, monsieur, that after 
 her return from Spain the beauty would have kept 
 quiet. Not she ! The husband had taken the 
 thing so well, she thought she would try again. 
 After the Spaniard came an officer, then a Rhone 
 boatman, then a musician, then a — I don't know 
 who. The funny thing is that each time it is the 
 same comedy. The wife elopes, the husband 
 weeps; she returns and he's consoled. And still 
 she is carried off, and still he takes her back. Don't 
 you think he has patience, that husband? It must 
 be said that she is mighty pretty, that little woman, 
 a cardinal's dainty bit, lively, dimpled, plump, with 
 a white skin and a pair of nut-brown eyes that look 
 at the men with a laugh. I' faith, Parisian, if you 
 ever come back through Beaucaire — " 
 
 " Oh ! hold your tongue, baker, I beg of you," 
 said the unfortunate man again, in a heart-rending 
 tone of voice. 
 
 At this moment the dihgence stopped. We 
 had reached the mas des Angloires, The two 
 bakers got out, and I assure you I did not regret 
 them. Sorry jester ! We could hear him still 
 laughing in the farm-yard. 
 
 The bakers having departed and the Camargue 
 
The Beaucaire Diligence. g 
 
 man being left at Aries, the imperial seemed empty. 
 The conductor got down and walked beside his 
 horses. We were alone in our corners, the knife- 
 grinder and I, without speaking. It was hot ; the 
 leather hood of the vehicle seemed burning. At 
 times I felt my eyes closing and my head getting 
 heavy, but I could not sleep. Always in my ears 
 I heard that *' Hold your tongue, I beg of you," 
 so gentle yet so agonizing. Neither could he, the 
 poor soul, sleep. From behind I saw his big 
 shoulders shudder and his hand — a long, pallid, 
 stupid hand — trembling on the back of the seat, 
 like the hand of an aged man. He wept. 
 
 " Here you are, at your place, Parisian," cried 
 the conductor, suddenly, pointing with the end of 
 his whip to my green hill with the windmill 
 pinned upon it like a big butterfly. 
 
 I hastened to get out. Passing the knife-grinder 
 I tried to look at him beneath his cap ; I wanted 
 to see him before I left. As if he had fathomed 
 my thought, the unhappy man raised his head 
 abruptly and planting his eyes in mine he said in 
 a hollow voice : — 
 
 ** Look at me well, friend ; and if, one of these 
 days, you hear. there has been trouble in Beaucaire 
 you can say that you know the man who struck the 
 blow." 
 
 The face was dull and sad, with small and faded 
 eyes. There were tears in those eyes ; but in the 
 voice there was hatred. Hatred is the anger of 
 the weak ! If I were that wife, I should beware 
 of it. 
 
lO Letters from My Mill. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SECRET OF MAITRE CORNILLE. 
 
 Francet Mamai, an old fife-player, who comes 
 from time to time to make a night of it with me, 
 drinking boiled wine, related the other evening 
 a little village drama of which my mill was the wit- 
 ness some twenty years ago. The old man's story 
 touched me, and I shall try to tell it to you just as 
 I heard it. 
 
 Imagine, for the moment, my dear readers, that 
 you are sitting before a pot of fragrant wine and 
 that an old Provencal fife-player is speaking to 
 you. 
 
 Our countryside, my good monsieur, was not 
 always such a dead region and without renown as 
 it is to-day. There was a time when the millers 
 did a great trade, and from ten leagues round the 
 farmers brought us their wheat to grind. The 
 hills all about the village were covered with wind- 
 mills. To right and left one saw nothing but sails 
 twirling to the mistral above the pines, strings of 
 little donkeys laden with sacks going up and down 
 the roads ; and all the week it was a pleasure to 
 hear on the heights the crack of the whips, the 
 rattle of the sails and the Dia hue ! of the millers' 
 
The Secret of Maitre Cor^iille. 1 1 
 
 men. On Sundays we went to the mills in parties. 
 The millers, they paid for the muscat. The wives 
 were as fine as queens, with their lace kerchiefs 
 and their gold crosses. I took my fife and till 
 it was pitch-dark night they danced the farandole. 
 Those mills, you see, they made the joy and the 
 wealth of our parts. 
 
 Unluckily the Paris Frenchmen took an idea 
 to establish a steam flour-mill on the road to Taras- 
 con. Fine thing, great novelty ! People took a 
 habit of sending their wheat to the flour-dealers, 
 and the poor windmills were left without work. 
 For some time they tried to struggle, but steam 
 was the stronger, and, one after the other, p^caire ! 
 they were forced to shut up. No more files of 
 little * donkeys. The handsome wives had to sell 
 their gold crosses. No more muscat ! no more 
 farandole ! The mistral might blow, but the sails 
 stood still. And then, one fine day, the village 
 rulers ordered all those mills pulled down and 
 their place to be sown with vines and olives. 
 
 But in the midst of this general downfall one 
 mill held good and continued to turn courageously 
 on its knoll before the very nose of the steam- 
 millers. That was Maitre Cornille*s mill, the very 
 one where we are at this moment. 
 
 Mattre Cornille was an old miller, living for 
 sixty years in flour and mad for his business. 
 The coming of the steam-millers had really made 
 him half crazy. For a week he ran about the 
 village inciting the people and shouting with all 
 
12 Letters from My MilL 
 
 his might that they wanted to poison Provence 
 with steam flour. ** Don't go there," he cried; 
 ** those brigands in making bread use steam, an 
 invention of the devil, whereas I work by the 
 mistral and the tramontana, which are the breath 
 of the good God." And he spoke out a lot of fine 
 sayings like that in praise of the windmills, but 
 nobody listened to them. 
 
 Then, in a fury, the old fellow shut himself up in 
 his mill and lived alone, like a savage beast. He 
 would not even keep his little granddaughter, 
 Vivette, with him, a child of fifteen, who, since 
 the death of her parents, had no one but her 
 grand in the world. The poor little thing was now 
 obliged to earn her living, and to hire herself out 
 in the farms wherever she could, for the harvest, 
 the silk-worm times, and the olive-picking. And 
 yet her grandfather seemed to love her, that child. 
 He would often go his four leagues afoot, in the 
 hot sun to see her at the farm where she worked ; 
 and when he was near her he would spend whole 
 hours gazing at her and weeping. 
 
 In the neighbourhood, people thought that the 
 old miller was niggardly in sending Vivette away, 
 and they said that it did not do him credit to let 
 his granddaughter roam from one farmhouse to 
 another, exposed to the brutality of the bailiffs 
 and to all the miseries of young girls in her condi- 
 tion. And they also thought it very wrong of 
 Mattre Cornille, who up to this time had respected 
 himself, to go about the streets like a regular 
 gypsy, barefooted, cap in holes, and trousers 
 
The Secret of Maitre Cornille. 1 3 
 
 ragged. In fact, on Sundays, when we saw him 
 come in to mass, we were ashamed of him, we 
 old fellows ; and Cornille felt it so much that he 
 dared not come and sit upon the workmen's bench. 
 He always stayed at the end of the church, close 
 to the holy-water basin, among the paupers. 
 
 In Maitre Cornille's life there was something 
 we could not make out. For a long time past no 
 one in the village had taken him wheat, yet the 
 sails of his mill were always turning, as before. 
 At night the old miller was met upon the roads, 
 driving before him his donkey laden with stout 
 sacks of flour. 
 
 ** Good vespers, Maitre Cornille ! " the peasants 
 would call to him. *' So the mill is going still?" 
 
 ** Going still, my sons," the old fellow answered 
 with a lively air. " Thank God, it is not work that 
 we lack." 
 
 Then, if any one asked him where the devil he 
 found all that work, he would lay a finger on his 
 lips and answer, gravely: "Mum's the word! I 
 am working for exportation." And never could 
 anything further be got out of him. 
 
 As for putting your nose in his mill, that was not 
 to be thought of. Little Vivette herself was not 
 allowed to enter. 
 
 If we passed in front of it, the door was always 
 seen to be closed, the heavy sails were in motion, 
 the old donkey was browsing on the turf of the 
 platform, and a tall, thin cat, taking the sun on the 
 sill of the window, looked at us malignantly. 
 
 All this had the scent of some mystery about it, 
 
14 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 and made people gossip. Every one explained in 
 his own way the secret of Maltre Cornille, but the 
 general rumour was that there were even more 
 sacks of silver crowns in the mill than sacks of 
 flour. 
 
 In the end, however, all was found out ; and this 
 was how : — 
 
 I discovered, one fine day, while making the 
 young people dance with my fife, that the eldest 
 of my sons and little Vivette were in love with each 
 other. In my heart I was n't sorry, because, after 
 all, the name of Cornille was held in honour among 
 us, and, besides, I knew it would give me pleasure 
 to see that pretty little sparrow of a Vivette hop- 
 ping about my house. Only, as the lovers had 
 many occasions to be together, I wished, for fear 
 of accidents, to settle the thing at once. So up I 
 went to the mill to say a word or two to the grand- 
 father. Ah ! the old wizard ! you should just 
 have seen the way he received me ! Impossible 
 to make him open the door. I explained the mat- 
 ter as well as I could through the keyhole; and 
 all the while that I was speaking, that rascally lean 
 cat was puffing like a devil above my head. 
 
 The old man did n't give me time to finish, but 
 shouted to me, most uncivilly, to get back to my 
 fife, and that if I was in such a hurry to marry my 
 son, I could go and get a girl at the steam-mill. 
 You can think if my blood did n't rise to hear such 
 words ; but, all the same, I had wisdom enough to 
 control myself, and, leaving the old madman in his 
 
The Secret of Maitre Cornille. 1 5 
 
 mill, I returned to tell the children of my failure. 
 Poor lambs ! they could not believe it ; they begged 
 me, as a favour, to let them go to the mill them- 
 selves and speak to grandpapa. I had n't the 
 courage to refuse, and prrrt ! off went my lovers. 
 
 When they got to the mill, Maitre Cornille had 
 just gone out. The door was locked and double- 
 locked, but the old man had left his ladder outside, 
 and immediately the idea came to the children to 
 get in through the window and see what was really 
 going on inside of the famous mill. 
 
 Singular thing ! the room of the millstone was 
 empty. Not a sack, not a grain of wheat, not the 
 slightest sign of flour on the walls or the spiders' 
 webs ! There was not even that good warm smell 
 of crushed wheat that scents a mill so pleasantly. 
 The horizontal bar was covered with dust, and the 
 great lean cat was sleeping on it. 
 
 The lower room had the same air of utter pov- 
 erty and abandonment, — a wretched bed, a few 
 rags, a morsel of bread on a step of the stair- 
 way, and, in a corner, three or four worn-out 
 sacks, from which oozed plaster rubbish and chalky 
 earth. 
 
 There was the secret of Maitre Cornille ! It was 
 plaster rubbish that he carried in the evening 
 along the roads to save the honour of the mill and 
 to make believe it was grinding flour ! Poor mill ! 
 Poor Cornille ! For many a long day the steam- 
 mill had robbed them of their last customer. The 
 sails still turned, but the millstone revolved in a 
 void. 
 
1 6 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 The children returned in tears, and told me 
 what they had seen. My heart almost burst as I 
 listened. Not losing a minute, I ran to the neigh- 
 bours ; I told them the thing in a word, and we all 
 agreed that we must at once carry what wheat 
 there was in the village to Cornille's mill. No 
 sooner said than done. The whole village started, 
 and we arrived at the top with a procession of don- 
 keys laden with wheat, — real wheat, that was ! 
 
 The mill was wide open. Before the door 
 Maitre Cornille, seated on a sack of plaster, was 
 weeping, his head in his hands. He had just dis- 
 covered, on returning, that during his absence 
 some one had entered the mill and surprised his 
 sad secret. 
 
 ** Poor me ! '' he was saying. " There 's nothing 
 for me. to do now but to die. The mill is dis- 
 honoured." 
 
 And he sobbed to break one's heart, calling his 
 mill all sorts of names, and talking to it as if to a 
 real person. 
 
 At this moment the donkeys appeared on the 
 terrace, and we all began to shout very loud, as in 
 the good old days of the millers : — 
 
 " Ohe ! the mill ! Ohe ! Mattre Cornille ! " 
 
 And there were the sacks piled up before the 
 door, and the fine ruddy grain spilling over to 
 the ground on all sides. 
 
 Maitre Cornille opened his eyes very wide. In 
 the hollow of his old hand he scooped up some of 
 the wheat and said, laughing and weeping to- 
 gether : — 
 
The Secret of Maitre Cornille. 17 
 
 " It is wheat ! . . Lord God ! . . Good wheat ! 
 Let me alone, let me look at it." 
 
 Then, turning towards us, he added : — 
 
 *^ Ah ! I knew you would all come back to me. 
 Those steam-mill fellows are thieves." 
 
 We wanted to carry him off in triumph to the 
 village. 
 
 *^ No, no, children," he said. ** I must first feed 
 my mill. Just think how long it is since she had a 
 morsel between her teeth ! " 
 
 And we all had tears in our eyes to see the poor 
 old fellow wandering right and left, opening the 
 sacks, watching the millstone, while the wheat was 
 being crushed and the fine powdery flour flew up 
 to the ceiling. 
 
 To do ourselves justice, I must tell you that 
 from that day we never let the old miller lack for 
 work. Then, one morning, Maitre Cornille died, 
 and the sails of our last mill ceased to turn — for- 
 ever, this time. Cornille dead, no one took his 
 place. But what of that, monsieur? All things 
 come to an end in this world, and we must believe 
 that the days of windmills are over, like those of 
 the barges on the Rhone, the parliaments, and the 
 grand flowered jackets. 
 
Letters from My Mill. 
 
 IV. 
 
 M. SEGUIN'S GOAT. 
 
 TO M. PIERRE GRINGOIRE, LYRIC POET IN PARIS. 
 
 You will always be the same, my poor Grin- 
 goire ! 
 
 What ! a place is offered to you as reporter on 
 one of the best Parisian newspapers, and you have 
 the coolness to refuse it ? Look at yourself, you 
 luckless fellow ! look at your shabby jacket, those 
 dilapidated breeches, and that thin face that cries 
 out hunger. It is to this that your passion for 
 noble verse has brought you ! This is what your 
 loyal ten years' service as page to Sire Apollo has 
 won! On the whole, are you not ashamed of it? 
 
 Come, make yourself a reporter, imbecile ; make 
 yourself a reporter. You will earn good crown- 
 pieces, and have your knife and fork at Brebant's, 
 and you can exhibit yourself on all first nights with 
 a new feather in your cap. 
 
 No? What, you won't? You insist on living 
 free and as you please to the end of the chapter? 
 Well, then ! listen to the history of M. Seguin's 
 goat. You will see what is gained by wishing to 
 live at liberty. 
 
 I M. Seguin never had luck with his goats^ He 
 lost them in all kinds of ways. lOne fine morning 
 
M. Segutns Goat, 19 
 
 they broke their tether and wandered away to the 
 mountain, where a wolf ate them. Neither the 
 caresses of their master nor fear of the wolf, noth- 
 ing could restrain them. ^ They were, it appeared, 
 independent goats, wanting at any cost free air 
 and liberty. 
 
 The worthy M. Seguin, who did not understand 
 the nature of his animals, was shocked. He 
 said : 
 
 " That 's enough ; goats are bored by living with 
 me ; I won't keep another.'' 
 
 However, after losing six in that way, he was 
 not discouraged, and he bought a seventh; but 
 this time he was careful to get her quite young, so 
 young that she might the better get accustomed to 
 live with him. 
 
 Ah ! Gringoire, she was pretty, that little goat 
 of M. Seguin's, so pretty with her soft eyes, her 
 little tuft of beard like a sub-officer, her black and 
 shiny hoofs, her ribbed horns, and her long, white 
 hair which wrapped her Hke a mantle ! She was 
 almost as charming as that kid of Esmeralda's — 
 you remember, Gringoire? — and then, so docile, 
 so coaxing, letting herself be milked without 
 budging, and never putting her foot in the bowl ! 
 A love of a little goat ! 
 
 Behind M. Seguin's house was a field hedged 
 round with hawthorn. It was there that he put 
 his new boarder. He fastened her to a stake, at 
 the very best part of the meadow, taking care to 
 give her plenty of rope ; and from time to time he 
 went to see if she was satisfied. The goat seemed 
 
20 Letters front My Mill. 
 
 very happy, and cropped the grass with such heart- 
 iness that M. Seguin was delighted. 
 
 " At last," thought the poor man, '' here 's one 
 at least that is n't bored by living with me ! " 
 
 M. Seguin deceived himself; the goat was bored. 
 
 One day she said to herself, looking at the 
 mountain : — 
 
 " How nice it must be up there ! What a 
 pleasure to skip in the heather, without this cursed 
 rope, which rubs my neck !J It is all very well for - 
 asses and cattle to browse in a field, but goats ! 
 why, they want the open." 
 
 From that moment the grass of the meadow 
 seemed to her insipid. Ennui seized her. She 
 grew thin, her milk was scanty. It was really pite- 
 ous to see her, straining at the tether all day, her 
 head turned to the mountain, her nostril flaming, 
 and she saying " Ma-e " so sadly. 
 
 M. Seguin saw that something was the matter 
 with his goat, but he did not know what. One 
 morning, after he had milked her, the goat turned 
 round and said to him in her patois : — 
 
 "Listen, M. Seguin; I am so weary here with 
 you ; let me go on the mountain." 
 
 '' Ah ! 7non Dieu ! She, too ! " cried poor M. 
 Seguin, stupefied, and he let fall the bowl ; then, 
 sitting down on the grass at the side of his goat, 
 he said : — 
 
 *' Oh ! Blanchette, would you leave me? " 
 
 And Blanchette answered : — 
 
 **Yes, M. Seguin." 
 
M. Seguins Goat. 21 
 
 " Is n't there grass enough here to please you ? " 
 
 " Oh ! plenty, M. Seguin.'' 
 
 "Do I tie you too short? shall I lengthen the 
 rope?" 
 
 " It is n*t worth while, M. Seguin." 
 p'Then what is the matter? what do you want?*' 
 
 ** I want to go on the mountain, M. Seguin." 
 
 " But, you unhappy little thing, don't you know 
 there are wolves on the mountain? What would 
 you do if a wolf attacked you ? " 
 
 '' I 'd butt him with my horns." ; 
 
 " A wolf would n't care for your horns. He 
 has eaten up goats of mine with much bigger 
 horns than yours. Don't you remember that 
 poor old Renaude who was here last year? 
 Strong and spiteful as a ram. She fought all 
 night with the wolf, but, in the morning, the wolf 
 ate her." 
 
 " Pecaire! Poor Renaude ! But that does not 
 matter, M. Seguin; let me go to the mountain." 
 
 " Merciful powers ! " exclaimed M. Seguin, 
 *' what is the matter with my goats? Another 
 one for the wolf to eat ! Well, no, I shall save 
 you in spite of yourself, you slut ! and for fear you 
 should break your rope I shall put you in the 
 stable, and there you will stay." 
 
 Whereupon M. Seguin led the goat into his 
 brand-new stable, and double-locked the door. 
 Unfortunately, he forgot the window, and hardly 
 had he turned his back before the little one was 
 out and away. 
 
 You laugh, Gringoire \ Parbleu I I suppose 
 
22 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 so; you take the side of the goats against that 
 good M. Seguin. We '11 see if you laugh presently. 
 
 When the white goat reached the mountain there 
 was general delight. Never had the old fir-trees 
 seen anything so pretty. They received her like a 
 little princess. The chestnut-trees bent to the 
 ground to kiss her with the tips of their branches. 
 The golden gorse opened wide to let her pass, and 
 smelt just as sweet as it could. In fact, the whole 
 mountain welcomed her. 
 
 You can imagine, Gringoire, how happy she 
 was ! No more rope, no stake, nothing to prevent 
 her from skipping and browsing as she pleased. 
 My dear fellow, the grass was above her horns ! 
 and such grass ! — luscious, delicate, toothsome, 
 made of all sorts of plants. Quite another thing 
 from that grass in the meadow. And the flowers, 
 oh ! Great blue campanulas and crimson fox- 
 gloves with their long calyxes, a perfect forest of 
 wild-flowers giving out an intoxicating sweetness. 
 
 The white goat, a little tipsy, wallowed in the 
 thick of them with her legs in the air, and rolled 
 down the banks pell-mell with the falling leaves 
 and the chestnuts. Then, suddenly, she sprang 
 to her feet with a bound, and hop ! away she 
 went, head foremost, through thicket and bushes, 
 now on a rock, now in a gully, up there, down 
 there, everywhere. You would have said that 
 ten of M. Seguin's goats were on the mountain. 
 
 The fact is, Blanchette was afraid of nothing. 
 
 She sprang with a bound over torrents that 
 spattered her as she passed with a dust of damp 
 
M. Seguz7is Goat. 23 
 
 spray. Then, all dripping, she would stretch her- 
 self out on a nice flat rock and dry in the sun. 
 Once, coming to the edge of a slope with a bit 
 of laurel between her teeth, she saw below, far 
 below on the plain, the house of M. Seguin with 
 the meadow behind it; and she laughed till she 
 cried. 
 
 ^^ How small it is ! " she said ; '^ how could I ever 
 have lived there ? " 
 
 Poor little thing ! being perched so high she 
 fancied she was tall as the world. 
 
 Well ! it was a good day for M. Seguin's goat. 
 About noon, running from right to left, she fell in 
 with a herd of chamois munching a wild vine with 
 all their teeth. Among them our little white- 
 gowned rover made quite a sensation. They gave 
 her the choicest place at the vine, and all those 
 gentlemen were very gallant. In fact, it appears 
 — but this is between ourselves, Gringoire — that 
 a young chamois with a black coat had the great 
 good fortune to please Blanchette. The pair 
 wandered off in the woods for an hour or so, and 
 if you want to know what they said to each other, 
 go ask those chattering brooks that are running 
 invisible through the mosses. 
 
 Suddenly the wind freshened. The mountain 
 grew violet ; it was dusk. 
 
 " Already ! " said the little goat ; and she stopped, 
 quite surprised. 
 
 Below, the fields were drowned in mist. M. 
 Seguin's meadow disappeared in the fog, and 
 
24 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 nothing could be seen of the house but the roof 
 and a trifle of smoke. She heard the little bells of 
 a flock that was on its way home, and her soul 
 grew sad. A falcon, making for his nest, swept 
 her with his wings as he passed. She shud- 
 dered. Then came a howl on the mountain: 
 
 *^Hoo! hoo!'' 
 
 She thought of the wolf; all day that silly young 
 thing had never once thought of it. At the same 
 moment a horn sounded far, far down the valley. 
 It was that good M. Seguin, making a last effort. 
 
 " Hoo ! hoo ! " howled the wolf 
 
 '' Come back ! come back ! " cried the horn. 
 
 Blanchette felt a wish to return, but remember- 
 ing the stake, the rope, the hedge of the field, she 
 thought that she never could endure that life again 
 and 't was better to remain where she was. 
 
 The horn ceased to sound. 
 
 The goat heard behind her the rustling of leaves. 
 She turned and saw in the shadow two short ears, 
 erect, and two eyes shining. It was the wolf. 
 
 Enormous, motionless, seated on his tail, he 
 was looking at the little white goat and smack- 
 ing his lips in advance. As he knew very well he 
 should eat her up, the wolf was not in a hurry ; 
 but when she turned round and saw him he began 
 to laugh wickedly : *' Ha ! ha ! M. Seguin's little 
 goat ! — " and he licked his great red tongue 
 round his wily chops. 
 
 Blanchette felt she was lost. For an instant, re- 
 membering the story of old Renaude, who had 
 
M. Seguins Goat 25 
 
 fought all night only to be eaten in the morning, 
 she said to herself that 'twas better, perhaps, to be 
 eaten at once; but then, thinking otherwise, she 
 put herself on guard, head low, horns forward, like 
 the brave little goat that she was. Not that she 
 had any hope of killing the wolf, — goats can't kill 
 wolves, — but only to see if she, too, could hold 
 out as long as old Renaude. 
 
 Then the monster advanced, and the pretty little 
 horns began the dance. 
 
 Ah ! the brave goatling ! with what heart she 
 went at it! More than ten times — I'm not ex- 
 aggerating, Gringoire — more than ten times she 
 forced the wolf back to get breath. During each 
 of these momentary truces the dainty little thing 
 nibbled one more blade of her dearly loved grass ; 
 then, with her mouth full, she returned to the com- 
 bat. It lasted all through the night. From time 
 to time M. Seguin's goat looked up at the stars as 
 they danced on the cloudless sky and said to her- 
 self: — 
 
 '* Oh ! if I can only hold out till dawn." 
 
 One after another, the stars went out. Blan- 
 chette redoubled the blows of her horns, and the 
 wolf the snap of his teeth. A pale gleam showed 
 on the horizon. The hoarse crowing of a cock 
 rose from a barnyard. 
 
 " At last ! " said the poor little goat, who had 
 only awaited the dawn to die ; and she stretched 
 herself out on the ground in her pretty white fuf 
 all spotted with gore. 
 
 Then the wolf fell upon her and ate her up. 
 
26 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Adieu, Gringoire ! 
 
 The story you have now heard is not a tale of 
 my own invention. If ever you come to Provence, 
 our farmers will often tell you of la cabro de Moussu 
 Seguifiy que se batt^gue touto la neui erne lou loup, e 
 piei lou matin lou loup la mang^. 
 
 You understand me, Gringoire : " And then, in 
 the morning, the wolf ate her up." 
 
The Stars. 27 
 
 THE STARS. 
 
 TALE OF A PROVENCAL SHEPHERD. 
 
 In the days when I kept sheep on the Lub^ron, 
 I was often for weeks together without seeing a Hv- 
 ing soul, alone in the pastures with my dog Labri 
 and the flock. From time to time the hermit of 
 the Mont-de-l'Ure passed that way in search of 
 simples ; or occasionally I saw the blackened face 
 of some Piedmontese charcoal-burner; but these 
 were quiet folk, silent by force of solitude, having 
 lost their liking for talk, and knowing nothing of 
 what went on below in the towns and villages. So 
 when I heard, every fortnight, on the road coming 
 up the mountain, the bells of our farm mule bring- 
 ing me food for the next two weeks, and when I 
 saw, appearing little by little above the slope, the 
 lively head of our miarro (farm-boy) or the red 
 coif of old Aunt Norade, I was really very happy. 
 I made them tell me all the news of the world down 
 below, the baptisms, the marriages, etc. ; but that 
 which interested me above all was to know what 
 the daughter of my master was about, our Demoi- 
 selle Stephanette, the prettiest young lady in all 
 the country round. Without seeming to take great 
 interest, I managed to find out when she went to 
 
28 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 fetes and dances, and whether she had new lovers ; 
 and if others asked me what such things mattered 
 to me, a poor shepherd on a mountain, I answered 
 that I was twenty years old, and that Mademoiselle 
 Stephanette was the loveliest thing I had ever seen 
 in my Hfe. 
 
 Now one Sunday, when I was expecting my two 
 weeks' provisions, it happened that they did not 
 come until very late. In the morning I said to 
 myself, '' Tis the fault of high mass ; " then, about 
 mid-day, there came up a great storm, and I thought 
 that the mule could not start on account of the 
 roads. At last, about three o'clock, when the sky 
 was washed clear and the mountain was shining 
 with sun and water, I heard amid the dripping 
 from the leaves and the gurgle of the overflowing 
 brooks, the tinkle of the mule-bells, as gay and 
 alert as the grand church chimes of an Easter-day. 
 But it was not our little miarrOy nor old Aunt 
 Norade who was leading him. It was — guess 
 who ? Our demoiselle, my children ! our demoiselle 
 in person, sitting up straight between the osier 
 baskets, quite rosy with the mountain air and the 
 refreshing coolness of the storm. 
 
 The boy was ill; Aunt Norade was off for a 
 holiday with the children. The beautiful Stepha- 
 nette told me all this as she got off the mule, and 
 also that she came late because she had lost her 
 way ; but to see her dressed in her Sunday best, 
 with her flowered ribbon, her brilliant petticoat, 
 and her laces, I must say she had more the look 
 of having lingered at some dance than of search- 
 
The Stars. 29 
 
 ing for a path among the bushes. Oh, the dainty 
 creature ! My eyes never wearied of looking at 
 her. It is true that I had never before seen her 
 quite so near. Sometimes, in winter, when the 
 flocks had come down upon the plains and I 
 returned to the farmhouse at night for my supper, 
 she would cross the hall quickly, scarcely speak- 
 ing to the servants, always gayly dressed and 
 perhaps a little haughty. And now I had her 
 before me, all to myself! Was it not enough to 
 turn my head? 
 
 When she had taken the provisions from the 
 basket Stephanette looked about her with curi- 
 osity. Lifting her handsome best petticoat slightly, 
 for it might have got injured, she entered the 
 cabin, asked to see where I slept, — in a trough 
 full of straw with a sheepskin over it, — looked at 
 my big cloak hanging to the wall, my crook, and 
 my gun. All of which amused her. '^ So this is 
 where you live, my poor shepherd?" she said. 
 ** How bored you must be all alone. What do 
 you do? What do you think about?" I had a 
 great mind to answer, '' Of you, my mistress," and 
 I shouldn't have lied; but my trouble of mind 
 was so great that I could n't so much as find a 
 word. I think she noticed this and the mischiev- 
 ous creature took pleasure in doubling my embar- 
 rassment by her teasing. '' And your sweetheart, 
 shepherd ; she comes to see you sometimes, does 
 she not? I am sure she must be the golden kid, or 
 that fairy Estrella who flits along the summits of 
 the mountains." And she herself as she spoke to 
 
30 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 me had quite the air of the fairy Estrella, with 
 that pretty laugh from her head tossed back, and 
 her haste to be off, which made her visit seem 
 much hke a vision. '' Adieu, shepherd." 
 
 '^ Your servant, mistress." And away she went, 
 with the empty baskets. 
 
 When she passed out of sight down the sloping 
 path it seemed to me that the stones rolled away 
 by the hoofs of the mule were falling, one by one, 
 on my heart. I heard them a long, long time; 
 and till late in the day I sat as if dozing, not 
 daring to stir for fear lest my vision should leave 
 me. 
 
 Towards evening, as the depths of the valleys 
 were beginning to grow blue, and the creatures 
 were pressing together and bleating to enter the 
 fold, I heard myself called from below, and I saw 
 our young lady, no longer laughing as before, but 
 trembling with fear and cold and dampness. It 
 seems she had found at the base of the slope the 
 river Sorgue so swollen by the storm that, being 
 determined to cross it, she came near getting 
 drowned. The terrible part was that at that hour 
 of the night there was no use attempting to return 
 to the farm, because she never could have found 
 her way by the cross-road all by herself, and, as 
 for me, I could not leave my flock. The idea of 
 passing the night on the mountain worried her 
 greatly, especially on account of her people's 
 , anxiety. I soothed her as best I could. ''The 
 nights are' so short in July, mistress — it is only a 
 moment's trouble." And I lighted a big fire 
 
The Stars. 31 
 
 quickly to dry her little feet and her gown all 
 soaked in the river. After which I brought her 
 some milk and cheese; but the poor little thing 
 thought neither of warmth nor of food ; and when 
 I saw the big tears welling up in her eyes I 
 wanted to cry myself. 
 
 And now the darkness was really coming. 
 Nothing remained on the crest of -the mountain 
 but a dust of the sun, a vapour of light to the 
 westward. I asked our young lady to enter and 
 rest in the cabin; and then, having stretched a 
 fine new sheepskin on a pile of fresh straw, I 
 wished her good-night and went out to sit by my- 
 self before the door. God is my witness that, in 
 spite of the fire of love that burned my blood, no 
 evil thought came into my mind, — nothing but a 
 great pride to think that in a corner of my hut, 
 quite close to the flock that eyed her inquisitively, 
 the daughter of my master, a lamb more precious 
 and snow-white than they, was sleeping, intrusted 
 to my care. Never did the heavens seem to me 
 so deep, the stars so bright. 
 
 Suddenly the wicket opened and Stephanette 
 appeared. She could not sleep. The creatures 
 had crackled the straw as they moved, or else 
 they were bleating as they dreamed. She pre- 
 ferred to come out to the fire. Seeing this I 
 threw my goatskin round her shoulders and blew 
 up a flame, and there we stayed, sitting side by 
 side, without saying a word. If you have ever 
 passed a night beneath the stars you know that 
 during the hours when people sleep a mysterious 
 
32 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 world wakes up in the solitude and silence. The 
 springs sing clearer, the ponds are lighted by 
 little flames. All the spirits of the mountain go 
 and come freely ; there 's rustling in the air, im- 
 perceptible noises as if we could hear the branches 
 grow and the grass springing. Day is the life of 
 beings, but night is the life of things. If you are 
 not accustomed to it 'tis alarming; and so our 
 young lady shuddered and pressed against me at 
 the slightest noise. Once a long, melancholy cry 
 came from the pond that shone below us, rising 
 in undulations. At the same instant a beautiful 
 shooting star glided above our heads in the same 
 direction, as if that plaint which we had just 
 heard had brought light with it. 
 
 " What is that? " asked Stephanette in a whisper. 
 
 " A soul that enters paradise, my mistress," and I 
 made the sign of the cross. She too crossed her- 
 self, and sat for a moment with her head turned 
 upward to the sky, reflecting. Then she said to 
 me : " Is it true, shepherd, that all of you are 
 wizards?" 
 
 " Not so, mistress. But here we live closer to 
 the stars, and we know what goes on among them 
 better than the people of the plains." 
 
 She still looked upward, resting her head upon 
 her hand, wrapped in the goatskin, like a Httle 
 celestial shepherd. " How many there are ! how 
 beautiful ! Never did I see so many. Do you 
 know their names, shepherd?" 
 
 *'Why, yes, mistress... See! just above us, 
 that's the Path of Saint fames (the Milky Way). 
 
The Stars. 33 
 
 It goes from France to Spain. T was Saint James 
 of Galicia who marked it out to show the way to 
 our brave Charlemagne when he made war upon the 
 Saracens.^ Farther on, there's the Chariot of Souls 
 (Great Bear), with its four resplendent axles. The 
 three stars before it are its three steeds^ and the 
 little one close to the third is the charioteer. Do 
 you see that rain of stars falling over there? Those 
 are the souls that the Good God won't have in 
 heaven. . . Lower down there 's the Rake or the 
 Three Kings (Orion). That serves us for a clock, 
 us shepherds. Merely by looking at them now I 
 know 't is past midnight. Still lower, over there 
 to the southward, shines John of Milan, the torch 
 of the stars (Sirius). Here's what the shepherds 
 say about that star: It seems that one vix^tjohn 
 of Milan with the Three Kings and the Poucinihre 
 (the Pleiad) were invited to the wedding of a 
 star, a friend of theirs. The Poticinihey being in a 
 hurry, started, they say, the first and took the 
 upper road. Look at her, up there, in the depths 
 of the sky. The Three Kings cut across and 
 caught up with her, but that \3,zyJohn of Milan y 
 who slept too late, stayed quite behind, and being 
 furious, tried to stop them by flinging his stick. 
 That 's why the Three Kings are sometimes called 
 the Stick of John of Milan, , , But the most 
 beautiful of all the stars, mistress, is ours, the 
 Shepherd's Star, which lights us at dawn of day 
 when we lead out the flock, and at night when we 
 
 1 All these details of popular astronomy are translated from the 
 ** Provenjal Almanach," published at Avignon. 
 
 3 ^ 
 
34 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 gather it in. We call that star the Maguelonne, 
 the beautiful Maguelonne which runs after Pierre 
 de Provence (Saturn), and marries him every seven 
 years." 
 
 "Why, shepherd ! do stars really marry?" 
 
 " To be sure they do, mistress." 
 
 And as I tried to explain to her what such mar- 
 riages were I felt something fresh and delicate lie 
 softly on my shoulder. 'T was her head, weighed 
 down by sleep, which rested upon me with a dainty 
 rustle of ribbons and laces and waving hair. She 
 stayed thus, never moving, till the stars in the sky 
 grew pale, dimmed by the rising day. As for me, 
 I looked at her sleeping, a little shaken in the 
 depths of my being, but sacredly protected by that 
 clear night, which has never given me any but 
 noble thoughts. Around us the stars continued 
 their silent way, docile as a flock, and at times I 
 fancied that one of them, the most delicate, the 
 most brilliant, had lost its way and had come 
 down to rest upon my shoulder and sleep. 
 
The Arlesian Girl 35 
 
 THE ARLESIAN GIRL. 
 
 Going down from my mill to the village I pass 
 a farmhouse built close to the road at the end of a 
 great courtyard planted with hazel-trees. It is the 
 true home of a Provencal farmer, with its red tiles, 
 its broad brown front and irregular windows, and 
 above, at the peak of the garret, a weather-vane, 
 pulleys to hoist the forage, and a few tufts of hay 
 caught in the transit. 
 
 Why did that house so affect me? Why did 
 that closed portal seem to wring my heart? I 
 could not have told why, and yet that home always 
 gave me a chill. There was silence around it. 
 When any one passed, the dogs did not bark, the 
 guinea-fowls fled without screaming. Within, not 
 a voice ! Nothing, not so much as a mule-bell. 
 If it were not for the white curtains at the windows 
 and the smoke that rose from the roof, the place 
 might have seemed uninhabited. 
 
 Yesterday, on the stroke of midday, I was return- 
 ing from the village and, to escape the sun, I was 
 hugging the walls of the farm in the shade of the 
 hazel-trees. On the road, directly in front of 
 the courtyard, silent serving-men were loading a 
 waggon with hay. The gates were open. I cast 
 
36 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 in a look as I passed, and I saw, at the farther end 
 of the courtyard, his head in his hands and his 
 elbows on a large stone table, a tall old man, 
 white-headed, in a jacket too short for him, and 
 ragged breeches. I stopped. One of the men 
 said to me in a low voice : — 
 
 " Hush ! 't is the master. He is hke that since 
 the misfortune of his son.'* 
 
 At this moment a woman and a little boy dressed 
 in black, passed near to us carrying large gilt 
 prayer-books, and entered the farmhouse. 
 
 The man added : — 
 
 ** That 's the mistress and Cadet, returning from 
 mass. They go there every day since the lad 
 killed himself Ah ! monsieur, what desolation ! 
 The master still wears the dead boy's clothes; 
 they can't make him quit them. Dia ! hue ! 
 Gee up ! " 
 
 The waggon started. I, who wanted to know 
 more, asked the driver to let me get up beside 
 him ; and it was there, seated on the hay, that I 
 heard this heart-breaking story. 
 
 He was called Jan. A fine young peasant, twenty 
 years of age, virtuous as a girl, firm, with a frank 
 face, and very handsome ; so the women looked at 
 him ; but as for him he had only one woman in his 
 head, — a little Arlesian girl, all velvet and laces, 
 whom he met one day at Aries, on the Lice. At 
 the farmhouse this acquaintance was not viewed, 
 at first, with satisfaction. The girl was thought 
 coquettish, and her parents were not of the neigh- 
 
The Arlesian Girl. 37 
 
 bourhood. But Jan wanted his Arlesian love with 
 all his might. He said : — 
 
 " I shall die if they don*t give her to me." 
 
 They had to come to it. It was settled that the 
 marriage should take place after harvest. 
 
 One Sunday evening, in the large courtyard, the 
 family were finishing dinner. It was almost a wed- 
 ding-feast. The bride was not present, but toasts 
 had been drunk in her honour. Suddenly a man 
 appeared at the gate and asked, in a trembling voice, 
 to speak to Maitre Esteve in private. Esteve rose 
 and went out upon the highway. 
 
 " Master," said the man, " you are marrying your 
 son to a slut who has been my mistress for the last 
 two years. What I say I prove ; here are letters. 
 Her parents knew all, and promised her to me, but 
 since your son has courted her neither she nor her 
 parents will have me. But I think, after that, she 
 ought not to be the wife of another." 
 
 "Very well," said Maitre Esteve, after he had 
 read the letters. '' Come in, and drink a glass of 
 muscat." 
 
 The man replied : — 
 
 '' Thank you ! no ; I am more sorrowful than 
 thirsty." And he went away. 
 
 The father returned, impassible. He resumed 
 his place at the table, and the meal ended gayly. 
 
 That evening Mattre Esteve and his son went 
 to walk in the fields. They were out a long time ; 
 when they returned the mother awaited them. 
 
 " Wife," said the farmer, leading his son to her, 
 ** Kiss him ; he is very unhappy." 
 
38 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Jan never spoke again of his Arlesian girl. But 
 he still loved her, and more than ever after she 
 was shown to him in the arms of another. Only, 
 he was too proud to speak of it ; and it was that 
 which killed him, poor lad ! Sometimes he would 
 spend whole days in a corner without moving. 
 At other times he would dig with fury and do him- 
 self, alone, the work of ten labourers. But as soon 
 as evening came he took the road to Aries ; walk- 
 ing straight before him till he saw the slender 
 spires of the town rise in the sunset glow. Then 
 he returned. Never did he go any farther. 
 
 Seeing him thus, always sad and solitary, the 
 people of the farmhouse knew not what to do. 
 They feared some danger. Once, at table, his 
 mother, looking at him with eyes full of tears, 
 said : — 
 
 " Listen, Jan, if you wish for her all the same, 
 we will give her to you." 
 
 The father, red with shame, lowered his head. 
 
 Jan made sign of refusal and went away. 
 
 From that day forth he changed his way of liv- 
 ing, affecting to be gay in order to reassure his 
 parents. He was seen once more at balls, in the 
 wine-shops, at the races. At the election in 
 Fonvieille it was he who led the farandole. 
 
 The father said : ^' He is cured." The mother 
 still had fears and watched her child more than 
 ever. Jan slept with Cadet close to the silk-worm 
 attic ; the poor old woman had her bed made up 
 beside their chamber, — the silk-worms might need 
 her, she said. 
 
The Artesian Girl. 39 
 
 And now came the fete of Saint-filoi, the patron 
 of farmers. 
 
 Great joy at the farmhouse. There was chdteau- 
 neuf for every one, and boiled wine seemed to rain. 
 Then, fire-crackers and fire-barrels, and coloured 
 lanterns in the hazel trees. Vive Saint-Eloi ! 
 They farandoled to death. Cadet burned his new 
 blouse. Jan himself seemed happy; he insisted 
 on making his mother dance, and the poor woman 
 wept with joy. 
 
 By midnight they all went to bed. They 
 needed sleep. Jan did not sleep, and Cadet said 
 the next day he had sobbed all night. Ah ! I tell 
 you he was deeply bitten, that lad. 
 
 The next day, at dawn, the mother heard some one 
 cross her room running. She had a presentiment. 
 
 ** Jan, is that you? " 
 
 Jan did not answer ; he was already on the stair- 
 way. 
 
 Quick, quick the mother rose. 
 
 " Jan, where are you going? *' 
 
 He ran to the hayloft ; she followed him. 
 
 ** My son, for God's sake ! " 
 
 He closed the door and bolted it. 
 
 '' Jan, my little Jan ! answer ! What are you 
 doing?" 
 
 Her old hands, trembling, felt for the latch. 
 A window opened, the sound of a fall was heard 
 on the stones of the courtyard, and that was all. 
 
 He had said to himself, poor lad : " I love her 
 too much — I must go." 
 
40 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Ah ! miserable hearts that we have ! And yet, 
 it is hard that contempt is unable to kill love. 
 
 That morning the people in the village wondered 
 who it was that cried out so terribly down there, 
 toward the Esteve farm. 
 
 In the courtyard, before the stone table, all 
 covered with dew and blood, the mother, naked, 
 sat lamenting with her dead boy in her arms. 
 
The Popes Mule. 41 
 
 THE POPE'S MULE. 
 
 Of all the pretty sayings, proverbs, adages, with 
 which our Provencal peasantry decorate their dis- 
 course, I know of none more picturesque, or 
 more peculiar than this : — for fifteen leagues 
 around my mill, when they speak of a spiteful and 
 vindictive man, they say : " That fellow ! distrust 
 him ! he 's like the Pope's mule who kept her kick 
 for seven years.'* 
 
 I tried for a long time to find out whence that 
 proverb came, what that Pope's mule was, and why 
 she kept her kick for seven years. No one could 
 give me any information on the subject, not even 
 Francet Mamai, my old- fife-player, though he 
 knows his Provencal legends to the tips of his 
 fingers. Francet thought, as I did, that there 
 must be some ancient chronicle of Avignon behind 
 it, but he had never heard of it otherwise than as 
 a proverb. 
 
 *' You won't find it .,agy where except in the 
 Grasshoppers' Library," said the old man, laughing. 
 
 The idea struck me as a good one ; and as the 
 Grasshoppers' Library is close at my door, I shut 
 myself up there for over a week. 
 
 .It is a wonderful library, admirably stocked, 
 open to poets night and day, and served by little 
 
42 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 librarians with cymbals who make music for you 
 all the time. I spent some delightful days there, 
 and after a week of researches (on my back) I 
 ended by discovering what I wanted, namely: 
 the story of the mule and that famous kick which 
 she kept for seven years. The tale is pretty, 
 though rather naive, and I shall try to tell it to 
 you just as I read it yesterday in a manuscript 
 coloured by the weather, smelling of good dried 
 lavender and tied with the Virgin's threads — as 
 they call gossamer in these parts. 
 
 Whoso did not see Avignon in the days of the 
 Edpes has seen nothing. For gayety, life, anima- 
 '^'tion, the excitement of festivals, never was a town 
 like it. From morning till night there was nothing 
 but processions, pilgrimages, streets strewn with 
 flowers, draped with tapestries, cardinals arriving 
 by the Rhone, banners in the breeze, galleys 
 dressed in flags, the Pope's soldiers chanting Latin 
 on the squares, and the tinkling rattle of the beg- 
 ging friars ; while from garret to cellar of houses 
 that pressed, humming, round the great papal 
 palace like bees around their hive, came the tick- 
 tack of lace-looms(^he to-and-fro of shuttles weav- 
 ing the gold thread of chasubles^ the tap-tap of 
 the goldsmith's chasing-tools tapping on the chal- 
 ices, the tuning of choir-instruments at the lute- 
 makers, the songs of the spinners at their work ; 
 and . above all this rose the sound of bells, and 
 always the j^cho of certain tambourines coming 
 from away down there on the bridge of Avignon. 
 
The Popes Mule. 43 
 
 ^Because, with us, when the people are happy they 
 
 must dance — they must dance ; and as in those 
 
 days the streets were too narrow for the farandole, 
 
 ^^^^^ fifes and tambourines posted themselves on the 
 
 bridge of Avignon in the fresh breeze of the 
 
 Rhone, and day and night folks danced, they 
 
 danced. Ah ! the happy times ! the happy town ! 
 
 ^^.^ _ Halberds that did not wound, prisons where the 
 
 "^S^^ wine was put to cool ; no hunger, no war. That 's 
 
 ■ how the Popes of the Comtat governed their 
 
 people; and that's why their people so deeply 
 
 regretted them. 
 
 There was one Pope especially, a good old man 
 called Boniface. Ah ! that one, many were the 
 tears shed in Avignon when he was dead. He was 
 so amiable, so affable a prince ! He laughed so 
 merrily on the back of his mule ! And when you 
 passed. him, were you only a poor little gatherer of 
 madder-roots, or the grand provost of the town, he 
 gave you his benediction so politely ! A real Pope 
 ,■ of Yvetot, but a Yvetot of Provence^ with some- 
 tliing delicate in his laugh, a sprig of sweet marjoram 
 in his cardinal's cap, and never a Jeanneton, — the 
 only Jeanneton he was ever known to have, that 
 good Father, was his vineyard, his own little vine- 
 yard which he planted himself, three leagues from 
 Avignon, among the myrtles of Chateau-Neuf 
 
 Every Sunday, after vespers, the good man paid 
 court to his vineyard ; and when he was up there, 
 sitting in the blessed sun, his mule near him, his 
 cardinals stretched out beneath the grapevines, 
 
44 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 he would order a flask of the wine of his 
 own growth to be opened, — that' beautiful wine, 
 the colour of rubies, which is now called the 
 Chateau-Neuf des Papes, and he sipped it with 
 sips, gazing at his vineyard tenderly. Then, the 
 flask empty, the day fading, he rode back joyously 
 to town, the Chapter following; and when he 
 crossed the bridge of Avignon through the 
 tambourines and the farandoles, his mule, set 
 going by the music, paced along in a. skipping 
 little amble, while he himself beat time to the 
 dance with his cap, which greatly scandalized 
 the cardinals but made the people say: ''Ah! 
 the good prince ! Ah ! the kind Pope ! " 
 
 What the Pope loved best in the world, next to 
 his vineyard of Chateau-Neuf, was his mule. The 
 good man doted on that animal. Every evening 
 before he went to bed he went to see if the stable 
 was locked, if nothing was lacking in the manger ; 
 and never did he rise from table without seeing 
 with his own eyes the preparation of a great bowl 
 of wine in the French fashion with sugar and spice, 
 which he took to his mule himself, in spite of the 
 remarks of his cardinals. It must be said that the 
 animal was worth the trouble. She was a hand- 
 some black mule, with reddish points, sure-footed, 
 hide shining, back broad and full, carrying proudly 
 her thin Httle head decked out with pompons and 
 ribbons, silver bells and streamers; gentle as an 
 angel withal, innocent eyes, and two long ears, 
 always shaking, which gave her the look of a down- 
 
The Popes Mule. 45 
 
 right good fellow. All Avignon respected her, 
 and when she passed through the streets there 
 were no civilities that the people did not pay her ; 
 for every one knew there was no better way to 
 stand well at court, and that the Pope's mule, 
 for all her innocent look, had led more than one 
 man to fortune, — witness Tistet V^dene and his 
 amazing adventure. 
 
 This Tistet Vedene was, in point of fact, an im- 
 pudent young rogue, whom his father, Guy Vedene, 
 the goldsmith, had been forced to turn out of his 
 house, because he would not work and only de- 
 bauched the apprentices. For six months Tistet 
 dragged his jacket through all the gutters of 
 Avignon, but principally those near the papal 
 palace ; for the rascal had a notion in his head 
 about the Pope's mule, and you shall now see 
 what mischief was in it. 
 
 One day when his Holiness was riding all alone 
 beneath the ramparts, behold our Tistet approach- 
 ing him and saying, with his hands clasped in 
 admiration : — 
 
 ** Ah ! inon DieUy Holy Father, what a fine mule 
 you are riding ! Just let me look at her. Ah ! 
 Pope, what a mule ! The Emperor of Germany 
 has n't her equal." 
 
 And he stroked her and spoke to her softly as if 
 to a pretty young lady : — 
 
 '' Come here, my treasure, my jewel, my 
 pearl—" 
 
 And the good Pope, quite touched, said to 
 himself: — 
 
46 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 " What a nice young fellow ; how kind he is to 
 my mule ! " 
 
 And the next day what do you think happened ? 
 Tistet Vedene changed his yellow jacket for a 
 handsome lace alb, a purple silk hood, shoes with 
 buckles ; and he entered the household of the Pope, 
 where no one had ever yet been admitted but sons 
 of nobles and nephews of cardinals. That 's what 
 intriguing means ! But Tistet was not satisfied 
 with that. 
 
 Once in the Pope's service, the rascal continued 
 the game he had played so successfully. Insolent 
 to every one, he showed attentions and kindness 
 to none but the mule, and he was always to be 
 met with in the courtyards of the palace with a 
 handful of oats, or a bunch of clover, shaking its 
 pink blooms at the window of the Holy Father as • 
 if t o say : '* He in ! who's that for, hey?" Time 
 and again this happened, so that, at last, the good 
 Pope, who felt himself getting old, left to Tistet 
 the care of looking after the stable and of carrying 
 to the mule his bowl of wine, — which did not 
 cause the cardinals to laugh. 
 
 Nor the mule either. For now, at the hour her 
 wine was due she beheld half a dozen little pages 
 of the household slipping hastily into the hay with 
 their hoods and their laces ; and then, soon after, 
 a good warm smell of caramel and spices pervaded 
 the stable, and Tistet Vedene appeared bearing 
 carefully the bowl of hot wine. Then the poor 
 animal's martyrdom began. 
 
The Popes Mule. 47 
 
 That fragrant wine she loved, which kept her 
 warm and gave her wings, they had the cruelty to 
 bring it into her stall and let her smell of it ; then, 
 when her nostrils were full of the perfume, away ! 
 and the beautiful rosy liquor went down the throats 
 of those young scamps ! And not only did they 
 steal her wine, but they were like devils, those 
 young fellows, after they had drunk it. One pulled 
 her ears, another her tail. Quiquet jumped on her 
 back, Beluguet put his hat on her head, and not 
 one of the rascals ever thought that with one good 
 kick of her hind-legs the worthy animal could send 
 them all to the polar star, and farther still if she 
 chose. But no ! you are not the Pope's mule for 
 nothing — that mule of benedictions and plenary 
 indulgences. The lads might do what they liked, 
 she was never angry with them ; it was only Tistet 
 Ved^ne whom she hated. He, indeed ! when she 
 felt him behind her, her hoofs itched ; and reason 
 enough too. That good-for-nothing Tistet played 
 her such villanous tricks. He had such cruel 
 ideas and inventions after drinking. 
 
 One day he took it into his head to make her 
 go with him into the belfry, high up, ver}^ high 
 up, to the peak of the palace ! What I am telling 
 you is no tale; two hundred thousand Provencal 
 men and women saw it. Imagine the terror of 
 that unfortunate mule, when, after turning for an 
 hour, blindly, round a corkscrew staircase and 
 climbing I don't know how many steps, she found 
 herself all of a sudden on a platform blazing with 
 light, while a thousand feet below her she saw a 
 
48 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 diminutive Avignon, the booths in the market no 
 bigger than nuts, the Pope's soldiers moving about 
 their barrack Hke little red ants, and down there, 
 bright as a silver thread, a microscopic little bridge 
 on which they were dancing, dancing. Ah ! poor 
 beast ! what a panic ! At the cry she gave, all the 
 windows of the palace shook. 
 
 ** What 's the matter ? what are they doing to 
 my mule?" cried the good Pope, rushing out 
 upon his balcony. 
 
 Tistet Vedene was already in the courtyard pre- 
 tending to weep and tear his hair. 
 
 *' Ah ! great Holy Father, what 's the matter, 
 indeed ! Mon Dieu ! what will become of us ? 
 There 's your mule gone up to the belfry." 
 
 ** All alone?" 
 
 "Yes, great Holy Father, all alone. Look up 
 there, high up. Don't you see the tips of her ears 
 pointing out — like two swallows ? " 
 
 " Mercy ! " cried the poor Pope, raising his eyes. 
 '* Why, she must have gone mad ! She '11 kill herself ! 
 Come down, come down, you luckless thing ! " 
 
 Pecaire I she wanted nothing so much as to come 
 down; but how? which way? The stairs? not to 
 be thought of; they can be mounted, those things ; 
 but as for going down ! why, they are enough to 
 break one's legs a hundred times. The poor mule 
 was in despair, and while circling round and round 
 the platform with her big eyes full of vertigo she 
 thought of Tistet Vedene. 
 
 '*Ah! bandit, if I only escape — what a kick 
 to-morrow morning ! " 
 
The Popes Mule. 49 
 
 That idea of a kick put some courage into her 
 heart ; without it she never could have held good. 
 . . At last, they managed to save her ; but 't was 
 quite a serious affair. They had to get her down 
 with a derrick, ropes, and a sling. You can fancy 
 what humiliation it was for a Pope's mule to see 
 herself suspended at that height, her four hoofs 
 swimming in the void like a cockchafer hanging 
 to a string. And all Avignon looking at her ! 
 
 The unfortunate beast could not sleep at night. 
 She fancied she was still turning round and round 
 that cursed platform while the town laughed below, 
 and again she thought of the infamous Tistet and 
 the fine kick of her heels she would let fly at him 
 next day. Ah ! friends, what a kick ! the dust of 
 it would be seen as far as Pamperigouste. 
 
 Now, while this notable reception was being made 
 ready for him in the Pope's stable what do you think 
 Tistet Vedene was about? He was descending 
 the Rhone on a papal galley, singing as he went 
 his way to the Court of Naples with a troop of 
 young nobles whom the town of Avignon sent 
 every year to Queen Jeanne to practise diplomacy 
 and fine manners. Tistet Vedene was not noble ; 
 but the Pope was bent on rewarding him for the 
 care he had given to his mule, and especially for 
 the activity he displayed in saving her from her 
 perilous situation. 
 
 The mule was the disappointed party on the 
 morrow -Ij^^ 
 
 *' Ah ! ^Hpandit ! he suspected something," she 
 thought, shSfcig her silver bells. ** No matter for 
 
 4 
 
50 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 that, scoundrel ; you '11 find it when you get back, 
 that kick ; I '11 keep it for you ! " 
 
 And she kept it for him. 
 
 After Tistet's departure the Pope's mule returned 
 to her tranquil way of life and her usual proceed- 
 ings. No more Quiquet, no more Beluguet in 
 the stable. The good old days of the spiced wine 
 came back, and with them good-humour, long 
 siestas, and the little gavotte step as she crossed 
 the bridge of Avignon. Nevertheless, since her ad- 
 venture a certain coldness was shown to her in the 
 town. Whisperings were heard as she passed, old 
 people shook their heads, children laughed and 
 pointed to the belfry. The good Pope himself no 
 longer had quite the same confidence in his friend, 
 and when he let himself go into a nice little nap 
 on her back of a Sunday, returning from his vine- 
 yard, he always had this thought latent in his 
 mind: '*What if I should wake up there on the 
 platform ! " The mule felt this, and she suffered, 
 but said nothing; only, whenever the name of 
 Tistet Vedene was uttered in her hearing, her 
 long ears quivered, and she struck the iron of her 
 shoes hard upon the pavement with a little snort. 
 
 Seven years went by. Then, at the end of 
 those seven years, Tistet Vedene returned from 
 the Court of Naples. His time was not yet fin- 
 ished over there, but he had heard that the Pope's 
 head mustard-bearer had died suddenly at Avignon, 
 and as the place seemed a good one, he hurried 
 back in haste to solicit it. 
 
 When this intriguing Vedene entered the pal- 
 
The Popes Mule. 51 
 
 ace the Holy Father did not recognize him, he 
 had grown so tall and so stout. It must also be 
 said that the gpod Pope himself had grown older, 
 and could not see much without spectacles^ 
 
 Tistet was not abashed. 
 
 " What, great Holy Father ! you don't remem- 
 ber me ? It is I, Tistet V^dene." 
 
 "Vedene?" 
 
 " Why, yes, you know the one that took the 
 wine to your mule.'' 
 
 ** Ah ! yes, yes, — I remember. A good little 
 fellow, that Tistet Vedene ! And now, what do 
 you want of me? " 
 
 *' Oh ! very little, great Holy Father. I came to 
 ask — By the bye, have you still got her, that 
 mule of yours ? Is she well ? Ah ! good ! I 
 came to ask you for the place of the chief mustard- 
 bearer who lately died." 
 
 " Mustard-bearer, you ! Why you are too 
 young. How old are you? " 
 
 " Twenty-two, illustrious pontiff; just five years 
 
 older than your mulej Ah ! palm of God, what a 
 
 — — fm^Beasf^slie is ! If you only knew how I love 
 
 her, that mule, — how I pined for her in Italy! 
 
 Won't you let me see her?" 
 
 *'Yes, my son, you shall see her," said the 
 worthy Pope, quite touched. "And as you love 
 her so much I must have you live near her. 
 Therefore, from this day I attach you to my per- 
 son as chief mustard-bearer. My cardinals will 
 cry out, but no matter ! I 'm used to that. Come 
 and see me to-morrow, after vespers, and you 
 
5 2 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 shall receive the insignia of your rank in presence 
 of the whole Chapter, and then I will show you 
 the mule and you shall go to the vineyard with us, 
 hey ! hey ! " 
 
 I need not tell you if Tistet Vedene was con- 
 tent when he left the palace, and with what impa- 
 tience he awaited the ceremony of the morrow. 
 And yet there was one more impatient and more 
 content than he : it was the mule. After V^dene's 
 return, until vespers on the following day that ter- 
 rible animal never ceased to stuff herself with oats, 
 and practise her heels on the wall behind her. 
 She, too, was preparing for the ceremony. 
 
 Well, on the morrow, when vespers were said, 
 Tistet Vedene made his entry into the papal court- 
 yard. All the grand clergy were there ; the cardi- 
 nals in their red robes, the devil's advocate in black 
 velvet, the convent abbots in their small mitres, 
 the wardens of Saint-Agrico, the violet hoods of 
 the Pope's household, the lower clergy also, the 
 Pope's guard in full u niform j the three penitential 
 brotherhoods, the hermits of Mont-Ventoux, with 
 their sullen faces, and the little clerk who walks 
 behind them with a bell, the flagellating friars 
 naked to the waist, the ruddy sextons in judge's 
 gowns, all, all, down to the givers of holy water, 
 and the man who lights and him who puts out the 
 candles — not one was missing. Ah ! 'twas a fine 
 ordination ! Bells, fire-crackers, sunshine, music, 
 and always those frantic tambourines leading the 
 farandole over there, on the bridge. 
 
 When Vedene appeared in the midst of this 
 
The Popes Mule. 53 
 
 great assembly, his fine bearing and handsome 
 face sent a murmur of admiration through the 
 crowd. He was truly a magnificent Provencal ; 
 but of the blond type, with thick hair curling at 
 the tips, and a dainty little beard, that looked like 
 slivers of fine metal fallen from the chisel of his 
 father, the goldsmith. The rumour ran that the 
 fingers of Queen Jeanne had sometimes played in 
 the curls of that golden beard ; and, in truth, the 
 Sieur de Vedene had the self-glorifying air and the 
 abstracted look of men that queens have loved. 
 On this day, in order to do honour to his native 
 town, he had substituted for his Neapolitan clothes 
 a tunic edged with pink, a la Provenqalcy and 
 in his hood there quivered a tall feather of the 
 Camargue ibis. 
 
 As soon as he entered the new official bowed 
 with a gallant air, and approached the high portico 
 where the Pope was waiting to give him the insig- 
 nias of his rank, namely, a wooden spoon and a 
 safiron coat. The mule was at the foot of the 
 steps, saddled and bridled, all ready to go to the 
 vineyard ; as he passed beside her, Tistet Vedene 
 smiled pleasantly, and stopped to give her a friendly 
 pat or two on the back, glancing, as he did so, out 
 of the corner of his eye to see if the Pope noticed 
 it. The position was just right, — the mule let fly 
 her heels. 
 
 '' There, take it, villain ! Seven years have I 
 kept it for thee ! " 
 
 And she gave him so terrible a kick, — so ter- 
 rible that even at Pamperigouste the smoke was 
 
54 Letters from My Mill, 
 
 seen, a whirlwind of blond dust, in which flew the 
 feather of an ibis, and that was all that remained of 
 the unfortunate Tistet Vedene ! 
 
 Mule kicks are not usually so destructive ; but 
 this was a papal mule ; and then, just think ! she 
 had kept it for him for seven years. There is no 
 finer example of ecclesiastical rancour. 
 
The Lighthouse. 55 
 
 THE LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 That night I could not sleep. The mistral was 
 angry, and the roar of its great voice kept me 
 awake till morning. The mill cracked, heavily 
 swaying its mutilated wings, which whistled to the 
 north wind like the shrouds of a ship. Tiles flew 
 off the roof, and, afar, the serried pines with which 
 the hill is covered waved and rustled in the shad- 
 ows. I might have thought myself on the open 
 sea. . . 
 
 All this reminded me of my beautiful insomnias 
 three years ago, when I lived in the phare des San- 
 gicinaires [lighthouse of the Sanguinaires], down 
 there, off the Corsican coast, at the entrance of the 
 gulf of Ajaccio, — one more pretty corner that I 
 have found in which to dream and live alone. 
 
 Imagine a ruddy isle, savage of aspect; the 
 lighthouse on one point, on the other an old Geno- 
 ese tower, where, in my day, lived an eagle. 
 Below, on the shore, was a ruined lazaretto, over- 
 grown with herbage ; and everywhere ravines, 
 clusters of great rocks, a few wild goats, the little 
 Corsican horses galloping about, their manes 
 streaming in the wind ; and above, far above, in a 
 whirl of sea-birds, the house of the beacon, with its 
 
56 Letters from My Mill 
 
 platform of white masonry where the keepers 
 walk up and down, its green arched doorway, and 
 its cast-iron tower, at the top of which the great 
 lantern with facets shines in the sun, giving light 
 by day as well as by night. . . That is the lie 
 des Sanguinaires, as I saw it again this wakeful 
 night, while I listened to the snoring of my pines. 
 It was in that enchanted isle that I shut myself up 
 at times, before I came to my mill, when I needed 
 the free air and solitude. 
 
 What did I do there? 
 
 Just what I do here, only less. When the mistral 
 or the tramontana did not blow too hard, I lay be- 
 tween two rocks at the sea-level, amid the gulls 
 and the petrels and the swallows, and there I 
 stayed nearly all day long in that species of stupor 
 and delightful dejection which comes with the con- 
 templation of the sea. You know, don't you, 
 that lovely intoxication of the soul? We do not 
 think, we do not dream. All our being escapes 
 us, flits away, is scattered. We are the gull that 
 dives, the dust of foam that floats in the sunlight 
 between two waves, the vapour of that steamer 
 over there in the distance, that pretty little coral- 
 boat with its ruddy sail, that pearl of the water, 
 that flake of mist, — all, we are all, except ourself 
 Oh ! what precious hours of semi-slumber and 
 self-dispersion have I spent upon my island ! 
 
 On the strong windy days when the shore was 
 not tenable, I shut myself up in the quarantine 
 courtyard, a melancholy little courtyard, fragrant 
 with rosemary and wild absinthe; and there, 
 
The Lighthouse. 57 
 
 crouching in a projection of the old wall, I let 
 myself be softly invaded by the vague essence of 
 loneliness and sadness which floated with the sun- 
 shine into those stone cells, open at one end like 
 ancient tombs. From time to time a gate would 
 clap, a light spring bound upon the grass ; 't was 
 a goat coming in to browse under shelter from the 
 wind. When she saw me she stopped abashed, 
 and stood still, horns erect, air alert, looking at 
 me with an infantine eye. 
 
 Toward five o'clock the trumpet of the keepers 
 called me to dinner. Then I took a little path 
 through the tangle of rock overhanging the sea, 
 and went slowly up to the lighthouse, turning at 
 every step to that vast horizon of water and light 
 which seemed to enlarge the higher I went. 
 
 Above, it was charming. I still see that beauti- 
 ful dining-room with broad tiles and oak panels, 
 the bouillabaisse smoking in the middle of it, the 
 door wide open to the white terrace, and the whole 
 setting sun pouring in. The keepers were there, 
 waiting until I came to sit down to table. There 
 were three of them, a Marseillais and two Corsicans ; 
 all were small men, bearded, their faces tanned, 
 fissured ; wearing the same pelone — short, hooded 
 cloak of goatskin — but each man had a gait and 
 a temperament unlike the others. 
 
 By the way these men moved, one could in- 
 stantly feel the difference between the two races. 
 The Marseillais, industrious and lively, always 
 busy, always in motion, roved the isle from morn- 
 
58 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 ing till night, gardening, fishing, gathering the 
 gulls' eggs, hiding in the rocks to catch a goat and 
 milk her, and always with some aioli or bouilla- 
 baisse a-cooking. 
 
 The Corsicans, on the other hand, beyond their 
 regular service, did absolutely nothing. They 
 considered themselves functionaries, and passed 
 their days in the kitchen playing interminable 
 games of scopa, never interrupting them except to 
 relight their pipes with a grave air, and to cut up 
 into the hollow of their hands, with scissors, the big 
 green tobacco-leaves. 
 
 In other respects, Marseillais and Corsicans, 
 they were all three good fellows, simple, artless, 
 full of attentions for their guest, though in their 
 hearts they must have thought him a very ex- 
 traordinary gentleman. 
 
 Just think ! to come and shut himself up in a 
 lighthouse for pleasure ! They, who found the 
 days so long, and felt so happy when their turn 
 came to go ashore. In the summer season this 
 great happiness was allowed them once a month. 
 Ten days ashore for thirty days of lighthouse ; 
 that is the rule ; but in winter and bad weather no 
 rule holds good. The wind blows, the waves rise, 
 the Sanguinaires are white with foam, and the 
 keepers on duty are kept confined for two or three 
 months together, and sometimes under terrible 
 conditions. 
 
 '* Here 's what happened to me, monsieur," said 
 old Bartoli one day as we were dining. ** Here 's 
 what happened to me five years ago of a winter's 
 
The Lighthouse. 59 
 
 evening, at this very table where we are now. That 
 night there were only two of us in the lighthouse, 
 I and a comrade called Tcheco. The others were 
 ashore, ill, or on their holiday, I forget which. 
 We were finishing dinner, very quietly, when, all 
 of a sudden, my comrade stopped eating, looked 
 at me for a moment with such queer eyes, and, 
 poof! he fell upon the table his arms stretched 
 out. I ran to him, shook him, called him : — 
 
 " ' O Tch^ ! O Tche ! ' 
 
 " Not a word ! he was dead. You can think what 
 emotion. I stood more than an hour stupid and 
 trembling before that corpse, then suddenly the 
 thought came to me — the beacon ! I had only 
 time to climb to the lantern and light it before 
 night fell. And what a night, monsieur! The 
 sea, the wind did not have their natural, voices. 
 Every second it seemed to me that some one called 
 me from below. And such fever ! such thirst ! 
 But you could n't have made me go down — I was 
 so frightened of death. However, by dawn, a 
 little courage came back to me. I carried my 
 comrade to his bed ; a sheet above him, a bit of 
 a prayer, and then, quick 1 the danger signal. 
 
 *^ Unfortunately, the sea ran high ; in vain I called, 
 called ; no one came. And there I was, alone in 
 the lighthouse with my poor Tcheco for God knows 
 how long. I hoped to be able to keep him near me 
 till the arrival of the boat; but after three days 
 that was impossible. What should I do? Carry 
 him outside ? Bury him ? The rock was too hard, 
 and there are so many crows on the island. It 
 
6o Letters from My Mill. 
 
 would have been a shame to abandon that Chris- 
 tian to their maws. Then I bethought me of tak- 
 ing him down to one of those cells of the lazaretto. 
 It took me a whole afternoon to make that sad 
 procession, and, I tell you, it needed courage, too. 
 Do you know, monsieur, that even now when I go 
 down on that side of the island in a high wind I 
 fancy that I still have that corpse on my shoulders.'' 
 Poor old Bartoli ! the perspiration stood out on 
 his forehead for merely thinking of it. 
 
 Our meals were passed in chatting thus: the 
 beacon, the sea, with tales of shipwreck and of 
 Corsican pirates. Then as daylight faded, the 
 keeper of the first watch lighted his lamp, took 
 his pipe, his flask, a little red-edged Plutarch (the 
 entire library of the Sanguinaires) and disappeared 
 in the darkness. In a minute we heard in the 
 depths below a rattle of chains and pulleys, and the 
 heavy weights of a clock that was being wound up. 
 
 As for me during this time, I sat outside on the 
 terrace. The sun, now very low, was descending 
 quickly into the water, carrying the horizon with 
 it. The wind freshened, the island became violet. 
 In the sky, a big bird passed heavily quite near 
 me ; it was the eagle of the tower coming home. 
 Little by little the sea-mist rose. Soon I could 
 see only the white fringe round the isle. Sud- 
 denly, above my head, a soft flood of light gushed 
 out. 'Twas the beacon. Leaving the rest of the 
 island in shadow, the clear broad ray fell full upon 
 the water, and I was lost in darkness below that 
 
The Lighthouse. 6i 
 
 luminous great flood, which scarcely spattered me 
 in passing. . . But the wind is freshening still. I 
 must go in. Feeling my way I enter and close the 
 great door. I put up the iron bars ; then, still feel- 
 ing before me, I go up the cast-iron stairway, which 
 trembles and sounds beneath my feet ; and thus I 
 reach the summit of the lighthouse. Here indeed 
 is brilliancy. 
 
 Imagine a gigantic Carcel lamp with six rows 
 of wicks, around which slowly revolve the sides of 
 the lantern ; some are filled with an enormous lens 
 of crystal, others open on a stationary sash of glass 
 which shelters the flame from the breeze. On 
 entering, I was dazzled. The brasses, pewters, 
 tin reflectors, the walls of convex crystal turning 
 with those great bluish circles, all this glitter and 
 clash of Hghts gave me a moment of giddiness. 
 
 Little by little, however, my eyes grew accus- 
 tomed to the glare, and I seated myself at the foot 
 of the lamp beside the keeper, who was reading his 
 Plutarch aloud to keep himself from going to sleep. 
 
 Without, darkness, the abyss. On the little 
 balcony which runs round the lantern the wind is 
 rushing Hke a madman, howling. The hghthouse 
 cracks, the sea roars. At the point of the isle, on 
 the reefs, the waves make a noise like cannon. 
 Invisible fingers rap now and then on the glass — 
 some night-bird, allured by the light, which beats 
 out its brains on the crystal. Within the warm 
 and sparkling lantern nothing is heard but the 
 crackling of the flame, the sound of the oil drop- 
 ping, of the chain winding, and the monotonous 
 
62 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 voice of the reader intoning the life of Demetrius 
 of Phalaris. 
 
 At midnight the keeper rises, casts a final look 
 at his wicks, and we both go down. On the stair- 
 way we meet the comrade of the second watch, 
 who is coming up, rubbing his eyes. We pass him 
 the flask and the Plutarch. Then before we seek 
 our beds we go for a moment to the lower chamber, 
 encumbered with chains, heavy weights, reserves 
 of tin, of cordage, and there, by the gleam of his 
 little lamp the keeper writes in the big book of the 
 beacon, the log, always open : — 
 
 *' Midnight. Heavy sea. Tempest. Ship in 
 the offing." 
 
The Wreck of the *' Semillanter 63 
 
 THE WRECK OF THE « SEMILLANTE/' 
 
 As the mistral of the other night cast us on the 
 Corsican coast let me tell you a terrible tale of the 
 sea which the fishermen over there often relate in 
 their night watches, and about which chance sup- 
 plied me with very curious information. 
 
 It was two or three years ago that I was roving 
 the Sea of Sardinia with six or seven custom-house 
 sailors. A rough trip for a novice. Through- 
 out the month of March we had but one fine day. 
 The east wind pursued us and the sea never ceased 
 to rage. 
 
 One night that we were running before the gale, 
 our boat took shelter among a crowd of little islands 
 at the entrance to the Straits of Bonifacio. The 
 aspect of those islands was not engaging: great 
 barren rocks covered with birds, a few tufts of ab- 
 sinthe, thickets of mastic-trees, and here and there 
 in the swamps logs of wood in process of rotting. 
 But for passing the night, i' faith those dangerous- 
 looking rocks seemed safer than the cabin of a 
 half-decked old boat where the sea entered as if it 
 were at home ; and so we were quite contented to 
 go ashore. 
 
 We had barely landed and the sailors were light- 
 i;ig a fire to cook the bouillabaisse ^ when the skip- 
 
64 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 per called me, and, said pointing to a little inclosure 
 of white masonry almost hidden in the fog at the 
 end of the island : — 
 
 '' Will you come to the cemetery? " 
 
 '' Cemetery, Captain Lionetti ! Where are we, 
 then?'* 
 
 " At the Lavezzi Islands, monsieur. This is 
 where the six hundred men of the *Semillante' 
 are buried, exactly where their frigate was wrecked 
 just ten years ago. Poor fellows ! they don't have 
 many visitors, and the least we can do is to say 
 good-day to them, now we are here." 
 
 '* With all my heart, captain." 
 
 How sad it was, that cemetery of the ** Semil- 
 lante ! " I see it still with its little low wall, its 
 rusty iron door, hard to open, its silent chapel, and 
 its hundreds of black crosses half-hidden by the 
 grass. Not a crown of immortelles^ not a sou- 
 venir ! nothing. Ah ! the poor abandoned dead, 
 how cold they must be in those chance graves. 
 
 We remained a few moments on our knees. 
 The skipper prayed aloud. Enormous gulls, sole 
 guardians of the cemetery, circled above our 
 heads, mingling their hoarse cries with the lamen- 
 tations of the ocean. 
 
 The prayer ended, we returned sadly to the end 
 of the island, where our boat was moored. Dur- 
 ing our absence the sailors had not lost their time. 
 We found a great fire flaming in the shelter of a 
 rock, and a smoking sauce-pan. Every one sat 
 down in a circle, his feet to the flame, and each 
 
The Wreck of the " Semillanter 65 
 
 received in a red earthen bowl two slices of black 
 bread thoroughly steeped. The meal was silent; 
 we were wet, we were hungry, and then, the 
 neighbourhood of the cemetery! . . However, 
 when the bowls were empty we lighted our pipes, 
 and talk began. Naturally we spoke of the 
 *' Semillante." 
 
 *'But how did it happen?" I asked the skipper, 
 who was gazing at the flames with a pensive air, 
 his head in his hands. 
 
 *' How did it happen?" repHed the good Lion- 
 etti with a heavy sigh. " Alas ! monsieur, no one 
 in the world can tell you that. All we know 
 is that the ' Semillante,' carrying troops to the 
 Crimea, sailed from Toulon one evening in bad 
 weather. It grew worse at night. Wind, rain, and 
 a sea the like of which was never seen. Towards 
 morning the wind fell a Httle but the sea was wild, 
 and with it a devilish cursed fog in which you 
 could n't see a light at four steps off. Those fogs, 
 monsieur, you have no idea how treacherous they 
 are. But for all that, my idea of the ' Semillante ' 
 is that she lost her rudder that morning, for there 's 
 no fog that holds on without lifting a little, and 
 that captain of hers would have seen enough not 
 to lay himself out on these rocks. He was an old 
 salt and we all knew him. He had commanded 
 the Corsica Station for three years and knew the 
 coast as well as I who know nothing else." 
 
 *'What time of day is it thought that the 
 * Semillante ' perished ? " 
 
 ** It must have been midday ; yes, monsieur, just 
 5 
 
66 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 midday. But goodness ! with that sea-fog midday 
 was no better than midnight. A custom-house 
 man ashore told me that about half-past eleven on 
 that day, coming out of his hut to fasten the shut- 
 ters, his cap was carried off by the wind, and at the 
 risk of being blown himself into the sea he scram- 
 bled after it along the shore on his hands and knees. 
 You understand ! custom-house folks are not rich, 
 and caps cost dear. It seems that once when he 
 raised his head he saw, quite close to him in the 
 fog, a big ship under bare poles running before the 
 wind toward the Lavezzi Islands. She went so 
 fast, so fast that the man had scarcely time to 
 see her. But every one believes she was the 
 ' Semillante,' for half an hour later a shepherd 
 found her lying on these rocks. And here he is, 
 monsieur, that shepherd, just as I am speaking 
 of him, and he will tell you the thing himself. 
 Good-day, Palombo ! come and warm yourself a 
 bit; don't be afraid.'' 
 
 A man in a hooded mantle whom I had noticed 
 for the last few minutes hovering around our fire, 
 and whom I thought to be one of the crew, being 
 ignorant that a shepherd was on the island, now 
 came forward timidly. 
 
 He was a leprous old fellow, three-quarters 
 idiotic, the victim of some scorbutic disease which 
 gave him thick swollen lips very horrible to see. 
 The skipper made him understand with difficulty 
 what we wanted of him, and then, raising with one 
 finger his diseased lip, the old man related how on 
 the day in question, being in his hut about midday, 
 
The Wreck of the " Semillante'' 67 
 
 he heard an awful crash upon the rocks. As the 
 island was covered with water he could not leave 
 the hut, and it was not until the next day that, on 
 opening his door, he saw the shore piled up with 
 wreckage and with corpses washed in by the sea. 
 Horrified, he ran to^ his boat and went to Boni- 
 facio in search of help. 
 
 Tired with having talked so much the shepherd 
 sat down, and the skipper resumed the tale: — 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, that poor old fellow came to 
 warn us. He was almost crazy with terror, and 
 ever since then his brain has been off the track 
 — and good reason, too. Imagine six hundred 
 bodies in a heap on that beach, pell-mell with 
 splintered woodwork and rags of sail. Poor 
 * Semillante ' ! the sea had crushed her at one 
 blow and torn her to such fragments that Palombo 
 could scarcely find enough to build him a fence 
 around his hut. As for the bodies, they were 
 nearly all disfigured and horribly mutilated ; it 
 was piteous to see them grappling to one another. 
 We found the captain in full uniform, and the 
 chaplain with his stole round his neck ; in a corner 
 between two rocks, was a little cabin-boy with his 
 eyes wide open ; you might have thought he was 
 alive, but no ! It was written above that no one 
 should escape — " 
 
 Here the skipper interrupted himself. 
 
 '' Attention, Nardi ! " he cried ; *' the fire is go- 
 ing out." 
 
 Nardi thereupon threw two or three tarred 
 
68 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 planks upon the embers, which flamed up brightly, 
 and Lionetti continued : — 
 
 '* The saddest part of the whole story is this : 
 Three weeks before the disaster a little corvette, 
 on her way, hke the * Semillante,' to the Crimea, 
 was wrecked in the same way and almost at the 
 same spot ; only, that time we succeeded in saving 
 the crew and twenty artillery men who were 
 aboard. We took them to Bonifacio and kept 
 them two days. But once dry and afoot, good- 
 night and good-luck ! the artillery men returned 
 to Toulon, where, soon after, they were again em- 
 barked for the Crimea — guess on what ship? 
 On the * Semillante * monsieur ! We found them 
 all, the whole twenty, lying among the dead just 
 about where we now are. I myself picked up 
 a pretty little corporal with a delicate moustache, 
 a Paris dandy, whom I had had in my own house 
 and who had kept us laughing the whole time with 
 his tales. To see him lying here, dead, almost 
 broke my heart. Ah ! Santa Madre ! '* 
 
 Thereupon the worthy Lionetti, shaking the 
 ashes from his pipe and rolling himself up in his 
 hooded cloak wished me good-night. For some 
 time longer the sailors talked together in low 
 tones. Then, one after another, the pipes went 
 out. No one spoke. The old shepherd went 
 away. And I was left alone to dream in the midst 
 of the sleeping crew. 
 
 Under the impression of the lugubrious tale I 
 have just heard, I try to reconstruct in thought 
 
The Wreck of the " Semillanter 69 
 
 the poor lost frigate and the story of the death- 
 throes that the gulls alone had witnessed. Certain 
 details which have struck my mind — the captain 
 in full uniform, the chaplain's stole, the twenty 
 artillery men — help me to divine the various vicis- 
 situdes of the drama. . . I see the frigate leaving 
 Toulon at dusk . . . she comes out into the offing. 
 The sea is rough, the wind terrible ; but the 
 captain is a valiant sailor, and every one aboard 
 is confident. . . 
 
 In the morning the sea-fog rises. Uneasiness is 
 felt. The crew are aloft. The captain does not 
 quit the bridge. Below, where the soldiers are 
 shut up, it is dark ; the atmosphere is hot. Some 
 are ill, lying with their heads upon their knap- 
 sacks. The ship rolls horribly; impossible to 
 keep their feet, f They talk as they sit, in groups 
 on the floor, and clinging to the benches; they 
 shout in order to be heard. A few are begin- 
 ning to feel afraid. Shipwrecks are so frequent 
 in these latitudes; the artillery men are there 
 to say so, and what they tell is not reassuring. 
 Their corporal especially, a Parisian, always jest- 
 ing, though he makes your flesh creep with his 
 jokes. 
 
 "Shipwreck? why, it is very amusing, a ship- 
 wreck. We shall get off with an icy bath, and 
 they '11 take us to Bonifacio ; capital eating at old 
 Lionetti's." 
 
 And his comrades laugh. 
 
 Suddenly, a crash. What's that? What has 
 happened? 
 
70 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 " The rudder has gone," says a dripping sailor, 
 crossing between decks at a run. 
 
 '' Bon voyage ! " cries that incorrigible corporal, 
 but no one laughs with him now. 
 
 Great tumult on deck. The fog obstructs all 
 view. The sailors go and come, frightened, and 
 feeling their way. . . No rudder! Impossible 
 to work the ship ! The *' Semillante," drifting, 
 goes with the wind. It is then that the custom- 
 house sailor sees her pass; it is half-past eleven 
 o'clock. Ahead of the frigate something sounds 
 like the roar of cannon. . . Breakers ! breakers ! 
 Tis over, all hope is gone, they are driving ashore. 
 The captain goes down into his cabin. The next 
 moment he returns to his place on the bridge, 
 wearing his full uniform. He will meet death with 
 dignity. 
 
 Between decks the soldiers look at one another 
 anxiously, but say nothing. The sick ones try to 
 rise ; the corporal laughs no longer. It is then 
 that the door opens and the chaplain in his stole 
 appears upon the threshold. 
 
 '' Kneel down, my sons." 
 
 They all obey. In a ringing voice the priest 
 reads the prayer for the dying. 
 
 Suddenly an awful shock, a cry, a single cry, 
 an immense cry, arms stretched out, hands that 
 clutch, eyes aghast, o'er which the vision of death 
 passes in a flash — 
 
 Oh, mercy ! . . 
 
 It was thus that I spent the whole night in dream- 
 ing, in evoking, after a space of ten years, the soul 
 
The Wreck of the '' Semillanter 71 
 
 of that poor ship whose fragments surrounded me. 
 Afar, in the straits, the storm was raging; the 
 flame of the bivouac bent to the blast ! and I heard 
 our boat tossing below at the foot of the rocks and 
 straining at her hawser. 
 
72 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 CUSTOM-HOUSE PEOPLE. 
 
 A FEW years ago, the inspector-general of cus- 
 toms in Corsica took me on one of his rounds 
 along the coast. Without seeming to be so, it 
 was really a very long voyage. Forty days at sea, 
 almost as long as it takes to go to Havana, and 
 this in an old boat with a half-deck where nothing 
 sheltered us from wind, waves, and rain but a 
 Httle tarred roof scarcely large enough to cover 
 two berths and a table. It was a sight to see the 
 sailors in bad weather. Their faces streamed; 
 their soaked jackets smoked like linen in the 
 drying-room. In mid-winter the poor fellows 
 passed whole days in this condition, and even 
 nights, crouched on their wet benches, shivering 
 in that unhealthy dampness; for it was quite 
 impossible to light a fire on board and the shore 
 was sometimes difficult to reach. Well, not a 
 single one of those men complained. In the 
 roughest weather I always saw them just as placid, 
 and in just the same good-humour. And yet, 
 what a melancholy life it is, that of custom-house 
 sailors ! 
 
 Nearly all of them are married, with wife and chil- 
 dren ashore, yet they stay months at sea, cruising 
 
Custo7n-House People. JZ 
 
 around those dangerous coasts. By way of food 
 they have nothing but damp bread and wild 
 onions. Never wine or meat, for wine and meat 
 cost dear and all they earn is five hundred francs 
 a year. Five hundred francs a year ! you can 
 imagine what the hovel must be on the Marina and 
 whether the children go barefoot. No matter ! 
 they all seem happy, those people. In front of 
 the cabin, aft, stood a great cask of rain-water, at 
 which the crew drank; and I remember that 
 when they had taken their last swallow, each of 
 the poor devils shook out his glass with an 
 *' Ah ! " of satisfaction, an expression of comfort 
 both comical and affecting. 
 
 The gayest and most contented of all was a 
 little Bonifacian, squat and swarthy, called Palombo. 
 He was always singing, even in the worst weather. 
 When the waves were high and the sky, dark and 
 lowering, was full of sleet, and all were standing, 
 their noses in the air, hands to the sheet, watching 
 the coming gust, then, in the great silence and 
 anxiety of all on board, the tranquil voice of 
 Palombo would begin : — 
 
 '* Non^ monseigneury 
 Oest trop d'honneury 
 Lis e tie est sa-age, 
 Reste au villa-age,^'* 
 
 And the squall might blow, shaking and sub- 
 merging the vessel and making the rigging moan, 
 the sailor's song continued, floating like a gull on 
 the breast of the waves. Sometimes the wind 
 played too strong an accompaniment and the 
 
74 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 words were drowned ; but between each dash of 
 the seas as the water ran out of the scuppers, the 
 chorus was heard again : — 
 
 " Lisette est sa-age, 
 Reste au villa-age^^ 
 
 One day, however, it rained and blew so hard I 
 did not hear it. This was so extraordinary that I 
 put my head out of the cabin. *' Hey ! Palombo, 
 why don't you sing?'* Palombo did not answer. 
 He was motionless, lying on his bench. I went 
 out to him. His teeth were chattering; his 
 whole body trembled with fever. " He has got the 
 pountouray' said his comrades, sadly. What they 
 called pountoura is a stitch in the side, a pleurisy. 
 The great leaden sky, the streaming vessel, the 
 poor feverish soul wrapped in an old india-rubber 
 coat which glistened in the rain like a seal's 
 back — I never saw anything more lugubrious. 
 Soon the cold, the wind, the dashing of the waves 
 aggravated his trouble. Delirium seized him; it 
 was necessary to put him ashore. 
 
 After much time and many efforts we entered, 
 towards evening, a little harbour, silent and barren, 
 where nothing stirred but the circular sweep of a 
 few gulls. Around the shore rose high, scarped 
 rocks and impermeable thickets of shrubs of a dull 
 green, perennial and without season. Low down, 
 neat^ the water, was a little white house with gray 
 shutters, the custom-house post. In the midst of 
 this desert, the government building, numbered 
 like a uniform cap, had something sinister about it. 
 
CustoTn-House People, 75 
 
 There poor Palombo was put ashore. Melancholy 
 haven for a sick man. We found the custom-house 
 official in charge of the place supping with his wife 
 and children in the chimney-corner. All these 
 people had haggard, yellow faces, and large eyes 
 circled with fever. The mother, still young, with 
 a baby in her arms, shivered as she spoke to us. 
 ** It is a terrible post," the inspector said to me in 
 a low voice. " We are obliged to renew our men 
 here every two years. The fever of that marsh 
 eats them up." 
 
 It was necessary to get a doctor. There was 
 none nearer than Sartena, and that was six or eight 
 leagues distant. What was to be done? Our 
 sailors were tired out and could do no more, and 
 it was too far to send a child. Then the wife, 
 looking out of the door, called " Cecco ! Cecco ! " 
 and a tall, well set-up young fellow entered, true 
 type of a smuggler or a bandit, with his brown 
 woollen cap and his goatskin mantle. As we landed 
 I had noticed him sitting before the door, his red 
 pipe in his mouth and his gun between his legs ; 
 but he disappeared, I knew not why, at our 
 approach. Perhaps he thought gendarmes were 
 with us. As he entered, the wife coloured a little. 
 ** This is my cousin," she said. ** No danger that 
 he will get lost in the thicket." Then she spoke 
 to him in a low voice and showed him the patient. 
 The man nodded without replying, went out, 
 whistled to his dog, and started, his gun on his 
 shoulder, springing from rock to rock with his 
 long legs. 
 
76 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 During this time the children, whom the presence 
 of the inspector seemed to terrify, finished their 
 dinner of chestnuts and bruccio (white cheese). 
 Water, nothing but water on the table ! And yet 
 what good a drop of wine would have done them, 
 poor little things. Ah, poverty ! . . At last the 
 mother took them up to bed; the father lighted 
 his lantern and went to inspect the coast, and we 
 sat still by the fire to watch our sick man, who 
 tossed on his pallet as if at sea shaken by the 
 waves. To quiet his pountoura a little we warmed 
 pebbles and bricks and laid them at his side. 
 Once or twice when I approached his bed the poor 
 fellow knew me, and to thank me stretched out his 
 hand with difficulty, a large hand, rough and burn- 
 ing as one of those bricks we took from the fire. 
 
 Sad watch ! Outside, the bad weather had re- 
 turned with the close of day. All was uproar, the 
 rolling of waves, the dashing of spray, the battle of 
 rocks and water. From time to time the tempest 
 on the open sea succeeded in entering the bay and 
 swirling around the house. We felt it in the sud- 
 den rise of the flame which lighted the mournful 
 faces of the sailors grouped around the chimney 
 and looking at the fire with that placidity of ex- 
 pression given by the habitual presence of great 
 expanse and far horizons. Sometimes Palombo 
 gently moaned ; and then all eyes were turned to 
 the dark corner where the poor comrade was dying 
 far from his family and without succour ; the chests 
 heaved and I heard great sighs. That was all that 
 the sense of their unfortunate lot drew from these 
 
Custom-House People. yj 
 
 gentle and patient toilers of the sea. A sigh, and 
 nothing more ! Stay, I am wrong. Passing before 
 me to throw a clod on the fire, one of them said 
 in a low and heart-breaking voice: **You see 
 monsieur, we have sometimes great troubles in our 
 business." 
 
 < 
 
78 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 THE CURE OF CUCUGNAN. 
 
 I 
 
 Every year at Candlemas the Proven9al poets 
 publish at Avignon a jovial little book full to the 
 brim of merry tales and pretty verses. That of 
 this year has just reached me, and in it I find an 
 2idoY3h\e fadliau which I shall try to translate for 
 you, slightly abridging it. Parisians ! hold out 
 your sacks. It is the finest brand of Provencal 
 flour that I serve you this day. - ^ 
 
 The Abbe Martin was cure of Cucugnan. 
 
 Good as bread, honest as gold, he loved his 
 Cucugnanese paternally. To him, Cucugnan would 
 have been heaven upon earth if the Cucugnanese 
 had given him a little more satisfaction. But alas ! 
 the spiders spun their webs in his confessional, and 
 on the glorious Easter-day the Host remained in 
 the holy pyx. This harrowed the heart of the 
 worthy priest, and he was always asking God to 
 grant that he might not die until he had brought 
 back to the fold his scattered flock. 
 
 Now you shall see how God listened to him. 
 
 One Sunday, after the Gospel, M. Martin went 
 up into the pulpit 
 
 " Brethren," he said, '' you may believe me if 
 you Hke : the other night I found myself, I, a 
 miserable sinner, at the gates of Paradise. 
 
The Cure of Cucugnan. 79 
 
 *' I rapped ; Saint Peter came. 
 
 *' ^ Bless me ! is it you, my worthy Monsieur 
 Martin?* he said to me. * What good wind has 
 brought you ? what can I do for you ? ' 
 
 ** ' Great Saint Peter, you who hold the big book 
 and the keys, would you tell me, if I am not 
 too curious, how many Cucugnanese you have in 
 Paradise ? ' 
 
 *^ ' I can't refuse you anything. Monsieur Martin ; 
 sit down ; we will look the thing out together.' 
 
 *' And Saint Peter got out his big book, opened 
 it, and put on his spectacles. 
 
 " * Let me see : Cucugnan, did you say? Cu . . . 
 Cu . . . Cucugnan. Here we are, Cucugnan. . . 
 My dear Monsieur Martin, it is a blank page. Not 
 a soul. . . No more Cucugnanese in Paradise than 
 fishbones in a turkey.' 
 
 "^What! No one from Cucugnan here? No 
 one? It is n't possible ! Do look again.' 
 
 ** ' No one, holy man. Look yourself if you 
 think I am joking.' 
 
 " ' I, peca'ire ! ' I stamped my feet and I cried 
 for mercy with clasped hands. Whereupon Saint 
 Peter said : — 
 
 " * Monsieur Martin, you must not turn your heart 
 inside out in this way, or you'll have a fit of some 
 kind. It is n't your fault, after all. Those Cu- 
 cugnanese of yours, don't you see, they'll have to 
 do their quarantine in purgatory.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! for pity's sake, great Saint Peter, let 
 me just go to purgatory for a minute to see them 
 and comfort them.' 
 
8o Letters from My Mill. 
 
 " ' Willingly, my friend. . . Here, put on these 
 sandals, for the roads are none too good. That 's 
 right. Now go straight before you. Don't you 
 see a turning a long way down ? There you '11 
 find a silver door all studded with black crosses — 
 on your right. Knock, and they '11 open to you. 
 Adieu ! Keep well and lively.' 
 
 *'Down I went — down, down! What a strug- 
 gle ! My flesh creeps for only thinking of it. 
 A narrow path, full of briers and big shiny 
 beetles and snakes hissing, brought me to the 
 silver door. 
 
 " Pan ! pan ! 
 
 *^* Who knocks?' said a hoarse and dismal voice. 
 
 *' * The cure of Cucugnan.' 
 
 *^^0f — ?' 
 
 " ' Of Cucugnan.' 
 
 ^* ^ Ah ! . . Come in.' 
 
 *' I went in. A tall, handsome angel with wings 
 black as night and a garment resplendent as day, 
 and a diamond key hanging to his belt, was writ- 
 ing, cra-cra, in a big book — bigger than that of 
 Saint Peter. 
 
 '^*Now then, what do you want?' asked the 
 angel. 
 
 " ' Noble angel of God, I want to know — per- 
 haps you'll think me very inquisitive — whether 
 my Cucugnanese are here.' 
 
 "^Your— ?' 
 
 " ' Cucugnanese, the inhabitants of Cucugnan. 
 I am their prior.' 
 
The Cure of Cucugnan. 8i 
 
 " ' Ah, yes ! the Abbe Martin, isn't it? ' 
 " * At your service. Monsieur Angel/ 
 
 " * You say Cucugnan — ' 
 
 " And the angel opened his big book, wetting 
 his finger with his spittle to turn the leaves easily. 
 
 ^* * Cucugnan,' he said, with a heavy sigh. * Mon- 
 sieur Martin, we have n't a soul in purgatory from 
 Cucugnan.' 
 
 ** * Jesu ! Marie ! Joseph ! not a soul from Cu- 
 cugnan in purgatory ! Then, great God ! where 
 are they^? ' 
 
 ^' * Eh ! holy man ! they are in paradise. Where 
 the deuce do you suppose they are? ' 
 
 *' * But I have just come from there, from para- 
 dise.' 
 
 " ' You have come from there ! Well? ' 
 
 " * They are not there ! . . Ah ! merciful mother 
 of angels ! . .' 
 
 " * But, holy man, if they are not in paradise and 
 not in purgatory, there is no middle place, they 
 are in — ' 
 
 " ' Holy Cross ! Jesus, son of David ! Aie ! 
 aie ! aie! it isn't possible? Can it be that the 
 great Saint Peter Hed to me ? I did n't hear a 
 cock crow. . . Aie ! poor people ! and poor me ! 
 for how can I go to paradise if my Cucugnanese 
 are not there ? ' 
 
 *' * Listen to me, my poor Monsieur Martin. 
 As you want to be so sure about this thing, cost 
 what it may, and to see with your own eyes what 
 there is to it, take this path and run fast, if you 
 
 6 
 
82 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 know how to run. You will come to a great big 
 portal on your left. There you can find out every- 
 thing. God grants it.* 
 
 '' And the angel shut his gate. 
 
 ^^j"/Twas a long path, paved all the way with red 
 embers. I tottered as if I were drunk ; at every 
 step I stumbled; I was bathed in perspiration; 
 every hair of my body had its drop of sweat; I 
 panted with thirst. But thanks to the sandals that 
 good Saint Peter lent me, I did not burn my feet. 
 
 "After I had made many a Hmping misstep I 
 saw at my left hand a gate — no, a portal, an 
 enormous portal, gaping wide open, like the jioor 
 of a big oven. O! my children, what a sight! 
 TherCy no one asked my name ; therCy no register. 
 In batches, in crowds, people entered, just as you, 
 my brethren, go to the wineshops on Sunday. 
 
 "I sweated great drops, and yet I was chilled 
 to the bone and shuddering. My hair stood erect. 
 I smelt burning, roasting flesh, something like the 
 smell that fills all Cucugnan when Eloy the black- 
 smith burns the hoof of an old donkey as he shoes 
 her. I lost my breath in that stinking, fiery air ; 
 I heard an awful clamour, moans, howls, oaths. 
 
 " ' Well ! are you, or are you not coming in, 
 you?' said a horned demon, pricking me with his 
 pitchfork. 
 
 " a? I don't go in there. I am a friend of God.' 
 
 " ' A friend of God ! Hey ! you scabby rascal ! 
 what are you doing here ? ' 
 
 *' ' I have come — ah ! I can't talk of it, my legs 
 
The Cure of Cucugnan. 83 
 
 are giving way under me. I have come — I have 
 come a long way — to humbly ask you — if — if 
 by chance — you have here — some one — some 
 one from Cucugnan — * 
 
 " * Ha ! fire of God ! you are playing stupid, 
 are you? Just as if you didn't know that all 
 Cucugnan is here. There, you ugly crow, look 
 there, and see how we treat 'em here, your 
 precious Cucugnanese — ' 
 
 ** I looked, and saw, in the midst of awful, whirl- 
 ing flames, — 
 
 ** That long Coq-Galine, — you all knew him, my 
 brethren, — Coq-Galine, who got drunk so often 
 and shook his fleas on his poor Clairette. _.^f^{-v' 
 
 " I saw Catarinet — that little^slut with Her nose 
 in the air — who slept alone in the barn — you 
 remember, you rascals ? But that 's enough — 
 enough said. 
 
 '' I saw Pascal Doigt-de-Pois who made his oil 
 of M. Julien's olives. ^. --'^ 
 
 " I saw Babette the gleaner, who, when she 
 gleaned, grabbed handfuls from the sheaves to 
 fill her bundle. 
 
 " I saw Maitre Grabasi, who oiled the wheel of 
 his barrow so slick ; 
 
 *^ And Dauphiney who sold the water of his well 
 so dear; 
 
 ' ** And Tortillard, who, when he met me carrying 
 the Good God, kept on his way as if he had only 
 met a dog, — pipe in his mouth, cap on his head, 
 proud as Artaban. 
 
84 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 *' And I saw Coulau with his Zette, and Jacques, 
 and Pierre, and Toni. . . " 
 
 Livid with fear, the audience groaned, beholding, 
 through the opened gates of hell, this one his father, 
 that one her mother, some their grandmothers, some 
 their brothers and sisters. 
 
 *' You feel now, my brethren," said the good 
 abbe, ** that this ^ must not go on any longer. I 
 have the charge of souls, and I. wi^s^^^o saye yo\Xj 
 I willsdiYQ you, from the g&yss *to^ which you g^e Si 
 rolling head-foremost. To-morrow I shall set to 
 work — no later than to-morrow. And I shall have 
 my hands full. This is what I shall do. In order to 
 do it well, it must be done methodically. We will 
 go row by row, as at Jonquieres when you dance. 
 
 ''To-morrow, Monday, I shall confess the old 
 men and the old women. That 's nothing. 
 
 '' Tuesday, the children. Soon done. 
 
 ''Wednesday, the lads and lasses. May take 
 long. . 
 
 " Thursday, the men. Cut them short. , j^^^^^^J^m^^ 
 
 "Friday, the women. I shall say : No rigmaroles. 
 
 " Saturday, the miller ! One whole day is not too 
 much for him alone. 
 
 " And Sunday it will all be done, and we shall 
 be happy. 
 
 " You know, my children, that when the wheat 
 is ripe it must be cut ; when the wine is drawn it 
 must be drunk. Here's a lot of dirty linen to 
 wash, and it must be washed, and well washed. 
 
 " That is the good I wish you. Amen." 
 
The Cure of Cucugnan. 85 
 
 What was said was done. The wash came off. 
 And since that memorable Sunday the fragrance 
 of the virtues of Cucugnan can be smelt in an area 
 of ten leagues round. 
 
 And the good pastor, M. Martin, happy and gay, 
 dreamed the other night that, followed by his whole 
 flock, he mounted, in resplendent procession, .aHijd 
 gleaming torches, and clouds of incense wafted 6y 
 the choir-boys chanting the Te Deum, the great 
 lighted road to the City of our God. 
 
 Now there 's the tale of the cure of Cucugnan, 
 such as that great rascal Roumanille ordered me 
 to tell it to you ; he himself having got it from 
 some other good fellow. 
 
86 Letters from My MilL 
 
 AGED FOhS/y 
 
 ** A LETTER, Pere Azan? '* 
 
 '* Yes, monsieur ; and it comes from Paris." 
 
 He was quite proud, that worthy old Azan, that 
 it came from Paris. I was not. Something told 
 me that that Parisian missive from the rue Jean- 
 Jacques, dropping thus upon my table unexpect- 
 edly, and so early in the morning, would make me 
 lose my whole day. I was not mistaken, — and 
 you shall see why. 
 
 ** You must do me a service, my friend,'* said 
 the letter. *' Close your mill for a day, and go to 
 Eyguieres. Eyguieres is a large village, three or 
 four leagues from your mill, — a pleasant walk. 
 When you get there, ask for the Orphans' Con- 
 vent. The first house beyond the convent is a 
 low building with gray shutters, and a small garden 
 behind it. Enter without knocking, — the door is 
 always open, — and as you enter, call out very 
 loud : ' Good-day, worthy people ! I am a friend 
 of Maurice.' On which you will see two little old 
 persons — oh! but old, old, ever so old — stretch- 
 ing out their hands to you from their big arm- 
 chairs ; and you are to kiss them for me, with all 
 your heart, as if they were yours, your own friends. 
 Then you will talk. They will talk to you of me. 
 
Aged Folk. 87 
 
 and nothing else; they will say a lot of foolish 
 things, which you are to listen to without laughing. 
 You won't laugh, will you? They are my grand- 
 parents; two beings whose very life I am, and 
 who have not seen me these ten years. . . Ten 
 years, a long time ! But how can I help it? Paris 
 clutches me. And they, they are so old that if 
 they came to see me they would break to bits on 
 the way. . . Happily, you are there, my dear 
 miller, and, in kissing you, these poor old people 
 will fancy they are kissing me. I have so often 
 told them about you, and of the good friendship 
 that—" 
 
 The devil take good friendship ! Just this very 
 morning, when the weather is so beautiful ! but not 
 at all fit to tramp along the roads ; too much mis- 
 tral, too much sun, a regular Provence day. When 
 that cursed letter came, I had just picked out my 
 shelter between two rocks, where I dreamed of 
 staying all day like a lizard, drinking light and 
 listening to the song of the pines. Well, I could not 
 help myself. I shut up the mill, grumbling, and hid 
 the key. My stick, my pipe, and off I went. 
 
 I reached Eyguieres in about two hours. The 
 village was deserted ; everybody was in the fields. 
 From the elms in the courtyards, white with dust, 
 the grasshoppers were screaming. To be sure, in 
 the square before the mayor's office, a donkey was 
 sunning himself, and a flock of pigeons were dab- 
 bling in the fountain before the church, but no one 
 able to show me the Orphans' Convent. Happily, 
 
88 Letters from My Mill. " 
 
 an old witch suddenly appeared, crouching and 
 knitting in the angle of her doorway. I told her 
 what I was looking for ; and as she was a witch of 
 very great power, she had only to raise her distaff, 
 and, behold ! the Orphans' Convent rose up before 
 me. It was a large, sullen, black house, proud of 
 exhibiting above its arched portal an old cross of 
 red freestone with Latin around it. Beside this 
 house, I saw another, very small; gray shutters, 
 garden behind it. I knew it directly, and I entered 
 without knocking. 
 
 All my life I shall remember that long, cool, 
 quiet corridor, the walls rose-tinted, the little gar- 
 den quivering at the other end, and seen through a 
 thin blind. It seemed to me that I was entering 
 the house of some old bailiff of the olden time of 
 Sedaine. At the end of the passage, on the left, 
 through a half-opened door, I heard the tick-tack 
 of a large clock and the voice of a child — a child 
 in school — who was reading aloud, and paus- 
 ing at each syllable: ''Then — Saint — I-re-ne-us 
 — cri-ed — out — I — am — the — wheat — of — the 
 Lord — I — must — be — ground — by — the — teeth 
 — of — these — an-i-mals." I softly approached the 
 door and looked in. 
 
 In the quiet half-light of a little room, an old, 
 old man with rosy cheeks, wrinkled to the tips of 
 his fingers, sat sleeping in a chair, his mouth open, 
 his hands on his knees. At his feet, a httle girl 
 dressed in blue — with a great cape and a Hnen 
 cap, the orphans' costume — was reading the life 
 of Saint Irenaeus in a book that was bigger than 
 
Aged Folk. 89 
 
 herself. The reading had operated miraculously 
 on the entire household. The old man slept in 
 his chair, the flies on the ceiling, the canaries in 
 their cage at the window, and the great clock 
 snored : tick-tack, tick-tack. Nothing was awake 
 in the room but a broad band of light, which came, 
 straight and white, between the closed shutters, full 
 of lively sparkles and microscopic whirlings. 
 
 Amid this general somnolence, the child went 
 gravely on with her reading : — 
 
 ** Im-me-di-ate-ly — two — li-ons — dart-ed — up- 
 on — him — and — ate — him — up." At this moment 
 I entered the room. The lions of Saint Irenaeus 
 darting into the room could not have produced 
 greater stupefaction. A regular stage effect ! The 
 httle one gave a cry, the big book fell, the flies 
 and the canaries woke, the clock struck, the old 
 man started up, quite frightened, and I myself, 
 being rather troubled, stopped short on the sill of 
 the door, and called out very loud : ** Good-day, 
 worthy people ! I am Maurice's friend." 
 
 Oh, then ! if you had only seen him, that old 
 man, if you had only seen how he came to me with 
 outstretched arms, embracing me, pressing my 
 hands, and wandering about the room, crying 
 out: — 
 
 ** Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! " 
 
 All the wrinkles of his face were laughing. He 
 was red. He stuttered : — 
 
 '' Ah ! monsieur — ah ! monsieur." 
 
 Then he went to the back of the room and 
 called : — 
 
90 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 '' Mamette ! " 
 
 A door opened, a trot of mice in the corridor — it 
 was Mamette. Nothing prettier than that little old 
 woman with her mob-cap, her brown gown, and the 
 embroidered handkerchief which she held in her 
 hand in the olden fashion. Most affecting thing ! 
 the two were like each other. With a false front 
 and yellow bows to his cap, he too might be called 
 Mamette. Only, the real Mamette must have wept 
 a great deal in her life, for she was even more 
 wrinkled than he. Like him, she too had an or- 
 phan with her, a little nurse in a blue cape who 
 never left her ; and to see these old people pro- 
 tected by those orphans was indeed the most 
 touching thing you can imagine. 
 
 On entering, Mamette began to make me a deep 
 curtsey, but a word of the old man stopped her in 
 the middle of it : — 
 
 *^A friend of Maurice." 
 
 Instantly she trembled, she wept, dropped her 
 handkerchief, grew red, very red, redder than he. 
 Those aged folk! who have hardly a drop of 
 blood in their veins, how it flies to their face at 
 the least emotion ! 
 - *' Quick, quick, a chair," said the old lady to her 
 little girl. 
 
 " Open the shutters," said the old man to his. 
 
 Then taking me each by a hand they led me, 
 trotting along, to the window the better to see me. 
 The armchairs were placed ; I sat between the two 
 on a stool, the little Blues behind us, and the ques- 
 tioning began : — 
 
Aged Folk, 91 
 
 " How IS he ? What is he doing ? Why does n't 
 he come? Is he happy?" 
 
 Patati, patata ! and so on for two hours. 
 
 I answered as best I could all their ques- 
 tions, giving such details about my friend as 
 I knew, and boldly inventing others that I did 
 not know; being careful to avoid admitting that 
 I had never noticed whether his windows closed 
 tightly and what coloured paper he had on his 
 walls. 
 
 "The paper of his bedroom? blue, madame, light 
 blue, with garlands of flowers — " 
 
 " Really ! '* said the old lady, much affected ; 
 then she added, turning to her husband : " He is 
 such a dear lad ! " 
 
 *' Yes, yes ! a dear lad ! '' said the other, with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 And all the time that I was speaking they kept 
 up between them little nods, and sly laughs and 
 winks, and knowing looks; or else the old man 
 came closer to say in my ear : — 
 
 " Speak louder, she is a little hard of hearing." 
 
 And she on her side : — 
 
 " A little louder, if you please. He does n't hear 
 very well." 
 
 Then I raised my voice, and both of them 
 thanked me with a smile; and in those faded 
 smiles, — bending toward me, seeking in the depths 
 of my eyes the image of their Maurice, — I was, 
 myself, quite moved to see that image, vague, 
 veiled, almost imperceptible, as if I beheld my 
 friend smiling to me from afar through a mist. 
 
92 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Suddenly the old man sat upright in his chair. 
 
 *' I have just thought, Mamette, — perhaps he 
 has not breakfasted ! '* 
 
 And Mamette, distressed, throws up her arms. 
 
 '' Not breakfasted ! oh, heavens ! '* 
 
 I thought they were still talking of Maurice, and 
 I was about to say that that worthy lad never 
 waited later than noon for his breakfast. But no, 
 it was of me they were thinking ; and it was in- 
 deed a sight to see their commotion when I had to 
 own that I was still fasting. 
 
 '' Quick ! set the table, little Blues ! That table 
 in the middle of the room — the Sunday cloth — 
 the flowered plates. And no laughing, if you 
 please ! Make haste, make haste ! '* 
 
 And haste they made. Only time to break 
 three plates and breakfast was served. 
 
 "' A good little breakfast," said Mamette, leading 
 me to the table ; *^ only, you must eat it alone. We 
 have eaten already." 
 
 Poor old people ! at whatever hour you took 
 them, they had " eaten already." 
 
 Mamette's good little breakfast was a cup of 
 milk, dates, and a barquettey a kind of shortcake, 
 no doubt enough to feed her canaries for a week ; 
 and to think that I, alone, I ate up all their provi- 
 sions ! I felt the indignation around the table ; the 
 little Blues whispered and nudged each other ; and 
 those canaries in their cage, — I knew they were 
 saying : '' Oh ! that monsieur, he is eating up the 
 whole of the barquette! " 
 
 I did eat it all, truly, almost without perceiving 
 
Aged Folk. 93 
 
 that I did so, preoccupied as I was by looking 
 round that light and placid room, where floated, 
 as it were, the fragrance of things ancient. Espe- 
 cially noticeable were two httle beds from which I 
 could not detach my eyes. Those beds, almost 
 two cradles, I pictured them in the morning at 
 dawn, still inclosed within their great fringed cur- 
 tains. Three o 'clock strikes. That is the hour 
 when old people wake. 
 
 "Are you asleep, Mamette?" 
 
 " No, my friend." 
 
 '' Is n't Maurice a fine lad? " 
 
 *' Yes, yes, a fine lad." 
 
 And from that I imagined a long conversation 
 by merely lookmg at the little beds of the two old 
 people, standing side by side. 
 
 During this time a terrible drama was going on 
 at the other end of the room before a closet. It 
 concerned reaching up to the top shelf for a cer- 
 tain bottle of brandied cherries which had awaited 
 Maurice's return for the last ten years. The old 
 people now proposed to open it for me. In spite 
 of Mamette's supplications the husband was deter- 
 mined to get the cherries himself, and, mounted on 
 a chair to the terror of his wife, he was striving to 
 reach them. You can see the scene from here: 
 the old man trembling on the points of his toes, the 
 little Blues clinging to his chair, Mamette behind 
 him, breathless, her arms extended, and, pervading 
 all, a slight perfume of bergamot exhaled from the 
 open closet and the great piles of unbleached linen 
 therein contained. It was charming. 
 
94 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 At last, after many efforts, they succeeded in 
 getting it from the closet, that famous bottle, and 
 with it an old silver cup, Maurice's cup when he 
 was little. This they filled with cherries to the 
 brim — Maurice was so fond of cherries ! And 
 while the old man served me, he whispered in my 
 ear, as if his mouth watered : — 
 
 '' You are very lucky, you, to be the one to eat 
 them. My wife put them up. You '11 taste some- 
 thing good." 
 
 Alas ! his wife had put them up, but she had 
 forgotten to sweeten them. They were atrocious, 
 your cherries, my poor Mamette — But that did 
 not prevent me from eating them all without 
 blinking. 
 
 The meal over, I rose to take leave of my 
 hosts. They would fain have kept me longer to 
 talk of that dear lad, but the day was shortening, 
 the mill was far, and I had to go. 
 
 The old man rose when I did. 
 
 " Mamette, my coat ; I will accompany him as 
 far as the square." 
 
 I felt very sure that in her heart Mamette 
 thought it too cool for the old man to be out, but 
 she did not show it. Only, as she helped him to 
 put his arms into the sleeves of his coat, a hand- 
 some snuff-coloured coat with mother-of-pearl but- 
 tons, I heard the dear creature say to him softly : — 
 
 '' You won't be late, will you ? " 
 
 And he, with a roguish air : — • 
 
 '' Hey ! hey ! I don't know — perhaps not." 
 
Aged Folk. 95 
 
 Thereupon they looked at each other, laugh- 
 ing, and the little Blues laughed to see them laugh, 
 and the canaries laughed too, in their cage, after 
 their fashion. Between ourselves I think the smell 
 of those cherries had made them all a little tipsy. 
 
 Daylight was fading as we left the house, grand- 
 papa and I. A little Blue followed at a distance 
 to bring him back; but he did not see her, and 
 seemed quite proud to walk along, arm in arm 
 with me, like a man. Mamette, beaming, watched 
 us from the sill of her door with pretty little, nods 
 of her head that seemed to say : " See there ! my 
 poor man, he can still walk about." 
 
96 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 PROSE BALLADS. 
 
 When I opened my door this morning I saw 
 around my mill a carpet of hoar-frost. The turf 
 cracked and glittered like glass; the hillside 
 shivered. For a single day my dear Provence 
 disguised herself as a Northern land ; and it was 
 among pines draped with frost and tufts of laven- 
 der looking like crystal bouquets that I wrote two 
 ballads of rather Germanic fantasy, while the ice- 
 dew sparkled before me, and away up there in the 
 clear blue sky triangular flocks of storks, coming 
 from the country of Henri Heine, flew towards 
 the Camargue, crying hoarsely : ** It is cold — cold 
 — cold.'' 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN. 
 
 The little Dauphin is ill ; the httle Dauphin will 
 die. In all the churches of the kingdom the Holy 
 Sacrament is exposed day and night, and great 
 tapers burn for the recovery of the royal child. 
 The streets of the old Residenz are sad and silent; 
 the bells no longer ring; carriages are driven at 
 a foot-pace. Around the palace anxious burghers 
 watch, through the iron railings, the Swiss porters 
 
Prose Ballads. 97 
 
 with gilded paunches talking in the courtyard with 
 airs of importance. 
 
 The whole castle is a-quiver. Chamberlains, 
 majordomos are running up and down the marble 
 staircases. The galleries are filled with pages 
 and courtiers in silken garments going from one 
 group to another, asking for news in whispers. On 
 the wide porticos ladies of honour in despair are 
 dropping deep curtseys to one another and wiping 
 their eyes with embroidered handkerchiefs. 
 
 In the Orangery is a numerous assemblage of 
 physicians in their robes. They are seen through 
 the sashes to shake their long black sleeves and 
 lean their clubbed wigs doctorally to one another. 
 The preceptor and the equerry of the little Dau- 
 phin are pacing up and down before the door 
 awaiting the decision of the Faculty. Scullions 
 pass them without bowing. The equerry swears 
 like a pagan ; the preceptor recites Horace. And 
 all this while, from the stables over there, comes 
 a plaintive neigh. 'T is the chestnut pony of the 
 little Dauphin, forgotten by the grooms, which is 
 whinnying sadly before its empty manger. 
 
 And the king? Where is Monseigneur the 
 king? The king is shut up all alone in a room 
 at the farther end of the castle. Majesties do not 
 like to be seen to weep. As for the queen, that 
 is another thing. Seated by the pillow of the 
 little Dauphin, her beautiful face is bathed in tears, 
 and she sobs aloud as any shopkeeper's wife 
 might do. 
 
 Among the laces of his couch the little Dauphin, 
 7 
 
98 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 whiter than the pillows on which he lies, is resting, 
 his eyes closed. They think he sleeps. But no, 
 the little Dauphin is not. asleep. He turns to his 
 mother, and seeing her tears, he says to her : — 
 
 " Madame la reine^ why do you weep ? Do you 
 really think I am going to die? " 
 
 The queen tries to answer. Sobs prevent her 
 from speaking^ 
 
 '* Do not weep, Madame la reine ; you forget 
 that I am the Dauphin, and that Dauphins can- 
 not die in this way." 
 
 The queen sobs more than ever, and the little 
 Dauphin begins to be frightened. 
 
 '' Hola ! " he said, '' I will not let Death take 
 me ; I will find a way to keep him out. Send, 
 at once, for forty of my soldiers, the strongest 
 men; let them mount guard around my b?d. Let 
 a hundred cannon be ready, day and night, with 
 lighted matches, beneath my windows, and sorrow 
 to Death if then he dare approach me ! " 
 
 To please the royal child the queen made signs. 
 Cannon were heard to roll into the courtyard, and 
 the forty tallest soldiers, halberds in hand, stood 
 ranged around the room. They were all old vet- 
 erans, with gray moustaches. The Dauphin clapped 
 his hands on seeing them. One he recognized, 
 and called to him : — 
 
 "Lorrain ! Lorrain ! " 
 
 The soldier advanced toward the bed. 
 
 " I love you, my old Lorrain. Show me your 
 big sabre. If Death comes here to take me, you 
 must kill him — won't you ? " 
 
Prose Ballads. 99 
 
 Lorrain replied : — 
 
 " Yes, monseigneur." 
 
 But two big tears rolled down his weather- 
 beaten cheeks. 
 
 At this moment the chaplain approached the 
 little Dauphin, and spoke to him in a low voice, 
 showing him a crucifix. The httle Dauphin listened 
 with a surprised air ; then, suddenly interrupting 
 the priest, he said : — 
 
 " I understand very well what you are saying, 
 Monsieur Vabbe ; but, after all, could not my little 
 friend Beppo die in my place if I gave him plenty 
 of money? " 
 
 The chaplain continued to speak in a low voice, 
 and the little Dauphin seemed more and more 
 astonished. 
 
 When the chaplain had finished, the little Dau- 
 phin said, with a heavy sigh : — 
 
 '* All that you tell me is very sad, Monsieur Vabbd, 
 but one thing comforts me; it is that up there, in 
 the paradise of stars, I shall still be the Dauphin. 
 I know that the Good God is ' my cousin, and he 
 will not fail to treat me according to my rank." 
 
 Then he added, turning to his mother : — 
 
 ** Tell them to bring me my finest clothes, my 
 ermine mantle, and my velvet shoes. I wish to 
 make myself gorgeous for the angels and to enter 
 paradise as the Dauphin should." 
 
 Again, for the third time, the chaplain leaned 
 down to the little Dauphin and spoke to him in a 
 low voice. Suddenly, in the middle of his discourse 
 the royal child interrupted him angrily : — 
 
lOO Letters from My Mill. 
 
 *' Then to be Dauphin/' he cried, *' is just noth- 
 ing at all ! " 
 
 And — not willing to hear another word — the 
 little Dauphin turned his face to the wall and wept 
 bitterly. 
 
 THE SUB-PREFECT IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 The sub-prefect is on his rounds. Coachman 
 before, footman behind, the caleche of the sub- 
 prefecture bears him majestically to the district 
 assembly of Combe-aux-F^es. For this memo- 
 rable journey the sub-prefect has put on his fine 
 embroidered coat, his little opera-hat, his tight 
 breeches that are silver-striped, and his gala sword 
 with a mother-of-pearl handle. On his knees re- 
 poses a great portfolio of crinkled leather, at which 
 he gazes sadly. 
 
 The sub-prefect gazes sadly at his leather case ; 
 he thinks of the famous speech he is about to de- 
 liver before the inhabitants of Combe-aux-Fees : — 
 "Messieurs, and dear constituents — " 
 But in vain does he twist the silk of his blond 
 moustache and repeat a score of times : — 
 " Messieurs, and dear constituents — " 
 Not another word will come. It is so hot in 
 that caleche. The high-road to Combe-aux-Fees 
 stretches dustily as far as eye can reach beneath 
 that Southern sun. The air is like a furnace ; on 
 the elms, white with dust, that line the road, thou- 
 
Prose Ballads. loi 
 
 sands of grasshoppers are discouisi^^, ^^^^l^^y froA . 
 one tree to another. Suddenly th^ sub-prefect 
 quivers. Over there, at the foot'pf: a s^e,. ll^^ 
 perceives a little wood of live-oaks which seems to 
 be making him a sign. 
 
 The little wood of live-oaks seems to be making 
 him a sign : — 
 
 ** Come this way, monsieur, come this way to 
 compose your speech; you will be much more 
 comfortable under my trees." 
 
 The sub-prefect is persuaded. He jumps from 
 his caleche and tells his servants to wait for him ; 
 he is going to compose his speech in the little 
 wood of live-oaks. 
 
 In the little wood of live-oaks there are birds 
 and violets, and brooks purling through the turf. 
 When the birds caught sight of the prefect in his 
 handsome breeches carrying his leather case they 
 were frightened and stopped singing, the brooks 
 dared not purl, and the violets hid in the grass. 
 All that little world had never seen a sub-prefect, 
 and they asked one another in whispers who the 
 grand gentleman could be who walked about in 
 silver-laced breeches. 
 
 Whispering beneath the leafage, they asked one 
 another who that grand gentleman in the silver- 
 laced breeches could be. During this time the 
 sub-prefect, delighted with the silence and the 
 coolness of the wood, lifted the tails of his coat, 
 laid his opera-hat on the grass, and sat himself 
 down in the moss at the foot of a fine young live- 
 oak. Then he opened his leather portfolio and 
 
I02 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 ,took therefr.oi^ :a very large sheet of ministerial 
 'paper/ ' '•' 
 
 .'v :;'^ff'0ts: an: artist;';' said a redwing. 
 ' '"*' No,'' 'siSixl a' bdllfinch, *' he is not an artist be- 
 cause he wears silvered breeches ; he is a prince." 
 
 " Neither prince nor artist," interrupted an old 
 nightingale who had sung in the gardens of the 
 sub-prefecture for one whole season. " I know 
 who he is — he is a sub-prefect." 
 
 And all the little wood began to whisper and 
 murmur : — 
 
 '' He 's a sub-prefect ! he 's a sub-prefect ! " 
 
 " How bald he is ! " observed a lark with a big 
 tuft. 
 
 The violets asked : — 
 
 " Is he cross?" 
 
 " Is he cross? " asked the violets. 
 
 The nightingale answered : — 
 
 '' Not at all." 
 
 On this assurance the birds began to sing, the 
 brooks to purl, the violets to exhale their fragrance 
 just as if the monsieur were not there. 
 
 Impassible in the midst of the pretty racket, 
 the sub-prefect sat invoking in his heart the 
 Muse of agricultural comitias, and he presently 
 began, with pencil uphfted, to declaim his speech 
 in his voice of ceremony. 
 
 *' Messieurs, and dear constituents — " 
 
 " Messieurs, and dear constituents," said the sub' 
 prefect, in his voice of ceremony. 
 
 A burst of laughter interrupted him ; he turned 
 round and saw nothing but a green woodpecker, 
 
Prose Ballads. 103 
 
 perched on his opera-hat, which looked at him 
 smiling. The sub-prefect shrugged his shoulders, 
 and attempted to resume his speech; but the 
 woodpecker stopped him again, crying out : — 
 
 *^ What's the good?'' 
 
 " What is the good ? " said the sub-prefect, be- 
 coming very red. Then waving away with a 
 gesture that insolent beast, he began once 
 more : — 
 
 '' Messieurs, and dear constituents — " 
 
 ** Messieurs, and dear constituents," resumed the 
 sub-prefect. 
 
 But just then, all the little violets raised their 
 heads to the tops of their stalks and said to him 
 softly : — 
 
 "' Monsieur, do smell how good we smell." 
 
 And the brooks purled a music divine in the 
 mosses ; and above, in the branches over his head, 
 the red-throated warblers were singing their pretti- 
 est tunes, as if the whole little wood had conspired 
 to prevent him from composing his speech. 
 
 Yes, the whole little wood had conspired to 
 prevent him from composing his speech. The 
 sub-prefect, tipsy with perfume and drunk with 
 music, tried in vain to resist the' new spell that 
 seized him. He leaned his elbows on the grass, 
 unbuttoned his fine lace coat, and stammered again 
 two or three times : — 
 
 " Messieurs, and dear — " 
 
 Then he sent his dear constituents to the devil, 
 and the Muse of agricultural comitias was forced 
 to veil her face. 
 
I04 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Veil thy face, O Muse of agricultural comitias ! 
 When at the end of an hour the servants of the 
 sub-prefecture, uneasy about their master, entered 
 the little wood, they saw a sight that caused them 
 to recoil with horror. The sub-prefect was lying 
 on his stomach in the grass, his clothes loose, his 
 coat off, as disorderly as a bohemian, and — all 
 the while chewing violets — he, the sub-prefect, 
 was writing poetry ! 
 
Bixious Portfolio. 105 
 
 BIXIOU'S PORTFOLIO. 
 
 One morning in the month of October, a few 
 days before leaving Paris, a man entered my room 
 while I was at breakfast, an old man in a shabby, 
 muddy coat, his spine bent, and trembling on his 
 long legs like an unfledged heron. This was 
 Bixiou. Yes, Parisians, your Bixiou, the malicious, 
 fascinating Bixiou, — that frantic jester, who de- 
 lighted you for fifteen years with his pamphlets and 
 his caricatures. Ah ! the poor fellow, what distress ! 
 Were it not for a grimace he made as he entered 
 the room I should never have recognized him. 
 
 With his head bent sideways to his shoulder, a 
 cane at his teeth like a flute, the illustrious and 
 lugubrious jester advanced to the middle of the 
 room, striking against my table, and saying in a 
 doleful voice: — 
 
 '' Have pity on a poor blind man ! " 
 
 The mimicry was so good that I could not help 
 laughing. But he, very coldly : — 
 
 '' You think I am joking — look ! " 
 
 And he turned to me a pair of white eyes, 
 sightless. 
 
 " I am blind, my dear fellow, blind for life. 
 That is what comes of writing with vitriol. I 
 have burned out my eyes at that pretty trade; 
 
io6 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 yes, burned them to the socket — to the 
 bobhhes I " he added, showing me his calcined 
 eyelids, in which not the vestige of a lash re- 
 mained. 
 
 I was so moved that I could not speak to him. 
 My silence made him uneasy. 
 
 '' Are you at work? " 
 
 '' No, Bixiou, I am at breakfast. Will you have 
 some? " 
 
 He did not answer, but by the quivering of his 
 nostrils I saw his desire to accept. I took him by 
 the hand and seated him beside me. 
 
 While they served him, the poor devil breathed 
 in, as it were, the food with a laugh. 
 
 *' It smells good, all that. I shall feast well ; it is 
 so long since I gave up breakfasting. A two-sous 
 loaf every morning while I haunt the ministries, — 
 for you know I haunt the ministries now-a-days ; 
 that 's my only profession. I am trying to hook 
 a tobacco license. You are shocked, but what am 
 I to do ? They must have food at home. I can't 
 design any longer; I can't write. Dictate? But 
 what? I have nothing in my head now; I can't 
 invent. My business was to see the grimaces of 
 Paris and show them up, and I can't do that any 
 longer. So I bethought me of a tobacco license — 
 not on the boulevards, you understand. I have 
 no claim to that favour, not being the mother of 
 a danseuse, nor the widow of an officer. No, 
 simply some little provincial tobacco office, far 
 away, in a corner of the Vosges. There I shall 
 set up a big porcelain pipe and call myself Hans 
 
Bixious Portfolio. 107 
 
 or Z^bede, as in Erckmann-Chatrian, and I shall 
 console myself for not writing any longer by mak- 
 ing cornucopias for snuff out of the works of my 
 contemporaries. 
 
 "That is all I ask for. Not much, is it? Well, 
 it is the devil and all to get it. And yet I ought 
 not to be without influence. Think how I used 
 to be in the thick of everything ! I dined with 
 the marshal, and the prince, and the ministers ; all 
 those people wanted me because I amused them, 
 or else because they were afraid of me. Now, I 
 can't make any one afraid. Oh, my eyes ! my poor 
 eyes ! No one invites me now. It is too dismal 
 to have a blind head at table. Pass me the bread, 
 if you please. Ah ! those bandits ; they are mak- 
 ing me pay dear for that wretched tobacco license. 
 For six months I have lobbied the ministries with 
 my petition. I get there every morning when the 
 servants are lighting the fires and exercising their 
 Excellencies' horses in the courtyards, and I don't 
 leave till night, when the lamps are brought in and the 
 kitchens begin to smell good. My whole life is spent 
 on the wooden chests of antechambers. The ushers 
 know me well, I can tell you ! At the Interior 
 they call me ' That kind monsieur ! ' because, 
 to get their good word, I make puns or sketch 
 them some of the big-wigs on a corner of their 
 tablets, which makes them laugh. That 's what I 've 
 come to after twenty years of rollicking successes ! 
 that's the end of an artist's life. And to think 
 that there are forty thousand young rascals in 
 France whose very mouths water to take up that 
 
io8 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 profession ! To think that every day in the prov- 
 inces a locomotive gets up steam to bring batches 
 of imbeciles hungry for hterature and printed rub- 
 bish to Paris ! Ah ! deluded provinces, if Bixiou's 
 miserable fate could only teach you a lesson ! " 
 
 So saying, he dropped his nose into his plate and 
 began to eat with avidity, without another word. 
 It was piteous to see him. Every second he 
 lost his bread, his fork, and felt about for his 
 glass. Poor man ! he had not yet got the habit of 
 blindness. 
 
 After a while, he resumed : — 
 
 " Do you know what is most horrible of all to 
 me? It is that I can no longer read the papers. 
 You have to belong to the newspaper business to 
 understand that. Sometimes, in the evening when 
 I go home I buy one, only to smell that odour of 
 damp paper and fresh news. It is so good ! but 
 there 's no one to read it to me. My wife might, 
 but she won't ; she pretends that in the * diverse 
 facts ' there is so much that is improper. Ha ! 
 those former mistresses ! once married, there are 
 none more prudish than they. Ever since I made 
 her Madame Bixiou she thinks herself bound to 
 be a bigot — and to such a point ! Did n*t she 
 want to have me wash my eyes with water from 
 the Salette ? an'd then, holy bread, and holy water, 
 and collections, and Foundlings and Chinese orphans 
 and I don't know what all. We are in good works 
 up to our chin. / think it would be a good work 
 to read me my newspaper, but no, she won't. If 
 
Bixious Portfolio. 109 
 
 my daughter were at home she would read it to 
 me, but after I became blind I sent her to Notre- 
 Dame-des-Arts, to have one less mouth to feed. 
 She 's another who gives me comfort ! not nine 
 years in the world, and she has had every known 
 disease ! And sad ! and ugly ! uglier than I, if 
 that 's possible — a fright ! Well, I never could 
 make anything but caricatures, and she is one of 
 them — Ah ca ! I 'm a fine fellow to be telling 
 you my family histories. What are they to you? 
 Come, give me a little more of that brandy. 
 I must brace myself up ; I am going from here to 
 the ministry of Public Instruction, and the ushers 
 there are not so easy as some to amuse — they are 
 all retired professors." 
 
 I poured him out his brandy. He began to 
 drink it with little sips and a gentler air. Pres- 
 ently I don't know what fancy took him, but he 
 rose, glass in hand, turned on all sides that head 
 of a blind adder, with the cajoling smile of a man 
 about to speak, and said, in a strident voice, as if 
 haranguing a banquet of two hundred guests : — 
 
 '' To Art ! To Letters ! To the Press ! " 
 
 And thereupon he launched into a ten minutes' 
 speech, the craziest, most marvellous improvisation 
 which ever issued from that satirical brain. 
 
 Imagine a review of events at the end of a year, 
 entitled, ''The Bohemia of Letters in 18V — 
 our so called literary meetings, our disquisitions, 
 our quarrels, all the absurdities of an eccentric 
 society, a sewer of ink, hell without grandeur, 
 where the denizens throttle, and gut, and rob one 
 
no Letters from My Mill. 
 
 another, and talk interest and sous (far more than 
 they do among the bourgeois), which does not 
 hinder many from dying of hunger — in short, an 
 epitome of all our meanness, all our paltriness; old 
 Baron T. . . of the Tombola going about saying 
 '' gna, gna, gna " in the Tuileries gardens with his 
 wooden bowl and his bottle-blue coat ; together 
 with the deaths of the year, the burials pro tem.y 
 the funeral orations, always the same *' dear and 
 regretted " over a poor devil whose grave no one 
 will pay for ; and the suicides, and those who have 
 gone mad — imagine all that related, detailed, 
 gesticulated, by a humourist of genius, and you 
 will have an idea of Bixiou's improvisation. 
 
 His speech ended and the brandy drunk, he 
 asked me what time it was and went away without 
 bidding me good-bye. I don't know what the 
 ushers of M. Duruy thought of his visit that morn- 
 ing, but I know that never in all my life did I feel 
 more sad or so ill at ease for the work of the day 
 as I did that morning after the departure of my 
 terrible visitor. My inkstand sickened me, my 
 pen was a horror to me. I wanted to rush away, 
 afar, to see trees, to smell something good. What 
 hatred, great God ! what gall ! what a need to 
 slaver all things ! to soil all things ! Ah ! the mis- 
 erable man ! 
 
 I paced up and down my room in a fury, fancy- 
 ing I still heard the sneer of disgust with which he 
 had spoken of his daughter. 
 
 Suddenly, near the chair where the blind man 
 
Bixious Portfolio, iii 
 
 had been sitting, I felt something touch my foot. 
 Stooping I saw his portfolio, a big, shiny wallet 
 with broken edges, which never left him, and 
 which he called in jest his "venom pocket.'* That 
 pocket was as renowned among us as the famous 
 boxes of M. de Girardin. It was said there were 
 terrible things within it. The opportunity now 
 offered itself to ascertain if this were so. In fall- 
 ing, the old portfolio, stuffed too full, had burst, 
 and the papers lay scattered on the carpet. I 
 was forced to pick them up, one by one ; and so 
 doing I saw : — 
 
 A number of letters, written on flowered paper, 
 all beginning : " My dear papa," and signed CMne 
 Bixiou of the Children of Marie. 
 
 Old prescriptions for children's ailments ; croup, 
 convulsions, scarlatina, measles ; the poor little 
 thing had not been spared a single one. 
 
 Finally, from a large sealed envelope, a few 
 strands of yellow curly hair were escaping, and on 
 the paper was written, in big, straggling writing, 
 the writing of a blind man : — 
 
 ** Cehne's hair, cut off May 13th; the day 
 she entered over there." 
 
 That is what there was in Bixiou's portfolio. 
 
 Ah, Parisians, you are all alike. Disgust, sar- 
 casm, infernal laughter, ferocious jeers, and then — ■ 
 Chine's hair^ cut off May i^th. 
 
112 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE MAN WITH THE 
 GOLDEN BRAIN. 
 
 TO THE LADY WHO ASKS FOR GAY STORIES. 
 
 On reading your letter, madame, I felt some- 
 thing like remorse. I blamed myself for the half- 
 mourning cojour of my tales, and I resolved to 
 offer you to-day something joyous, even wildly 
 joyous. 
 
 Why should I be sad, after all? I am living a 
 thousand leagues from Parisian fogs, on a luminous 
 hill, in a land of tambourines and muscat wine. 
 Around me is nought but sun and music ; I have 
 orchestras of finches, choral societies of tom-tits ; 
 in the morning, curlews are saying : Coureli f cou- 
 reli ! at midday come the cicadas ; and then the 
 shepherds playing their fifes, and the pretty young 
 brunettes laughing among the vines. In truth, 
 this place is ill-chosen to rub-in black. I ought 
 rather to send to a lady rose-coloured poems and 
 tales of gallantry. 
 
 But, no ! I am still too near Paris. Every day 
 that city sends me, even among my pines, spatter- 
 ings of her sadness. At the moment when I write 
 these lines, the news reaches me of poor Charles 
 Barbara's miserable death, and my mill is a place 
 of mourning. Adieu, curlews and cicadas ! I have 
 
The Man with the Golden Brain. 113 
 
 no heart now for gayety. This is why, madame, 
 instead of the lively, jesting story that I meant to 
 write for you, you must accept to-day one more 
 melancholy legend. 
 
 There was once a man with a golden brain ; yes, 
 madame, a brain all golden. When he came into 
 the world the doctors thought that the babe could 
 not live, so heavy was his head and his cranium so 
 developed. He did live, however, and he grew in 
 the sun Hke a beautiful olive-tree. But his big 
 head dragged him about, and it was pitiable to see 
 how he knocked against the furn. :ure as he went 
 along. He often fell. Once he rolled from the 
 top of a portico and struck his forehead on the 
 marble steps, and his skull rang like an ingot of 
 metal. They thought him dead ; but, on picking 
 him up, only a slight wound was found, out of 
 which two or three tiny drops of gold oozed into 
 his hair. This was how his parents first knew that 
 his brain was gold. 
 
 The thing was kept secret. The poor little fel- 
 low himself did not know it. Now and then he 
 would ask why they no longer let him run out to 
 play with the children in the street. 
 
 " They would steal you, my dear treasure," re- 
 plied his mother. 
 
 That gave the little one a great fear of being 
 stolen. He played alone, and said no more ; stag- 
 gering heavily from one room to another. 
 
 When he was eighteen years of age his parents 
 first revealed to him the abnormal gift he had 
 
 8 
 
114 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 received from fate ; and as they had brought him 
 up and fed him until that day, they asked him, in 
 return, for a Httle of his gold. The lad did not 
 hesitate. Instantly — how, or by what means, the 
 legend does not say — he tore from his brain a 
 morsel of massive gold, a piece as big as a nut, 
 and proudly flung it on his mother's lap. Then, 
 quite dazzled by the thought of the riches he 
 carried in his brain, mad with desires, drunk with 
 his power, he quitted his father's house and went 
 out into the world, squandering his treasure. 
 
 At the pace he led his life, in royal fashion, sow- 
 ing gold without counting it, one would have 
 thought that his brain was inexhaustible. It did 
 exhaust itself, however, and by degrees his eyes 
 grew dim, his cheeks hollow. At last, one morn- 
 ing after a wild debauch, the unfortunate fellow, 
 left alone amid the fragments of the feast and the 
 lamps that were paling, was horrified at the enor- 
 mous breach he had made in his ingots. It was 
 time to stop. 
 
 Henceforth, a new existence. The man with 
 the golden brain went away, to live apart, by the 
 work of his hands ; suspicious and timid as a 
 miser, fleeing from temptation, striving to forget, 
 himself, the fatal riches which he desired never 
 to touch again. Unfortunately, a friend followed 
 him into his solitude; and that friend knew his 
 secret. 
 
 One night the poor man was awakened by a pain 
 in his head, a dreadful pain ; he sprang up terri- 
 
The Man with the Golden Brain. 115 
 
 fied, and saw, in a moon ray, his friend hastily de- 
 parting and hiding something beneath his cloak. 
 
 A piece of his brain which was stolen from him ! 
 
 Some time later, the man with the golden brain 
 fell in love. This time all was over with him. 
 He loved with the best of his soul a fair-haired 
 little woman, who loved him in return, but never- 
 theless preferred bow-knots and feathers and pretty 
 bronze tassels to her boots. 
 
 Between the fingers of this dainty creature, half 
 bird, half doll, the gold slipped gayly away. She 
 had all the caprices; he never could say her 
 nay ; for fear of troubling her, he never told her 
 to the last about the melancholy source of his 
 fortune. 
 
 *' We must be very rich," she would say. 
 
 And the poor fellow answered : — 
 
 '* Oh, yes ! very rich indeed ! " 
 
 And so saying he smiled with love at the little 
 fairy bird that was eating his brain out innocently. 
 Sometimes, however, fears took possession of him ; 
 he longed to become a miser ; but then the httle 
 woman would come to him, skipping, and say : 
 
 " My husband, you are so rich, buy me some- 
 thing that is very costly." 
 
 And he bought her something that was very 
 costly. 
 
 This lasted two years; then, one morning, the 
 little woman died, no one knew why, like a bird. 
 The gold was almost at an end, and with what re- 
 mained of it the widower gave his dear lost love a 
 fine interment. Bells all ringing, mourning coaches 
 
ii6 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 draped with black, horses caparisoned, silver tears 
 upon the velvet, and great black plumes upon their 
 heads. Nothing seemed to him too magnificent. 
 What was his gold to him now ? He gave it to the 
 church, to the bearers, to those who sold the im- 
 mortelles; he gave it to every one, without a ques- 
 tion. So, on leaving the cemetery, almost nothing 
 remained to him of that marvellous brain, except a 
 few atoms in the corners of the cranium. 
 
 Then he was seen to go away through the 
 streets, with a wild look, his hands held out be- 
 fore him, stumbling along like a drunken man. 
 At night, when the arcades were brilliant, he 
 stopped before a large show-window in which a 
 mass of stuffs and adornments glittered under the 
 gaslight, and fixing his eyes on two pairs of blue 
 satin slippers lined with swan's-down, *' I wonder 
 which she would like best," he said to himself, 
 smiling. Then, forgetting already that the little 
 wife was dead, he entered to buy them. 
 
 At the farther end of the shop the owner heard 
 a loud cry ; rushing forward she recoiled with fear 
 on seeing a tall man leaning on the counter and 
 gazing at her stupefied. In one hand he was hold- 
 ing a pair of blue slippers lined with swan's-down ; 
 the other he held out to her, all cut and bleeding, 
 with fragments of gold at the tips of the nails. 
 
 That, madame, is the legend of the man with the 
 golden brain. 
 
 In spite of its fantastic air, this legend is true 
 from beginning to end. There are in this world 
 
The Man with the Golden Brain. 1 1 7 
 
 poor fellows who are compelled to live by their 
 brains, and to pay in the fine gold of their marrow 
 and substance for the smallest things of life. It is 
 their daily martyrdom ; and when they are weary 
 of suffering — ^ 
 
ii8 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 THE POET MISTRAL. 
 
 Last Sunday, on rising, I fancied I had waked 
 in the rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. It rained, 
 the sky was gray, the mill melancholy. I was afraid 
 to spend that cold, rainy day at home, and suddenly 
 a desire came to me to go and warm mysqlf up be- 
 side Frederic Mistral, that great poet, who lives 
 three leagues away from my pines in his little 
 village of Maillane. 
 
 No sooner thought than gone; a myrtle-wood 
 stick, my Montaigne, a wrap, and I am off ! 
 
 No one in the fields. Our noble Catholic Pro- 
 vence leaves the earth to rest on Sundays. The 
 farmhouses are closed, the dogs are alone in the 
 yards. Now and then I meet the waggon of a car- 
 rier with its streaming hood, or an old woman 
 wrapped in her mantle, colour of dead leaves, or 
 mules in their gala trappings, saddle-cloths of blue 
 and white matweed, scarlet pompons and silver 
 bells, drawing at a trot a carriole of the farm hands 
 going to mass ; and away over there, through the 
 fog, I see a boat on the pond and a fisherman 
 standing to cast his net. 
 
 No possibility of reading on the way. The rain 
 is falling in torrents and the tramontana is dashing 
 it in bucketfuls on my face. I do the way at a 
 
The Poet MistraL 119 
 
 rush ; and after a walk of three hours I see before 
 me the little cypress wood in the middle of which 
 Maillane shelters itself in dread of the wind. 
 
 Not a cat in the village streets ; everybody is at 
 high-mass. As I pass before the church the trom- 
 bones are snorting and I see the lighted candles 
 through the panes of coloured glass. 
 
 The poet's house is at the extreme end of the 
 village, the last house to the left on the road to 
 Saint-Remy, — a tiny house of one storey with a 
 garden in front. I enter softly. No one ! The 
 door of the salon is closed, but I hear behind it 
 some one who is walking about and talking. The 
 voice and step are known to me. I stop a moment 
 in the little whitewashed passage, my hand on the 
 button of the door, quite agitated. My heart is 
 beating. He is there. At work. Must I wait till the 
 strophe is composed? T faith, no. I will enter. 
 
 Ah ! Parisians, when the poet of Maillane went 
 to you to show Paris to his Mireille, and you saw 
 him in your salons, that Chactas in a dress coat, 
 a stiff collar, and the tall hat which hampered him, 
 as did his fame, you thought that was Mistral. 
 No, it was not he. There is but one Mistral in 
 the world, he whom I surprised last Sunday in his 
 village with a felt hat on one ear, a jacket, no 
 waistcoat, a red Catalan waistband round his loins, 
 his eye blazing, the fire of inspiration on his 
 cheek-bones, superb, with a kind smile, graceful 
 as a Greek shepherd, and walking up and down, 
 his hands in his pockets, making poetry. 
 
1 20 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 "What? is it you?" cried Mistral, springing to 
 embrace me. '' What a good idea of yours to come ! 
 This is the fete day of Maillane. We have a band 
 from Avignon, bulls, a procession, the farandole ; 
 it will all be magnificent. My mother will soon be 
 home from mass ; we shall have breakfast, and then, 
 zou ! we '11 go and see the pretty girls dance.*' 
 
 While he spoke, I looked with emotion at the 
 httle salon hung in light colours, which I had not 
 seen for a long time, but where I had passed so 
 many glorious hours. Nothing was changed. Still 
 the same sofa with yellow squares, the two arm- 
 chairs of straw, the Venus without arms, the 
 Venus of Aries on the mantel, the portrait of the 
 poet by Hebert, his photograph by fitienne Carjat 
 and, in a corner, near the window, the desk (a 
 shabby little registration-clerk's desk) piled with 
 old volumes and dictionaries. At the centre of 
 the desk I saw a large open manuscript. This 
 was Calendaly — Mistral's new poem, which will 
 appear on Christmas-day of the present year. 
 This poem. Mistral has been working at for seven 
 years, and it is now six months since he wrote the 
 last line of it; but he dares not part from it yet. 
 You understand, there is always a verse to polish, 
 a rhyme more sonorous to find. Though Mistral 
 composes wholly in the Proven9al language, he 
 writes and rewrites his lines as if all the world 
 could read them in their own tongue and do jus- 
 tice to his labour as a good workman. Oh ! the 
 noble poet ! it is surely of Mistral that Montaigne 
 might have said : — 
 
The Poet MistraL 121 
 
 " Do you remember him of whom it was asked 
 why he took such trouble about an art which 
 could reach the knowledge of so few persons? 
 * The few are enough for me/ he answered. * One 
 is enough. None is enough.' " 
 
 I took the manuscript of Calendal in my hand, 
 and I turned its leaves with emotion. Suddenly 
 a burst of fifes and tambourines sounded in the 
 street beneath the windows, and behold, my Mis- 
 tral rushing to his closet, bringing out glasses and 
 bottles, dragging the table to the middle of the 
 salon, and opening the door to the musicians, say- 
 ing to me as he did so : — 
 
 ** Don't laugh. They have come to serenade me. 
 I am a municipal counsellor." 
 
 The little room became crowded with people. 
 They laid their tambourines on the chairs and put 
 their old banner in a corner. Boiled wine cir- 
 culated. Then, when several bottles had been 
 emptied to the health of M. Frederic and they 
 had gravely conversed together about the festival 
 — would the farandole be as fine as last year? 
 would the bulls behave properly? — the musicians 
 retired to go and greet the other members of the 
 Council with a like serenade. At this moment 
 Mistral's mother appeared. 
 
 In a turn of the hand the table is laid with a fine 
 white cloth and two places. I know the customs 
 of the house. I know that when Mistral has com- 
 pany his mother never sits at table. The poor 
 old woman speaks only Provencal, and would feel 
 
122 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 very ill at her ease with Frenchmen. Besides, she 
 is wanted in the kitchen. 
 
 Dieu I the good meal I made that morning : a 
 bit of roast kid, some mountain cheese, grape jelly, 
 figs, and muscat grapes. The whole washed down 
 with that good Chdteau-neuf des Papes that has so 
 fine a rosy colour in the glasses. 
 
 At dessert, I fetched the poem and laid it on 
 the table before Mistral. 
 
 " But we said we would go out,'* said the poet, 
 smiling. 
 
 *' No, no ! Calendal I Calendal! " 
 
 Mistral resigned himself, and in his soft and 
 musical voice, beating time to his lines with his 
 hand, he sang the first quatrain : '* Of a girl mad 
 with love, — I have told the sad adventure, — and 
 I now will sing, if God so wills, a child of Cassis — 
 a poor little sardine fisher." 
 
 Without, the bells were ringing for vespers, the 
 fire-crackers burst in the square, the fifes and the 
 tambourines marched up and down, and the bulls 
 of the Camargue, held ready for the race, bellowed 
 loudly. 
 
 I, my elbows on the cloth, and with tears in my 
 eyes, I listened to the tale of the little Provencal 
 fisher-lad. 
 
 Calendal was only a fisher-lad ; love made him 
 a hero. To win the heart of his darling, the lovely 
 Esterella, he undertook marvellous things, beside 
 which the labours of Hercules, those twelve labours, 
 were nothing. 
 
The Poet Mistral. 123 
 
 Once, taking a notion to be rich, he invented a 
 formidable fishing-net, and with it he brought into 
 port all the fish of the sea. 
 
 Again, 't was the terrible bandit of the gorges 
 of Ollioules, Count S^veran; whom he drove to 
 his eyrie on the heights, with his cut-throats and 
 concubines. 
 
 What a bold little chap, this Calendal ! One day 
 at Sainte-Baume, he met two parties of knights, 
 come to settle their quarrel by orthodox blows at 
 the tomb of Maitre Jacques, — a Provencal who, 
 an it please you, built the frame of the temple of 
 Solomon. Calendal, fearing nothing, rushed head- 
 long in the midst of the killing, appeasing the 
 knights with his tongue. 
 
 Other superhuman undertakings ! Among the 
 rocks of Lure, was a forest of cedars, inaccessible, 
 where never a woodsman dared to go. Calendal 
 went. There he lived all alone for thirty days. 
 During those thirty days the sound of his axe was 
 heard, driven deep in the trees. The forest moaned ; 
 one after another its old, giant trees fell and were 
 rolled to the foot of the precipice, so that when 
 Calendal came down not a cedar remained on the 
 mountain. 
 
 At last, in reward for such prowess, the sardine 
 fisher obtains the love of Esterella, and is named 
 first consul by the dwellers in Cassis. That is 
 the tale of Calendal; but Calendal matters but 
 little. What there is above all in the poem is — 
 Provence; Provence of the sea, Provence of the 
 mountain ; with its history, legends, manners, cus- 
 
1 24 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 toms, landscapes — a whole people, naive and free, 
 who have found their great poet before he dies. 
 And now, hne out your railways, plant those tele- 
 graph poles, drive the Proven9al tongue from the 
 schools! Provence will live eternally in Mireille 
 and in CalendaL 
 
 " Enough of poesy ! " cried Mistral, closing his 
 manuscript. " Let us go and see the fete." 
 
 We started ; the whole village was in the streets ; 
 a great north wind had swept the sky, which was 
 gleaming, joyous, on the dark red roofs that were 
 damp with rain. We got there in time to see the 
 return of the procession. For an hour it was one 
 interminable defiling of cowled penitents, white 
 penitents, blue penitents, gray penitents; sister- 
 hoods of veiled women, rose-coloured banners with 
 golden flowers, great gilded wooden saints, much 
 tarnished, carried on the shoulders of men, female 
 saints in earthenware, coloured like idols, with bou- 
 quets in their hands, copes, monstrances, a green 
 velvet dais, a crucifix swathed in white silk undulat- 
 ing to the breeze in the light of sun and torches, 
 amid psalms, litanies, and bells madly ringing. 
 
 The procession over, the saints put back in their 
 chapel, we went to see the bulls, then the games on 
 the barn-floors, the wrestling, the three jumps, the 
 strangle-cat, the bottle-game, and the whole of the 
 pretty fun of a Provence fete. Night was coming 
 on when we returned to Maillane. On the square, 
 before the little cafe where Mistral goes in the even- 
 ing to play a game with his friend Zidore, a great 
 
The Poet Mistral. 125 
 
 bonfire was lighted. The farandole was organized. 
 Open-work paper lanterns were lighted in the dark 
 corners: youth took the field; and soon, at the 
 call of the tambourines, began, around the flame, a 
 whirling, noisy dance, which would last all night. 
 
 After supper, too weary to go about any longer, 
 Mistral and I went up to his chamber, a mod- 
 est peasant's-chamber, with two large beds. The 
 walls are not papered, the rafters of the ceiling are 
 visible. Four years ago, when the Academy gave 
 to the author of Mireille that prize of three thou- 
 sand francs, Madame Mistral had an idea. 
 
 " Suppose we paper and ceil your room?" 
 
 " No ! no ! " cried Mistral, " that *s the money 
 of poets, don't touch it." 
 
 So the room was left bare ; but so long as the 
 money of poets lasted those who rapped at Mis- 
 tral's door found his purse open. 
 
 I had brought up the sheets of Calendal, for I 
 wanted to make him read me a passage before I 
 went to sleep. Mistral chose the pottery incident ; 
 and here it is in a few words : — 
 
 The scene is a great re^past, I know not where. 
 They bring upon the table a magnificent service 
 of the glazed pottery of Moustiers. In the centre 
 of each plate, designed in blue on the enamel, is 
 a Provencal subject ; a whole history of the region 
 is there. It is wonderful to see with what love the 
 beautiful service is described, a verse to every 
 plate, and each a little poem of naXve and learned 
 workmanship, finished as an idyll of Theocritus. 
 
126 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 While Mistral was repeating his poems in that 
 beautiful Provencal language, more than three- 
 fourths Latin, the language that queens once spoke 
 and none but shepherds can now understand, I 
 admired within me that man ; and, reflecting on the 
 condition of ruin in which he found his mother- 
 tongue and what he had made of it, I fancied myself 
 in one of those old palaces of the princes of Baux, 
 such as we still see in the Alpilles, roofless, with- 
 out rails to the porticos, without sashes to the 
 windows, the trefoil of the arches broken, the 
 blazon on the doorways eaten by mosses, hens 
 marauding in the courts of honour, porkers wallow- 
 ing beneath the dainty columns of the galleries, 
 donkeys browsing in the chapel where the grass 
 is green, and pigeons drinking from the holy-water 
 basins now filled by rain, while among these dilapi- 
 dated remains of the past, two or three families 
 have built themselves huts in the flanks of the old 
 palace. Then, some fine day, the son of a peasant 
 is seized with admiration for these grand ruins; 
 he is indignant at seeing them so profaned : quick, 
 quick, he drives out the cattle and the poultry 
 from the court of honour and — the fairies lending 
 him a hand — he reconstructs the great staircase, 
 replaces the panels of the walls, the sashes of the 
 windows, builds up the towers, regilds the throne 
 and its hall, and raises once more upon its base 
 the vast old palace of other days, where popes and 
 empresses lodged and lived. 
 
 That restored palace is the Provencal language. 
 
 That son of a peasant is Mistral. 
 
Ora^iges. 127 
 
 ORANGES. 
 
 In Paris oranges have the melancholy air of 
 fruit that is dropped from the tree and picked up 
 from the ground. At the time when they arrive, 
 in the cold and rainy midwinter, their high-coloured 
 skins, their excessive perfume in our land of tran- 
 quil tastes, give them an exotic aspect, a little 
 bohemian. Of a misty night they perambulate 
 the side-walks, heaped in their little handcarts, by 
 the dull light of a red paper lantern. A monoto- 
 nous and feeble cry escorts them, lost in the roll 
 of carriages and the rattle of omnibuses: *'Two 
 sous a Valentia ! " 
 
 To three-fourths of all Parisians, this fruit gath- 
 ered afar, monotonous in its roundness, in which the 
 tree has left nothing but a small green twig, seems 
 to belong to confectionery, to sweetmeats. The 
 tissue paper which wraps it, the fetes it accom- 
 panies, contribute to this impression. Toward the 
 last of the year especially, thousands of oranges 
 disseminated through the streets, the peels that lie 
 about in the mud of the gutters, make one think 
 of some gigantic Christmas tree shaking over Paris 
 its branches laden with imitation fruit. Not a 
 corner where we do not find them. In the large 
 
128 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 show windows selected and arranged ; at the door 
 of prisons and hospitals, among packages of biscuit 
 and piles of apples; before the entrances to the 
 Sunday balls and theatres. Their exquisite per- 
 fume mingles with the odour of gas, the scraping 
 of fiddles, the dust of the benches in paradise. 
 We have come to forget that oranges grow on 
 orange-trees, for while the fruit arrives from the 
 South in boxes, the trimmed, transformed, dis- 
 guised tree of the greenhouse where it has passed 
 the winter, makes but a short apparition in our 
 gardens. 
 
 To know oranges well, you must see them at 
 home, in the Balearic Isles, in Sardinia, Corsica, 
 Algeria, in the blue, gilded air and the warm 
 atmosphere of the Mediterranean. I remember a 
 little grove of orange-trees at the gates of Blidah ; 
 ah ! it is there that they are beautiful. Amid the 
 dark, lustrous, varnished foliage the fruits have the 
 splendour of coloured glass ; they gild the envi- 
 roning air with the dazzling halo that surrounds a 
 glowing flower. Here and there little clearings 
 through the branches showed the ramparts of the 
 town, the minaret of a mosque, the dome of a saint's 
 tomb, and, towering above them all, the enormous 
 mass of Atlas, green at its base, and crowned with 
 snow like a fleece or a white fur softly fallen. 
 
 One night while I was there, I do not know by 
 what phenomenon, unknown for thirty years, that 
 upper zone of wintry hoar-frost shook itself down 
 upon the sleeping town, and Blidah awoke trans- 
 formed, powdered to white. In that Algerine air, 
 
Oranges. 129 
 
 so light, so pure, the snow was like a dust of 
 mother-of-pearl. It had all the reflections of a 
 white peacock's plume. Most beautiful of all was 
 the orange grove. The solid leaves held the snow 
 intact, Hke sherbet on a lacquered dish ; and the 
 fruit, all powdered with the hoar-frost, had a soft- 
 ened splendour, a discreet glow, like gold veiled 
 lightly in gauze. The scene had vaguely the 
 effect of a church festival, of red cassocks under 
 robes of lace, the golden altars swathed in guipure. 
 But my best memory of oranges comes to me 
 from Barbicaglia, a great garden near Ajaccio, 
 where I went for my siesta in the heat of the day. 
 Here the orange-trees, taller and more spreading 
 than those of Blidah, come down to the main road, 
 from which the garden is separated by only a ditch 
 and an evergreen hedge. Immediately beyond is 
 the sea, the vast blue sea. . . Oh ! what good hours 
 did I pass in that garden ! Above my head the 
 orange-trees, in bloom and in fruit, exhaled the 
 perfume of their essence. From time to time a 
 ripe orange, as though weighed down by the heat, 
 fell beside me with a flat, echoless sound on the 
 fecund earth. I had only to put out my hand. 
 The fruit was superb, of a crimson red within. It 
 seemed to me exquisite — and then, the horizon 
 was so beautiful ! Between the leaves the sea put 
 azure spaces, dazzling as pieces of broken glass 
 shimmering in the quiver of the air. And with 
 all that, the motion of the waves stirring the at- 
 mosphere at a great distance with a cadenced 
 murmur which rocked you like an unseen boat, 
 
 9 
 
130 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 and the warmth, and the odour of the oranges ! 
 Ah ! how good it was to sleep in the garden of 
 BarbicagHa ! 
 
 Sometimes, however, at the pleasantest moment 
 of the siesta, the roll of drums would rouse me with 
 a start. It was those wretched little drummers, 
 practising below on the main-road. Through gaps 
 in the hedge I could see the brass of their instru- 
 ments and their great white aprons on their red 
 trousers. To shelter themselves a little from the 
 blinding light which the dust of the road reflected 
 pitilessly, the poor young devils would plant them- 
 selves at the foot of the garden in the scanty 
 shadow of the hedge. And they drummed ! and 
 they were so hot ! Then, wrenching myself forcibly 
 from my hypnotism, I amused myself by flinging 
 them some of that beautiful golden-red fruit which 
 hung close to my hand. The drummer first aimed 
 at stopped. There was a moment's hesitation, a 
 look went round to see whence came that splendid 
 orange rolling before him into the ditch ; then he 
 picked it up very fast and bit into it with his teeth 
 without peeling off the skin. 
 
 I remember also that close to Barbicaglia and 
 separated from it by a low wall, was a queer little 
 garden that I could look into from the height where 
 I lay. 'Twas a small corner of earth laid out in 
 bourgeois fashion. Its paths, yellow with sand 
 and bordered with very green box, and the two 
 cypresses at its entrance gave it the appearance 
 of a Marseillaise surburban villa garden. Not an 
 atom of shade. At the farther end was a building 
 
Oranges. 131 
 
 of white stone with cellar windows on a line with 
 the ground. At first, I thought it a country- 
 house; then looking closer, a cross that sur- 
 mounted it, an inscription cut into the stone that 
 I could see from a distance without distinguishing 
 the letters, made me recognize it as the tomb 
 of a Corsican family. All around Ajaccio, there 
 are many of these mortuary chapels, built in 
 gardens of their own. The family comes on 
 Sunday to pay a visit to its dead. Thus treated, 
 death is less lugubrious than amid the confusion 
 of cemeteries. The feet of friends alone break 
 the silence. 
 
 From my station above, I could see a good old 
 man coming and going tranquilly along the paths. 
 Every day he trimmed the trees, he spaded, watered, 
 and picked off the faded flowers with infinite care ; 
 then, when the sun was setting, he always entered 
 the little chapel where the dead of his family were 
 sleeping; and he put away his spades and rakes 
 and watering-pots, with the tranquillity, the serenity 
 of a cemetery gardener. And yet, without himself 
 being aware of it, the good man worked with a cer- 
 tain gravity ; he subdued all noises and closed the 
 door of the vault discreetly, as if fearing to awaken 
 an inmate. In the great gloVing silence the neat- 
 ness of the little garden was never troubled by even 
 a bird, and its neighbourhood had nothing sad about 
 it. Only, the sea seemed more immense, the 
 heavens higher, and the endless siesta shed around 
 the place, amid a troubled nature oppressive in its 
 strength of life, the feeling of eternal repose. 
 
132 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 THE TWO INNS. 
 
 It happened when returning from Mmes, one 
 July afternoon. The heat was exhausting. As 
 far as the eye could reach the white road, smok- 
 ing, powdered along between olive-gardens and 
 scrub-oaks, beneath a silvery sun-glare that filled 
 the whole sky. Not a patch of shade, not a breath 
 of wind. Nothing but the vibration of that hot air, 
 and the strident noise of the grasshoppers, a crazy, 
 deafening music to quick time, which seemed like 
 the actual sonority of that vast luminous pulsa- 
 tion. I had walked, as it were in the desert, for 
 two whole hours when suddenly, before me, a 
 group of white houses defined themselves in the 
 dust from the road. This was what was called the 
 ** relay of Saint Vincent;" five or six buildings, 
 long barns with red roofs, a drinking trough with- 
 out water, in a clump of spindling fig-trees ; and, 
 quite at the farther end, two large inns facing each 
 other from opposite sides of the road. 
 
 The neighbouring of these two inns had some- 
 thing peculiar about it. On one side a great new 
 building, full of life and animation ; all doors open, 
 the diligence stopping before it, the smoking 
 horses there unharnessed, the travellers getting 
 out to drink in haste on the road in the scanty 
 
The Two Imzs. 133 
 
 shadow of the walls, the courtyard crowded with 
 mules and carts and the carters lying under the 
 sheds for coolness. Within, shouts, oaths, fists 
 pounding on the tables, the rattling of glasses 
 and billiard-balls, lemonade bottles popping ; and 
 above this din a joyous, ringing voice, singing in 
 a tone that shook the windows : — 
 
 ** My pretty Margoton 
 Early has risen, 
 Taken her silver bowl, 
 Gone to the cistern." 
 
 The inn directly opposite, on the contrary, was 
 silent and as if abandoned. Grass was under the 
 gateway, shutters were broken; above the door a 
 rusty twig of fe^i'hung down like a broken feather,, 
 the step of the door was lower than the stones ef 
 the street. It was all so poor, so pitiable, that it 
 was really a charity to stop there and drink a drop. 
 
 On entering I found a long hall, silent and 
 gloomy, which the dazzling light of three large 
 windows seemed to render gloomier and more 
 silent still. A few lame tables on which were 
 glasses dim with dust, a ragged billiard-table hold- 
 ing out its pockets like almsbags, a yellow divan, 
 an old counter, were slumbering there in heavy, 
 unwholesome heat. And flies ! flies ! never did I 
 see so many; on the ceilings, sticking to the win- 
 dows, to the glasses, in clusters. When I opened 
 the door there was a buzz, and a humming of wings 
 as if I had entered a bee-hive. 
 
 At the farther end of the hall, in the embrasure 
 
1 34 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 of a window stood a woman, her face against the 
 panes, quite absorbed in looking out into the street. 
 I called her twice : — 
 
 ** Hey ! hostess ! " 
 
 She turned round slowly, and showed me a poor 
 peasant face, wrinkled, fissured, the colour of the 
 soil, framed in long lappets of rusty lace, such as 
 the old women wear in these parts. And yet she 
 was not an old woman; but tears had withered 
 her. 
 
 *^What do you want?'' she asked, wiping her 
 eyes. 
 
 ** To sit down a minute, and drink something." 
 
 She looked at me much surprised, without mov- 
 ing from her place, as if she did not understand me. 
 
 " Is not this an inn? " 
 
 The woman sighed. 
 
 **Yes — it is an inn, if you choose. But why 
 don't you go, like others, over the way? It is 
 gayer there." 
 
 " It is too gay for me. I prefer to stay here." 
 
 And without waiting for any reply I seated my- 
 self at a table. 
 
 When she was sure that I meant what I said, the 
 landlady bustled about with a very busy air, open- 
 ing drawers, moving bottles, dusting glasses, dis- 
 turbing the flies. One felt that the arrival of a 
 traveller to serve was quite an event. Now and then 
 the poor creature paused and put her hand to her 
 head as if she despaired of accomplishing anything. 
 
 Then she went into a room at the end of the 
 hall, and I heard her jingling keys, trying them in 
 
The Two Inns. 135 
 
 the locks, opening the bread-box, blowing, dust- 
 ing, washing plates. From time to time, a heavy- 
 sigh or a stifled sob. 
 
 After a quarter of an hour of this performance 
 I had before me a dish oi passerilles (dried grapes) 
 an old loaf of Beaucaire bread as hard as sand- 
 stone, and a bottle of sour wine. 
 
 '' You are served," said the strange creature ; 
 and she turned away hastily to resume her station 
 at the window. 
 
 While I drank I tried to make her talk. 
 
 " You don't have many people here, do you, my 
 poor woman ? " 
 
 *' Oh, no, monsieur, never any one. When we 
 were alone in the business, things were very differ- 
 ent. Then we had the relays, and the hunters to 
 dine in the duck-season, and carriages all the year 
 round. But since our neighbours came and set- 
 tled here we have lost everything. People prefer 
 to go opposite. They think it is too gloomy 
 here. The fact is, this house is not very agree- 
 able. I am not handsome, I have fever and ague, 
 and my two little ones are dead. Over there, on 
 the contrary, they are laughing all the time. It is 
 an Arlesian woman who keeps that inn, a hand- 
 some woman with laces and three rows of gold 
 chain round her neck. The conductor js her lover, 
 and he takes the diligence there. Besides which, 
 there 's a lot of cajolers as chamber-maids. And 
 that brings her such custom ! She gets all the 
 young men of Bezouces, Redessan, and Jon- 
 
1 36 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 quieres. The bagmen come out of their way to 
 stop there. As for me, I am left all day alone, 
 doing nothing." 
 
 She said it with an absent, indifferent air, her 
 forehead still leaning against the panes. Evi- 
 dently, there was something in that opposite inn 
 which absorbed her mind. 
 
 All of a sudden, on the other side of the way, a 
 great commotion took place. The diligence was 
 preparing to start. I heard the cracks of the 
 whip, the postilion's horn, and the maids about the 
 doorway crying out : ^* Adiousas ! Adiousas ! " and 
 louder than all, that strong voice I had heard be- 
 fore, singing more vigorously than ever : — 
 
 " Taken her silver bowl, 
 Gone to the cistern. 
 Sees not approaching her 
 Three cavaliers.** 
 
 At the sound of that voice the landlady's whole 
 body quivered, and, turning to me, she said in a 
 low voice : — 
 
 " Do you hear him ? That is my husband. 
 Does n't he sing well? " 
 
 I looked at her, amazed. 
 
 " Your husband ! Does he go over there, too ? " 
 
 Then she, with a heart-broken air, but very 
 gently : — 
 
 *' It can't be helped, monsieur. Men are hke 
 that ; they hate to see tears ; and I am always cry- 
 ing since I lost my little ones. Besides, this great 
 barrack where no one comes is so gloomy. And 
 when he is quite tired of it my poor Jose goes over 
 
. The Two Inns. 137 
 
 there to drink, and as he has a fine voice the 
 Arlesian woman makes him sing. Hush ! there he 
 is again." 
 
 And, trembling, her hands outstretched, with 
 big tears rolling down her cheeks, making her look 
 uglier than ever, she stood there as if in ecstasy to 
 hear her Jose singing for the Arlesian woman : — 
 
 " My pretty Margoton 
 Early has risen." 
 
138 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 AT MILIANAH. 
 NOTES OF TRAVEL. 
 
 This time I take you to spend a day in a pretty 
 little town of Algeria, two or three hundred leagues 
 from my mill. That will make a little change from 
 tambourines .and grasshoppers. 
 
 It is going to rain, the sky is gray, the crests of 
 Mont Zaccar are swathed in fog. A melancholy 
 Sunday. In my little hotel-chamber with its window 
 looking to the Arab ramparts, I try to amuse my- 
 self by Hghting cigarettes. The library of the hotel 
 has been placed at my disposal. Between a full 
 and detailed history of the registration and a novel 
 of Paul de Kock I discover a dilapidated volume 
 of Montaigne. I open the book at random and 
 re-read the admirable letter on the death of the 
 Boetie. I am now more dreamy and sombre than 
 ever. A few drops of rain are beginning to fall. 
 Every drop, as it falls on the window sill, makes a 
 great star in the dust that has settled there since 
 the rains of last year. The book slips from my 
 fingers, and I spend long minutes in gazing at that 
 melancholy splash. 
 
 Two o'clock rings from the tower of the town — 
 the former tomb of a saint, the frail white walls of 
 which I can see from here. Poor devil of a saint ! 
 
At Milianak. 139 
 
 how little he thought thirty years ago, that he 
 would carry on his breast the huge face of a 
 municipal clock, and that every Sunday at two 
 o'clock he would give to the churches of Milianah 
 the signal to ring for vespers. Ding dong ! there 
 go the bells ! and long will they ring. Decidedly, 
 this room is melancholy. Those big matutinal 
 spiders called philosophical thoughts are spinning 
 their webs in every corner. I shall go out. 
 
 I reach the great square. The band of the 3rd 
 infantry, which a little rain does not frighten, is. 
 gathering round its leader. At one of the windows 
 of headquarters the general appears, surrounded 
 by his young ladies ; on the square the sub-prefect 
 is walking about arm in arm with the justice of 
 peace. Hdlf a dozen little Arabs, nearly naked, 
 are playing marbles in a corner with ferocious 
 yells. Over there is an old Jew in rags seeking 
 for the sunshine he left on that spot yesterday, and 
 quite surprised not to find it. ** One, two, three ! '* 
 and the band starts off with an old mazurka by 
 Talexy which the barrel organs were playing 
 under my window a year ago. That mazurka 
 annoyed me then; to-day it moves me to tears. 
 
 Oh ! how lucky they are those musicians of the 
 3rd infantry. Their eyes fixed on their semi- 
 quavers, tipsy with rhythm and racket, they are 
 thinking of nothing but counting their time. 
 Their soul, their whole soul is in that square 
 of paper the size of my hand which trembles at 
 the end of their instruments between two brass 
 
140 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 pins. " One, two, three ! '* That 's the whole 
 of it for those worthy fellows; never do the 
 national airs they play give them a thought of 
 home-sickness. Alas ! I, who am not of the band, 
 am distressed by the band, and I depart. 
 
 Where shall I spend it, this dismal Sunday after- 
 noon? . . Good! Sid' Omar's shop is open. I'll 
 spend it with Sid' Omar. 
 
 Though he has a shop, Sid' Omar is not a shop- 
 keeper. He is a prince of the blood, the son of 
 a former Dey of Algiers who was strangled by 
 the janissaries. On the death of his father, Sid* 
 Omar took refuge in Milianah with his mother, 
 whom he adored, and there he lived some years 
 philosophically as a great seigneur, among his 
 hounds and falcons, his horses and his women, 
 in pretty, airy palaces full of orange-trees and 
 fountains. Then came the French. Sid' Omar, 
 at first our enemy and the ally of Abd-el-Kader, 
 ended by quarrelling with the emir and making 
 his submission to us. Abd-el-Kader, to avenge 
 himself, entered Milianah, during Sid' Omar's 
 absence, pillaged his palaces, cut down his orange- 
 trees, carried off his horses and women, and caused 
 his mother's throat to be crushed by the shutting 
 down of the lid of a great coffer. The anger of 
 Sid' Omar was terrible. Instantly he entered the 
 French service, and we had no better or more 
 ferocious soldier than he during all the time the 
 war against the emir lasted. That war over, 
 Sid' Omar returned to Milianah; but even to-day 
 
At Milimiah. 141 
 
 if you mention the name of Abd-el-Kader in his 
 presence, he turns pale, and his eyes blaze. 
 
 Sid' Omar is sixty years old. In spite of years 
 and the smallpox, his face is still handsome ; long 
 lashes, the glance of a woman, a charming smile, 
 the air of a prince. Ruined by the war^ nothing 
 is left of his former opulence but a farm on the 
 Chelif plain, and a house at Milianah, where he 
 lives in bourgeois fashion with his three sons, 
 whom he is bringing up under his own eye. The 
 native chieftains hold him in great veneration. 
 When a discussion arises they willingly take him 
 as umpire; and his decision is almost always re- 
 garded as law. He seldom goes out; you will 
 find him every afternoon in a shop adjoining his 
 house, which opens on the street. The furniture 
 of this place is not splendid, — white-washed walls, 
 a circular wooden bench, cushions, pipes, and two 
 foot-warmers. That is where Sid' Omar gives au- 
 dience and lays down the law. Solomon in a shop. 
 
 To-day, being Sunday, the company is numerous. 
 A dozen sheiks are crouched in their burnous, 
 round the room. Each has beside him a large 
 pipe and a little cup of coffee in a delicate filigree 
 holder. I enter; no one stirs. From his place 
 Sid' Omar sends me his most charming smile 
 and invites me with his hand to sit near him on 
 a large cushion of yellow silk. Then, with his 
 finger on his lips, he makes me a sign to 
 listen. 
 
 This is why: The caid of the Benizougzougs 
 
142 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 having a dispute with a Milianah Jew about a bit of 
 ground, both parties had agreed to carry the 
 matter to Sid' Omar and submit to his decision. 
 Appointment was made for the same day; the 
 witnesses were summoned ; when, all of a sudden, 
 the Jew changed his mind, and came alone, with- 
 out witnesses, to declare that he preferred to sub- 
 mit the matter to the French justice of peace, 
 rather than Sid' Omar. That was how the affair 
 stood at my entrance. 
 
 The Jew — old, with a dirty beard, maroon 
 jacket, blue stockings, velvet cap — raised his nose 
 to heaven, rolled supplicating eyes, kissed the 
 slippers of Sid' Omar, bowed his head and knelt 
 with clasped hands. I don't understand Arabic, 
 but from this pantomime, during which the words 
 *' joustice of peace, joustice of peace " recurred 
 incessantly, I could guess the whole of the shrewd 
 meaning : — 
 
 " We do not doubt Sid' Omar ; Sid' Omar is wise, 
 Sid* Omar is just. But the joustice of peace will 
 do better by us." 
 
 The audience, indignant, remained impassible, 
 as Arabs are wont to be. Stretched out upon his 
 cushion, eyes hazy, the amber-mouth-piece be- 
 tween his lips, Sid' Omar — god of irony — smiled 
 as he hstened. Suddenly, in the midst of his wiliest 
 sentence, the Jew is interrupted by an energetic 
 *' Caramba ! " which stops him short ; and at the 
 same instant a Spanish colonist, who was there as 
 a witness for the ca'fd, left his place, and approach- 
 ing Iscariot poured upon him a deluge of impreca- 
 
At Milianak. 143 
 
 tions in all tongues and all colours — among them 
 a certain French vocable too gross, monsieur, to 
 repeat here. The son of Sid' Omar, who under- 
 stood French, blushed at hearing such a word in 
 his father's presence and left the place. (Remem- 
 ber this trait of Arab education.) 
 
 The audience was still impassible, Sid' Omar 
 still smiling. The Jew rose and backed towards 
 the door, trembling with fear, but still warbling his 
 eternal ''joustice of peace, joustice of peace." He 
 went out. The Spaniard furious, rushed after him 
 and twice — vli ! vlan ! — struck him in the face. 
 Iscariot fell on his knees, his arms crossed. The 
 Spaniard, rather ashamed, returned to the shop. 
 As soon as he had entered, the Jew pit:ked himself 
 up, and turned an artful eye on the variegated 
 crowd that surrounded him; a crowd in which 
 there were men of all skins — Maltese, Mahonese, 
 negroes, Arabs, all united in hatred to a Jew and 
 delighting in seeing him maltreated. Iscariot hesi- 
 tated a moment ; then, taking an Arab by the flap 
 of his burnous, — 
 
 ''You saw it, Achmed, you saw it; you were 
 there. The Christian struck me. You must be 
 witness — yes, yes, you shall be witness." 
 
 The Arab freed his burnous and pushed away 
 the Jew. He knows nothing; he saw nothing; 
 he was looking the other way. 
 
 '' But you, Kadour, you saw it ; you saw the 
 Christian strike me," cries the luckless Iscariot to 
 a big negro who was peeling a Barbary fig. 
 
 The negro spat in sign of contempt, and walked 
 
1 44 Letters front My MilL 
 
 away — he had seen nothing. Neither had a little 
 Maltese fellow seen anything with his coal-black 
 eyes glittering malignantly beneath his beretta; 
 nor she, that Mahonese woman with the brick- 
 coloured skin, who ran off laughing, carrying a 
 basket of pomegranates on her head. 
 
 In vain did Iscariot shout, beg, beseech — not 
 a witness, no one had seen anything. By great 
 good luck two of his co-religionists happened to 
 come by at this moment, skirting the walls with a 
 hang-dog look. The Jew spied them. 
 
 *' Quick, quick, brothers ! quick to the joustice 
 of peace! You saw him, you two; you saw him 
 how he struck the old man." 
 
 Had they seen it? I should think so ! 
 
 Great excitement in Sid' Omar's shop. The 
 coffeeman refilled the cups and relit the pipes. 
 They talked, they laughed with all their teeth. It 
 is so amusing to see a Jew beaten ! In the midst 
 of the general clatter I slipped softly to the door ; I 
 wanted to wander about the Jewish quarter and 
 see how Iscariot's co-religionists were taking the 
 affront thus put upon their brother. 
 
 *^ Come and dine to-night, moiissieUy' called out 
 the good Sid' Omar. 
 
 I accepted, thanked him, and went out. 
 
 In the Jewish quarter every one was afoot. 
 The affair had already made a great noise. No 
 one was inside the booths. Embroiderers, tailors, 
 harness-makers — all Israel was in the streets. 
 The men, wearing velvet caps and blue stockings, 
 
At Milianah. 145 
 
 gesticulated noisily in groups. The women, pale, 
 puffy, stiff as wooden idols in their tight gowns 
 with gilded stomachers, their faces framed in 
 heavy black bandeaux, were going from group to 
 group, caterwauling. Just as I arrived a great 
 impulse was given to the crowd. They pressed 
 together and hurried along. Accompanied by his 
 witnesses, the Jew, the hero of the adventure, 
 passed between two hedges of his co-religionists 
 under a rain of exhortations : — 
 
 " Avenge yourself, brother ! Avenge us ! 
 Avenge the Jewish people ! Fear nothing ; you 
 have the law on your side." 
 
 A frightful dwarf, smelling of pitch and old 
 leather, came up to me with a piteous air and said, 
 sighing heavily : — 
 
 **You see how they treat us poor Jews. He 
 is an old man ! look at him. They have nearly 
 killed him." 
 
 And, in truth, poor Iscariot did look more dead 
 than alive. He passed in front of me — eyes 
 dulled, face ghastly; not walking but dragging 
 himself along. A good indemnity alone could 
 cure him. Consequently, they did not take him 
 to a doctor, but to a lawyer. 
 
 There are many lawyers in Algeria, almost as 
 many as there are grasshoppers. The trade is 
 a good one, they say. At any rate, it has this 
 advantage, it can be taken up at any time, without 
 examinations, without sureties, without probation. 
 Just as in Paris we make ourselves men of letters, 
 
146 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 in Algeria they make themselves lawyers. It is 
 enough to know a little French, Spanish, Arabic, 
 to have a code at your fingers' ends, and, above 
 all, the temperament of the trade. 
 
 As for the functions of this agent, they are 
 varied ; by turns solicitor, barrister, court official, 
 expert, interpreter, book-keeper, commissioner, 
 public writer, he is the Maitre Jacques of the 
 colony. Only, Harpagon had but one Maitre 
 Jacques, and the colony has more than it wants. 
 At Milianah alone they count by dozens. As a 
 general thing, these gentlemen, to avoid the cost 
 of an office, receive their clients at the cafe in the 
 great square, and hold their consultations ^ do 
 they consult at all? — between absinthe and 
 champoreau. 
 
 It was towards the cafe in the great square that 
 the worthy Iscariot was now proceeding, flanked by 
 his two witnesses. We will not follow him. 
 
 In leaving the Jewish quarter I passed before 
 the house of what is called the Arab Bureau. 
 Outside, with its slate roof and the French flag 
 floating above it, you would take it for the town- 
 hall of some village. I know the interpreter, and 
 I enter to smoke a cigar with him. One way or 
 another I shall manage to kill it, this sunless 
 Sunday ! 
 
 The courtyard in front of the bureau is en- 
 cumbered with Arabs in rags. Fifty, at least, are , 
 in attendance, crouching along the walls in their 
 burnous. This Bedouin antechamber exhales — 
 
At Milianah. 147 
 
 though in the open air — a strong odour of human 
 skins. Let us pass through quickly. In the 
 bureau I find the interpreter involved with two 
 big brawlers, entirely naked under long greasy 
 coverlets, who are relating with savage gestures 
 some story, I know not what, of a stolen chaplet. 
 I seat myself on a mat in the corner, and look on. . . 
 A pretty costume that of interpreters, and how 
 jauntily the interpreter of Milianah wears it! 
 Clothes and man, they look as if they had been 
 invented for each other. The costume is sky- 
 blue, with black froggings and gilt buttons that 
 shine. The interpreter himself is fair, rosy, and 
 curled ; a charming blue hussar, full of humour 
 and whimsicality; quite talkative — he speaks all 
 languages — and rather sceptical, having known 
 Renan at the Oriental College: he is a great 
 lover of sport; as much at his ease in an Arab 
 bivouac as he is in the salons of the sub-prefecture, 
 mazurking better than any one and making kouss- 
 kouss better still. A Parisian, — to say it all in 
 one word, — and you need not be surprised that 
 the women dote upon him. In the matter of 
 dandyism, he has but one rival — the sergeant of 
 the Arab Bureau. The latter, in his broadcloth 
 tunic and his gaiters with mother-of-pearl buttons, 
 is the despair and envy of the whole garrison. 
 Detailed to the Arab Bureau he is relieved from 
 fatigue duty, and shows himself about the streets 
 in white gloves, hair freshly curled, with registers 
 under his arm. He is admired, and feared. He 
 is an authority. 
 
148 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 Decidedly, this tale of the stolen chaplet threat- 
 ens to be very long. Good-bye ! I won't wait for 
 the end of it. 
 
 As I depart I find the courtyard antechamber 
 in commotion. The crowd is pressing round a 
 tall Arab, pale and proud, draped in a black 
 burnous. This man had a tussle in the Zaccar 
 a week earlier with a panther. The panther is 
 dead, but the man has an arm badly bitten. Night 
 and morning he comes to have his wound dressed 
 at the Arab Bureau, and every time he comes he 
 is stopped in the courtyard and made to relate the 
 whole adventure. He speaks slowly, in a beauti- 
 ful deep voice. Now and then he opens his 
 burnous and shows, fastened to his breast, the left 
 arm bound with bloody bandages. 
 
 I was hardly in the street before a storm burst vio- 
 lently. Rain, thunder, lightning, sirocco. Quick ! 
 to shelter ! I darted through a gate, hap-hazard, 
 and fell into the midst of a nest of bohemians, 
 crouching under the arcades of a Moorish court. 
 This court is next to the mosque of Milianah ; it is 
 the habitual refuge of Mussulman vagrants, and is 
 therefore called the ** court of the paupers." 
 
 Great gaunt hounds, covered with vermin, came 
 snuffing round me with a wicked air. Leaning 
 against one of the pillars of the gallery, I endeav- 
 oured to put a good face on the matter, and, 
 without speaking to any one, I watched the rain 
 ricochetting on the coloured tiles of the court- 
 yard. The beggars were on the ground in piles. 
 
At Milianah. 149 
 
 Near me a young woman, almost handsome, with 
 bare neck and legs, and heavy iron bracelets on 
 wrists and ankles, was singing a strange air on 
 three sad, whining notes. As she sang, she nursed 
 at her breast a little naked child of a bronze-red 
 colour, while with her one free arm she pounded 
 barley in a stone mortar. The rain, driven by the 
 cruel wind, soaked at times the legs of the woman 
 and the body of her nursling. She paid no heed 
 to it, but continued to sing through the storm, 
 crushing the barley and suckling the child. 
 
 The tempest slackened. Profiting by a break 
 in the clouds, I hastened away from the Moorish 
 court in the direction of Sid' Omar and his dinner. 
 It was high time. Crossing the great square, I 
 again met the old Jew. He was leaning on the 
 lawyer's arm, his witnesses walked joyfully after 
 him, and a band of villanous little Jew boys skipped 
 along with the party. Their faces were radiant. 
 The lawyer had taken charge of the affair, and 
 was on his way to ask for an indemnity of two 
 thousand francs. 
 
 At Sid' Omar's a sumptuous dinner. The dining- 
 room opens on an elegant Moorish court, where 
 two or three fountains are singing. Excellent 
 Turkish repast, recommended to Baron Brisse. 
 Among other dishes, I remember a chicken with 
 almonds, kouss-kouss a la vanille, a turtle stuffed 
 with meat — a little heavy perhaps, but very appe- 
 tizing — and biscuits made of honey, called bouch^es 
 de cadi. By way of wine, champagne only. In 
 
1 50 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 spite of the Mussulman law, Sid* Omar drank a lit- 
 tle of it, when the servants' backs were turned. 
 After dinner we removed to our host's bedcham- 
 ber, and there they brought us confectionery, pipes, 
 and coffee. The furniture of this room is of the 
 simplest : a divan, a few mats, at the farther end a 
 very high large bed, on which red cushions em- 
 broidered in gold are scattered about. Hanging 
 to the wall is an old Turkish picture representing 
 the exploits of a certain admiral, Hamadi. It 
 seems that in Turkey painters use but one colour 
 to each picture; this picture is vowed to green. 
 The sea, the sky, the ship. Admiral Hamadi him- 
 self, all are green — and what a green ! 
 
 Arab customs require you to retire early. Coffee 
 taken and the pipes smoked, I wished good-night 
 to my host, and left him with his women. 
 
 Where shall I finish my evening? It is too early 
 to go to bed ; the bugles of the spahis have not 
 yet sounded taps. Besides, the golden cushions of 
 Sid' Omar dance fantastic farandoles about me, 
 and would hinder me from sleeping. Lo ! here 
 I am before a theatre ; suppose I enter for a 
 moment? 
 
 The theatre of Milianah is an old forage store- 
 house, more or less disguised for stage purposes. 
 Huge glass cups which they fill with oil between 
 the acts serve as lustres. The pit stands; the 
 occupants of the orchestra sit on benches. The 
 galleries are very proud because they have straw 
 chairs. All around the audience chamber is a long 
 
Ai Milianah. 151 
 
 dark passage, unfloored, where one might think 
 one's self in the street. The play has already begun 
 when I enter. To my great surprise, the actors 
 are not bad ; I speak of the men ; they have spirit 
 and animation, life. Nearly all are amateurs, sol- 
 diers of the third infantry; the regiment is proud 
 of them, and comes nightly to applaud their per- 
 formance. 
 
 As for the women, alas ! they are ever and al- 
 ways that '* eternal feminine'* of the little provin- 
 cial stage — pretentious, exaggerated, and false. 
 Among them, however, there are two who in- 
 terest me, two Milianah Jewesses, very young, 
 who are making their first appearance in public. 
 Their parents are in the hall and seem enchanted. 
 They are convinced that their daughters will earn 
 millions of douros in the business. The legend of 
 Rachel, Israelite, millionaire, and actress, has spread 
 among the Jews of the Orient. Nothing could be 
 more comical, yet affecting, than those two little 
 Jewesses on the stage. They kept themselves tim- 
 idly in a corner of it, painted, powdered, low-necked, 
 and perfectly rigid. They were cold; they felt 
 ashamed. Now and then, they sputtered a speech 
 without understanding it, and while they spoke 
 their great black Hebrew eyes wandered round 
 the audience-chamber, stupefied. 
 
 I leave the theatre. Amid the darkness that 
 surrounds me, I hear cries in the corner of the 
 square. A few Maltese, no doubt, who are en- 
 gaged in explaining something with knives. 
 
152 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 I return to my hotel, slowly, by way of the ram- 
 parts. Adorable odours of orange-trees and 
 thuyas rise from the plain. The air is soft, the 
 sky almost cloudless. Below, at the farther end 
 of the road, rises the ghost of an old wall, the re- 
 mains of some ancient temple. That wall is sacred. 
 Every day the Arab women flock there to hang 
 their votive offerings upon it, — fragments of stuffs, 
 long tresses of ruddy hair tied with silver threads, 
 pieces of burnous. All this is floating in the moon- 
 rays to the soft breath of the balmy night. 
 
The Locusts. 153 
 
 THE LOCUSTS. 
 
 One more recollection of Algeria, and then we 
 will return to my mill. 
 
 The night of my arrival at that farm-house in the 
 Sahel I could not sleep. The novelty of the country, 
 the ^gitation^of the voyage, the barking of the jack- 
 als, also an enervating oppressive heat, a choking 
 atmosphere as if the meshes of the mosquito net 
 did not allow of the passing of a breath of air. 
 When I opened my window at dawn a heavy sum- 
 mer fog, slowly moving, fringed at its edges with 
 black and rose, floated in the air like a cloud of 
 smoke on a battlefield. Not a leaf stirred, and in 
 the beautiful gardens which lay before my eyes, the 
 vines planted at regular distances on the slopes ex- 
 posed to the sun which makes those sugary wines, 
 the fruits of Europe sheltering in a shady corner, 
 the little orange-trees, the mandarins in long micro- 
 scopic lines — all these wore the same mournful 
 aspect, the stillness of leaves expecting a storm. 
 The banana-trees themselves, those great reeds of 
 a tender green, always shaken by a breeze ruffling 
 their delicate fine hair, now rose silent and erect in 
 regular bunches. 
 
1 54 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 I stood a moment looking at this marvellous 
 plantation, where all the trees in the world were 
 collected, giving, each in its season, their flowers 
 and their exiled fruits. Between the wheat-fields 
 and the groves of cork-trees, a stream of water 
 shone, refreshing to the sight on this suffocating 
 morning ; and while I admired the luxury, the per- 
 fect order of all before me, and the beautiful farm- 
 house with its Moorish arcades, the terraces white in 
 the dawn, the stables and sheds around it, I reflected 
 that twenty years earlier, when the good people 
 who owned the place had come to settle in this 
 valley of the Sahel, they had found nothing but a 
 wretched hut and a barren land bristling with 
 dwarf palms and cactus. All to create, all to con- 
 struct. At every moment revolts of the Arabs. 
 The plough was left in the furrow to ^^ the 
 musket. Besides this, diseases, bphthalmiasf fevers, 
 failure of crops, the groping of inexperience, 
 struggles with a narrow-minded administration 
 forever changing. What efforts ! What fatigue ! 
 What incessant watchfulness ! 
 
 And even now, though the bad times were over, 
 and fortune was dearly won, they both, the man and 
 his wife, were the first to be up in the morning. 
 At this early hour I heard them going and coming 
 iit the great kitchens of the lower floor, superin- 
 tending the coffee of the labourers. Soon a bell 
 rang, and a moment later workmen defiled along 
 the road, — vineyard men from Burgundy, Kabyle 
 labourers in rags wearing the red fez, Mahonese 
 navvies with bare legs, Maltese, Itahans; an in- 
 
The Locusts. 155 
 
 congruous, dissimilar populace, difficult to man- 
 age. To each of them the farmer, standing before 
 the door, gave his task for the day in a curt voice, 
 rather roughly. When this was over, the good man 
 raised his head, examined the sky with an anxious 
 air, and seeing me at the window he said : '^ Bad 
 weather for farming ; here 's the sirocco.'* 
 
 And sure enough, as the sun rose, puffs of burn- 
 ing, suffocating air came to us from the South as 
 if from the door of an oven opening and shutting. 
 Presently one knew not where to put one's self, or 
 what to do. The whole morning passed thus. 
 We took coffee on the straw mats in the gallery, 
 without courage to speak or stir. The dogs lying 
 at full length in exhausted attitudes sought cool- 
 ness on the flags. Breakfast revived us a little, a 
 plentiful and singular breakfast, in which there 
 were carp, trout, wild boar, hedgehog, Staoueli 
 butter, wines of Crescia, guavas, bananas, a mass 
 of strange food in keeping with the complex Nature 
 that surrounded us. . . We were about to rise from 
 table. Suddenly at the glass-door, closed to pro- 
 tect us from the furnace heat of the garden, loud 
 cries were heard : " The locusts ! the locusts ! " 
 
 My host turned pale, like a man to whom a 
 great disaster is told, and we rushed out hastily. 
 During the next ten minutes the house, lately so 
 calm, was filled with the sound of rushing feet, 
 confused voices, lost in the agitation of that warn- 
 ing. From the shade of the vestibules where some 
 were still sleeping, the servants sprang forth, with 
 sticks, scythes, flails, making them ring on all the 
 
156 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 metal utensils they could lay their hands on, copper 
 caldrons, warming-pans, saucepans. The shep- 
 herds blew their pipes in the pastures. Others 
 had conch-shells and hunting-horns. . The uproar 
 was frightful, discordant, while high above it all 
 rang the shrill high note, the " Yoo ! yoo ! yoo ! '* 
 of the Arab women rushing in from a neighbour- 
 ing dollar. It seems that often a great noise, a 
 sonorous jarring of the air, is sufficient to drive off 
 the locusts and prevent them from alighting. 
 
 But where were they, these terrible beasts ? In 
 the sky, pulsing with heat, I saw nothing but a 
 cloud on the horizon, brassy, compact as a hail- 
 cloud, coming on with the noise of a wind-storm 
 through the branches of a forest. This was the 
 locusts. Supporting one another with their dry 
 extended wings they flew in a mass ; and in spite 
 of our shouts, our efforts, on they came in a cloud 
 casting upon the plain an enormous shadow. Soon 
 they arrived above us and we saw for a second on 
 the edges of the cloud a fringe, a rent. Like the 
 first stones of a hailstorm, a few detached them- 
 selves, distinct, reddish; then the whole cloud 
 broke up and the rain of insects fell thick and 
 noisily. The fields, as far as the eye could reach, 
 were covered with locusts, enormous locusts, thick 
 as my finger. 
 
 Now the massacre began. A horrid sound of 
 crushing, like that of trampled straw. With harrows, 
 spades, ploughs, they broke up that living soil ; but 
 the more they killed, the more there were to kill. 
 The insects swarmed in layers, their long legs laced 
 
The Locusts. 157 
 
 together. Those at the top made leaps of fear, 
 jumping at the noses of the horses harnessed for 
 this strange labour. The farm-dogs, those of the 
 dollar^ driven into the fields, sprang upon them and 
 ground them furiously with their teeth. At this 
 moment two companies of Turcos, bugles sound- 
 ing, came to the succour of the luckless colonists 
 and the butchery changed aspect. 
 
 Instead of crushing the locusts the soldiers 
 spread long trains of gunpowder and blew them 
 up. 
 
 Weary with killing, sickened by the fetid odour, 
 I returned to the house. Within it there were 
 almost as many locusts as without. They had 
 entered by the doors, the windows, the flues of 
 the chimney. Along the panels and wainscot- 
 ings, in the curtains already riddled, they crawled, 
 fell, flew, and climbed the white walls, casting 
 gigantic shadows that doubled their ugliness. 
 And always that horrifying odour. We were 
 forced, at dinner, to go without water. The cis- 
 terns, basins, wells, fish-pond were all infected. 
 That night in my room where quantities had been 
 killed, I heard them swarming under the furniture, 
 with that crackling of their shell-like wings which 
 sounds like the bursting of pods under heat. 
 This night again I could not sleep. Besides, 
 every one on the farm was astir. Flames were 
 running along the surface of the ground in all 
 directions from one end of the plain to the other. 
 The Turcos were still killing. 
 
 The next day, when I opened my window the 
 
158 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 locusts were gone; but what ruin they had left 
 behind them ! Not a flower, not a blade of grass ; 
 all was black, devoured, calcined. The banana, 
 the apricot, the peach-trees, the orange-trees 
 could only be recognized by the shape of their 
 stripped branches; the charm and the floating 
 grace of foliage which is the life of the tree were 
 gone. The pieces of water and the cisterns were 
 being cleaned. Everywhere labourers were dig- 
 ging the earth to kill the eggs laid by the insects. 
 Every turf was turned, and carefully broken up. 
 And one's heart ached to see the thousand white 
 roots full of sap which appeared in this destruction 
 of the fruitful earth. 
 
The £ltxir of Pere Gaucher. 159 
 
 THE ELIXIR OF THE REVEREND PERE 
 GAUCHER. 
 
 "Drink that, neighbour, and^ you will tell tales 
 ofit.;^ ^ 
 
 And -drop by drop, with the minute care of a 
 lapidary counting pearls, the cure of Graveson 
 poured me out a glassful of a green, gilded, 
 warm, sparkling, exquisite liqueur. My stomach 
 was all sunlit by it. 
 
 " That is the elixir of Pere Gaucher, the joy and 
 health of our Provence," added the worthy man 
 with a triumphant air. '' It is made at the convent 
 of the Premontres, two leagues from your mill. 
 Isn't it worth all the chartreuse in the world? If 
 you only knew^ hOw amusing it is, the history of 
 that elixir ! -Listen,^and I will tell it to you." 
 
 Then, very artlessly and without the slightest 
 malice, sitting there in the dining-room of his par- 
 sonage, so innocent and so calm, surrounded by 
 the Way of the Cross in little pictures and his white 
 curtains starched like a surplice, the abbe told 
 me the following rather sceptical and irreverent 
 narrative after the style of a tale of Erasmus 
 or d'Assoucy : — 
 
 Twenty years ago the Premontres, or rather " the 
 White Fathers" as they are called in Provence, 
 
1 60 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 had fallen into great poverty. If you had seen 
 their house in those days you would have grieved 
 over it.) 
 
 The great wall and the Pacome tower, were dis- 
 appearing in fragments. All around the cloister, 
 overgrown with grass, the columns were splitting 
 and the stone saints crumbhng in their niches. 
 Not a window left; not a door that closed. 
 Through the yards, in the chapels, the Rhone 
 wind blew as it does in Camargue, extinguishing 
 the tapers, bending the lead of the sashes, driving 
 the water from the holy basins. But, saddest of 
 all, was the steeple of the convent, silent as an 
 empty pigeon-house; and the fathers, (..for want 
 of money to buy them a bell, were forced to ring 
 for matins with wooden castanets. 
 
 Poor White Fathers ! I can see them now in 
 the procession of the Fete-Dieu, defiling sadly in 
 their ragged cloaks, pale, thin, fed on pumpkins 
 and water-melons ; and behind them Monseigneur 
 the abbot, coming along with his head down, 
 ashamed to show in the sun his tarnished cross 
 and his white woollen mitre, all moth-eaten. The 
 ladies of the Confraternity wept for pity in the 
 ranks, and the portly standard-bearers scoffed 
 among themselves under their breaths as they 
 pointed to those poor monks : — 
 
 " Starlings get thin when they live in flocks." 
 
 The fact is, the unfortunate White Feathers ;''had 
 themselves begun to ask -whether it were not better 
 to break up the community, and each take his flight 
 alone through the world in search of a living. 
 
The Elixir of Pere Gaucher. 1 6 1 
 
 One day, when this grave question was being 
 discussed by the Chapter, some one entered and 
 announced to the prior that Frere Gaucher asked 
 to be heard before the council. You must know, 
 to guide you, that Frere Gaucher was the cattle- 
 keeper of the convent; that is to say, he spent 
 his days going from arcade to arcade of the clois- 
 ters, driving before him two emaciated cows to 
 browse upon the grass in the cracks of the pave- 
 ment. Brought up till he was twelve years old by 
 an old crazy woman of the region, who was called 
 Tante Begon, received at that age into the con- 
 vent, the luckless lad mad never learned anything^ 
 except how to drive his beasts and say his^Pater- 
 noster; and the latter he said in Proven9aiV-for his 
 brain and his mind were' as hard and dull as a 
 
 nis mn 
 
 leaden -dtrk^Tipervent Christian,' however^ though 
 a little visionary ; ^living with comfort) in a hair 
 shirt, and flagellating himself with robust convic- 
 tion, and with such an arm ! 
 
 When he was seen to enter the Chapter room, 
 simple and stolid, bowing to the assembly with his 
 leg behind him, prior, canons and bursar they all 
 (Segan to laugh./ That was usually the effect pro- 
 duced, wherever seen, of that good, kind face with 
 its grizzled goat's-beard and its rather crazy eyes. 
 Frere Gaucher himself was unmoved. 
 
 ** My Reverends," he said in his simple way, 
 twisting his chaplet of olive-stones,/' it is a true 
 saying that empty casks hum loudest; \ Would you 
 believe it, by dint of digging into my poor head, 
 which was hollow enough already, I believe I have 
 
1 62 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 found a wayfto get us out of our difficulties. ^ This 
 is how: You all knew Tante Begon, that worthy 
 woman who took care of me when I was young 
 (God rest her soul, the old slut! she used to sing 
 villanous songs when drunk). I have to t^l you, 
 my reverend fathers, that Tante Begon, Cin her 
 lifetime, knew as much and more^; about moun- 
 tain herbs as a Corsican blackbird ; so that in her 
 last days she concocted an incomparable elixir by 
 mixing together five or six species of simples 
 which she and I used to go and gather on the 
 Alpilles; That's many fine years agone ; but I 
 think that with the help of Saint Augustine and 
 the permission of our Father-abbot, I may be able, 
 by careful search, to remember the composition 
 of that mysterious elixir. If so,cwe should need 
 only to put it in bottles and sell it rather dear to 
 enrich the community gently, gently, like our 
 brethren of La Trappe and the Grand — '* 
 
 He was not allowed to finish.' The prior rose 
 and fell upon his neck. The canons grasped his 
 hands. The bursar, more excited than even the 
 others, kissed respectfully the ragged edge of his 
 cassock. Then they all returned to their seats to 
 deliberate \\ and before the session broke up the 
 Chapter decided to intrust the cows to Frere 
 Thrasybulus, in order to enable Frere Gaucher to 
 give himself wholly to the making of his elixii:,^. 
 
 How did the good brother manage to recover 
 the recipe of Tante B^gon? — at the cost of what 
 efforts ? what vigils ? History saith not. But what 
 
The Elixir of Pere Gaucher. 163 
 
 is certain is, that by the end of six months the 
 liqueur of the White Fathers was already very 
 popular. Throughout the Comtat, throughout the 
 whole region of Arles^not a farm, not a granary 
 that did not have in Its storeroom, among bottles 
 of boiled wine and jars of pickled olives, a little 
 brown flask, sealed with the arms of Provence, and 
 bearing the ^^%y on a silver ticket of a monk in 
 ecstasy. (Thanks to) the vogue of its elixir, the 
 convent of the Pr^montres grew rich very rapidly. 
 The Pacome tower was rebuilt; the prior had a 
 new mitre, the church certain handsome painted 
 windows; and within the delicate tracery of the 
 steeple a whole company of bells alighted one fine 
 Easter morning, carolling and tintinnabulating in 
 joyful peals. 
 
 As for Frere Gaucher, that poor lay brother, 
 ;whose rusticities had so long enlivened the Chapter, 
 ' there was no thought of hint any longer/ Hence- 
 forth he was known as the Reverend Pere Gaucher, 
 inan of intellect and great learning, who lived com- 
 pletely apart from the petty and manifold occu- 
 pations of the cloister, shut up all day in his 
 laboratory, while thirty monks were roaming the 
 hills in search of his odorous simples. This labora- 
 tory, into which no one, not even the prior, was 
 allowed to enter, was an old abandoned chapel at 
 the farther end of the canons' garden. The sim- 
 plicity of the good fathers made something mys- 
 terious and formidable out of it; and if, by way of 
 adventure, an occasional little monk, bold and 
 inquisitive, climbed among the vines to the rose- 
 
164 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 window of the portal, he slid down very hastily, 
 terrified, on catching sight of Pere Gaucher, with 
 a necromantic beard, stooping over his boilers, 
 hydrometer in hand, and, all around him, retorts 
 of rose-marble, gigantic stills, coils of crystal pipe, 
 — a fantastic medley which flamed like witchcraft 
 
 I through the red glare of the painted window.; 
 
 I ftt close of day^ while the last Angelus was 
 ringing, the door of this place of mystery opened 
 discreetly, and the Reverendjook his wa}^; to the 
 church for evening service. (*Twas a sighl/to see 
 the greeting he received as he crossed the monas- 
 tery ! The brethren lined up in hedges along his 
 way, whispering : — 
 
 *' Hush ! he knows the secret ! . . " 
 The bursar followed and spoke to him with 
 bowed head. In the midst of all this adulation the 
 worthy father advanced, mopping his forehead, his 
 three-cornered shovel hat tipped back around his 
 head like a halo, while he himself looked com- 
 placently about him on the great courtyards now 
 full of orange-trees, the blue slate roofs where the 
 neW vanes were twirHng, and the cloister — daz- 
 zlingly white between its elegant and floriated 
 columns — where the canons in their new gowns 
 filed along, two and two with placid faces. 
 
 *^ It is to me that they owe it all ! '' thought the 
 Reverend, and every time he did so, the thought 
 sent puffs of pride into his heart. 
 
 The poor man was well punished for it. You 
 shall see how. 
 
The^Elixirjjtf.^-^re Gattcker. 165— 
 
 """^ Picture to yourself that one evening after the 
 service had begun, he arrived at the church in a 
 state of extraordinary agitation : red, out of breath, 
 his hood(awry\ and so bewildered that in taking 
 holy water he soaked his sleeves to the elbow. 
 At first it was thought to be emotion at coming 
 late to church ; but when he was seen to bow low 
 to the organ and to the stalls instead of doing rever- 
 ence to the altar, to rush through the nave like a 
 ( whirlwino) and wander about the choir unable to 
 find his stall, and thei/, once seated, Jto bow to right 
 and left, smiling beatifically, a murmur of amaze- 
 ment ran through the aisles. From breviary to 
 breviary the whisper flew : — 
 
 ** What is the matter with Pere Gaucher? What 
 can be the matter with our Pere Gaucher?" 
 
 ' " ~ Twice the prior, much annoyed, dropped the 
 end of his crozier on the pavement to order silence. 
 In the choir the psalms were going on all right, 
 but the responses lacked vigour. 
 ' All of a sudden, in the middle of the Ave verunt, 
 behold Pere Gaucher flinging himself back in his 
 stall and singing out in a startling voice : — 
 
 " Dans Paris, il y a un P^re Blanc, 
 Patatin, patatan, tarabin, taraban. . ." 
 
 General consternation. Every one rose, shout- 
 ing out : — ' 
 
 '' Take him away ! he 's possessed of the devil ! " 
 
 The canons crossed themselves. Monseigneur's 
 
 crozier rapped furiously. But Pere Gaucher saw 
 
 nothing, heard nothing ; and two vigorous monks 
 
1 66 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 were forced to drag him away through the little 
 door of the choir fighting like a maniac and shout- 
 ing louder than ever his patatin^ taraban. 
 
 The next day/ at dawn, the unhappy man was 
 on his knees in the prior's oratory, making his mea 
 culpa with torrents of tears. 
 
 '* 'Twas the ehxir, Monseigneur ; the elixir over- 
 came me," he said, striking his breast. And see- 
 ing him so heart-broken, so repentant, the good 
 prior himself was much moved. 
 
 " Come, come, Pere Gaucher, be calm ; it will 
 all dry up like dew in the sun. After all, the 
 scandal was not as great as you think. It is true 
 the song was a little — hum ! hum ! But let us 
 hope the novices didn't understand it. And now, 
 tell me, please, how the thing happened. . . In 
 trying the elixir, was it? You must have had too 
 heavy a hand. . . Yes, yes, I understand. Like 
 Schwartz, inventor of gunpowder, you were the vic- 
 tim of your own invention. But tell me, my good 
 friend, is it really necessary that you should try the 
 ehxir on yourself? " 
 
 " Unfortunately, Monseigneur, though the gauge 
 will give mQ the strength and degree of the alco- 
 hol, I can't trust anything but my own palate for 
 the taste, the velvet of the thing." 
 
 " Ah ! very well. . . But listen to meP When you 
 taste the elixir thus, from necessity, does it seem to 
 you nice? Do you take pleasure in tasting it? " 
 
 " Alas ! yes, Monseigneur," cried .the hapless 
 father, turning scarlet. **For the last two nights 
 
The Elixir of Pere Gaucfier. 167 
 
 it has had an aroma, a bouquet ! . . I am cer- 
 tain it is the devil himself who has played me this 
 vile trick. And that 's why I am fully determined 
 to use nothing but the gauge henceforth. No 
 matter if the liqueur is not as good. . . " 
 
 'VThat will never doy interrupted the prior 
 eagerly. " We must n't expose ourselves to the 
 discontent of customers. You must be careful,^ 
 now that you are warned(^ be upon your guards 
 Come, how much do you need for the test? Fif- 
 teen, or twenty drops ? call it twenty. The devil 
 will be pretty clever to catch you with twenty 
 drops. . . Besides, to avoid all accidents, I ex- 
 empt you from coming to church any more. You 
 will say the evening service by yourself in the lab- 
 oratory. . . And now, go in peace, my Reverend, 
 but, above all, — count your drops." 
 
 Alas ! — in vain) did the poor Reverend count 
 his drops ; the demon had him fast and would not 
 let him go. 
 
 The laboratory heard queer things ! 
 
 In the daytime all went well. Pere Gaucher 
 was calm; he prepared his chafing-dishes, his 
 distillers, sorted his herbs carefully — all of them 
 Provengal herbs, delicate, gray, dentelled, full of 
 fragrance and sunshine. But at night, when the 
 simples were infused, and the elixir was simmering 
 in those great copper basins," the martyrdom of the 
 poor man began. 
 
 " Seventeen . . . eighteen . . . nineteen . . . 
 twenty ! . ." 
 
1 68 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 The drops fell one by one into the silver-gilt 
 goblet. Those twenty, the Father swallowed at a 
 gulp, almost without any pleasure. It was only the 
 twenty-first which he coveted.'' Oh ! that twenty- 
 first drop ! . . To escape temptation he went and 
 knelt at the farther end of the laboratory and buried 
 himself in his paternosters. But the warm liqueur 
 still sent up a little steam laden with aromatic per- 
 fumes, which floated around and brought him, 
 nolens volens, back to the pans. . . The liqueur was 
 then of a beautiful golden green. . . Stooping 
 over it, with flaring nostrils, Pere Gaucher stirred 
 it gently with his blowpipe and in the golden 
 sparkles that rolled in that emerald stream he 
 seemed to see the eyes of Tante Begon, laughing 
 and snapping out as she looked at him. 
 
 V— -f *. Come, take another drop ! '* 
 
 "**^nd from drop to drop, the luckless man ended 
 by filling his goblet to the brim. Then,( overcome 
 at last, he let himself fall into a big arm-chair, and 
 there, helpless in body, with eyelids/ half-closed, 
 he sipped his sin slowly, saying to hiniself in whis- 
 pered tones with delicious remorse : — 
 
 "Ah ! I Ve damned myself — I 'm damned." 
 
 """ The worst of it was that at the bottom of that 
 diabolical elixir he found, by I don't know what 
 witchcraft, all the vile songs of Tante Begon, and 
 among them, invariably, the famous rondo of the 
 
 _White Fathers : Patatin^ patatan. 
 
 Imagine what confusion the next day when his 
 cell neighbours would say, maliciously : — 
 
 ** Hey ! hey ! Pere Gaucher, you had grasshop- 
 
The Elixir of Pere Gaucher. 169 
 
 pers in your head when you went to bed last 
 night." \^ 
 
 Then followed tears, despair, fasts, hair-shirts, 
 and flagellations. But nothing availed against the 
 demon of that elixir. Every evening at the same 
 Jipur the demoniacal possession was renewed. ^^..^ 
 
 During this time, orders rained on the monastery 
 like a benediction. They came from Nimes, Aix, 
 Avignon, Marseille. /Day by day\he place as- 
 sumed, more and more, the air of a manufactory. 
 There were packing brothers, labelling broth- 
 ers, corresponding brothers, and carting brothers. 
 God's service lost, this way and that, a good many 
 strokes of the bell ; but the pooc of the region lost 
 nothing at all/l can tell you th^t. ; 
 
 However, oite^ fine Sunday morning^ust as the 
 bursar was reading , to the assembled Chapter his 
 account for the end of the year, and while all the 
 good canons were listening with sparkling eyes and 
 smiles upon their lips, Pere Gaucher burst in upon 
 the conference, crying out: — 
 
 '' Enough, enough ! I'll do it no more!) Give 
 me back my cows." 
 
 ^' y/hat's the matter) Pere Gaucher?" asked the 
 prior/ who suspected what it was. ^' - 
 
 " What's the matter, Monseigneur? \Why this: 
 that I am on the road to a fine eternity of flames 
 and pitchforks. The matter is that I drink, and 
 drink like a wTetch — " 
 
 '' But I told you to count your drops." 
 
 '' Count my drops, indeed ! It is goblets I count 
 
1 70 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 by n9w. . . Yes, my Reverend^, I Ve come to 
 that.^ . Three flasks a night. . . You see for 
 yourselves it can't go on. . . Therefore, make the 
 elixir by whom you will. May God's fire burn me 
 (if I touch it again.;! 
 
 The Chapter did not laugh this time. 
 
 " But, unhappy man, you will ruin us," cried 
 the bursar, flourishing his big book. 
 
 ** Do you prefer that I should damn myself? " 
 
 On that the prior rose. 
 
 " My Reverends," he said, extending his hand- 
 some white hand on which shone the pastoral ring. 
 '' There is a way to arrange all this. . . It is in 
 the evening, is it not, my dear son, that the demon 
 tempts you?" 
 
 **Yes, Monseigneur, regularly, every evening. 
 So that now, when evening comes, I have, saving 
 your presence, great sweats, like Capitou's donkey 
 when she sees her load." 
 
 " Well, be comforted. In future, every even- 
 ing at service-time, we will recite on your behalf 
 the orison of Saint Augustine, to which plen- 
 ary indulgence is attacl^ed. With that, whatever 
 happens, 'you are safe. / It is absolution during 
 the sin." 
 
 '' Oh ! if that is so, thank you, Monseigneur." 
 
 And without another word Pere Gaucher re- 
 turned to his distillery as gay as a lark. 
 
 From that moment, every evening at the end 
 of complines, the officiating priest never failed to 
 say : — 
 
 " Let us pray for our poor Pere Gaucher, who 
 
The Elixir of Pere Gaucher. 171 
 
 is sacrificing his soul for the interests of the com- 
 munity : OremiiSy Domine . . ." 
 
 And while over all the white hoods prostrate 
 in the shadows of the nave^ Saint Augustine's 
 prayer passed quivering, like a little breeze over 
 snow, on the other side of the convent, behind the 
 glowing windows of the laboratory Pere Gaucher 
 could be heard singing at the top of his lungs : — 
 
 " Dans Paris il y a un P^re Blanc, 
 
 Patatin, patatan, taraban, tarabin ; 
 
 Dans Paris il y a un P^re Blanc 
 
 Qui fait danser des moinettes, 
 
 Trin, trin, trin, dans un jardin 
 
 Qui fait danser des — " 
 
 Here the good father stopped, terrified. 
 '* Mercy upon me ! suppose my parishioners 
 were to overhear that ! " 
 
 n 
 
1 72 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 IN CAMARGUE. 
 
 To MY FRIEND TiMOLEON AMBROY. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE. 
 
 Great excitement at the chateau. A messenger 
 has just brought a line from the gamekeeper, half 
 in French, half in Provencal, announcing that 
 already three or four flocks of galejons and char- 
 lottines have passed, and that birds of prime were 
 not lacking. From that instant everybody had 
 the fever. One got ready the cartridges, another 
 tried on the leggings. In large baskets, carefully 
 handled on account of the bottles wrapped in 
 straw, provisions were heaped, heaped, as if we 
 were starting for the desert. At last, all was 
 ready. One morning, in a four o'clock dawn, the 
 break drew up before the portico. 
 
 In the yards, only half awake, the dogs were 
 leaping with joy and pressing against the railings 
 at sight of the guns. Old Miracle, the dean of the 
 kennels, Ramette, Miraclet, take their places be- 
 tween our legs, and presently we are bowling along 
 the road to Aries, a little dusty and a little barren 
 on this December morning when the paUid verdure 
 
In Camargue. ly^ 
 
 of the olive-trees is scarcely visible, and the crude 
 green of the scarlet oak looks unreal and wintry. 
 The stables are all astir. Risers before dawn are 
 lighting up the windows of the farmhouses; and 
 beneath the arches of the abbey of Montmajour 
 ospreys, still torpid with sleep, flap their wings 
 among the ruins. Already we are meeting old 
 peasant-women trotting slowly to market on their 
 donkeys. They come from Ville-des-Baux. Six 
 full leagues to sit an hour upon the steps of Saint- 
 Trophyme and sell their little bunches of simples 
 gathered on the mountain ! 
 
 And now here we are at the ramparts of Aries ; 
 low crenelated ramparts, such as we see in old 
 engravings where warriors armed with lances ap- 
 pear above battlements that are smaller than they. 
 We crossed at a gallop the marvellous little town, 
 one of the most picturesque in France with its 
 carved and rounded balconies overhanging the 
 roadway almost to the centre of the narrow street, 
 and its old black houses with the little Moorish por- 
 tals, low and pointed, which carry you back to the 
 days of William Short-Nose and the Saracens. 
 
 At this hour no one is in the streets. The 
 quay of the Rhone alone is lively. The steamer 
 that plies to the Camargue is puffing at the foot 
 of the steps, ready to be off. *' Men of all work " 
 in jackets of a sort of brown drugget, girls from 
 the Roquette going to hire themselves out on the 
 farms, w^ent on board when we did, laughing and 
 chattering. Under the long, brown, and hooded 
 mantle, drawn close because of the sharp morning 
 
1 74 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 air, the tall Arlesian head-dress gives a small and 
 graceful look to the head, with a touch of pretty 
 sauciness and a desire to toss it, as if to fling the 
 laugh or the jest still farther. . . The bell rings ; we 
 start. With the triple speed of the Rhone, the screw, 
 and the mistral the two shores unfold themselves 
 rapidly. On one side is Crau, an arid, stony plain. 
 On the other the Camargue, greener, and con- 
 tinuing to the sea its short grass and its marshes 
 full of reeds. 
 
 From time to time the vessel stopped near a 
 wharf, to right or left, '' to empire or kingdom," 
 as was said in the middle-ages, in the days of the 
 Kingdom of Aries, and as the old mariners of the 
 Rhone still say. At each wharf, a white farm- 
 house and cluster of trees. The labourers go 
 ashore with their tools, the women, baskets on 
 their arms, pass erect down the gangway. Toward 
 the empire or toward the kingdom, little by 
 little the boat empties; and by the time it arrives 
 at Mas-de-Giraud, where we landed, there was 
 scarcely any one on board. 
 
 The Mas-de-Giraud is an old farm-house of the 
 Seigneurs of Barbentane, which we now entered to 
 await the arrival of the gamekeeper, who was to 
 fetch us at that point. In the lofty kitchen, labour- 
 ers, vineyard-dressers, shepherds were at table; 
 grave, silent, eating slowly and served by women 
 who only ate after them. Soon the keeper ap- 
 peared with the carriole. True type a la Feni- 
 more, trapper on earth and water, fishkeeper and 
 gamekeeper, the people of the country round 
 
In Camargue, 175 
 
 called him " lou Roudefrou " \le rodeur, the 
 prowler] because he was always to be seen in the 
 mists of dawn or the twilight hour on watch, hid- 
 den among the bushes or else motionless in his 
 little boat, employed in observing his nets on the 
 clairs [the ponds] and the roubines [canals for 
 irrigation]. It was perhaps this business of per- 
 petual watching that made him so silent, so self- 
 contained. Still, while the little carriole loaded 
 with guns and baskets rolled along in front of us, 
 he gave us news of the hunting, the number of 
 passing flocks, and the places where the migratory 
 birds had alighted. As we talked we were ad- 
 vancing deeper into the country. 
 
 The cultivated land once passed, we found our- 
 selves in the heart of the wild Camargue. As far 
 as the eye could reach among the pastures, 
 marshes and irrigating streams glittered through 
 the herbage. Bunches of reeds and tamarisks lay 
 like islands on the bosom of a calm sea. No tall 
 trees. The uniform aspect of the vast plain is 
 unbroken. Here and there were cattle-sheds and 
 sheepfolds, stretches of low roofs almost level with 
 the ground. The scattered herds lying on the 
 salty grass, or the flocks pressing closely round 
 the russet cape of the shepherd, did not interrupt 
 the great uniformity, diminished as they were by 
 the infinite space of blue horizons and the open 
 sky. Like the sea, uniform in spite of its waves, 
 the plain conveys a sense of solitude, of immensity, 
 increased by the mistral, which blows without re- 
 laxing and without obstacle and by its powerful 
 
1 76 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 breath seems to flatten and so widen the land- 
 scape. Everything bends before it. The smallest 
 shrubs keep the imprint of its passage, and con- 
 tinue twisted and bent toward the south in an 
 attitude of flight. 
 
 n. 
 
 THE HUT. 
 
 A ROOF of reeds, walls of reeds, dry and yellow, 
 that is the hut. This is the name we give to our 
 hunting-box. Type of a Camargue house, it has 
 but one room, lofty, vast, and no window, getting 
 its light from a glass door, closed at night with 
 solid shutters. Along the great plastered walls 
 freshly whitewashed, racks await the guns^ game- 
 bags, and marsh boots. At the farther end five or 
 six cots are ranged around a real mast planted in 
 the ground and rising to the roof, which it sup- 
 ports. At night, when the mistral blows and the 
 house cracks everywhere, and the wind brings 
 with it the roar of the distant sea, increasing and 
 swelling the sound, one might think one's self 
 lying in the cabin of a boat. 
 
 But in the afternoon it is that the hut is charm- 
 ing. On our fine days of Southern winter, I like 
 to be left all alone near the high chimney where a 
 few roots of tamarisk are smouldering. Under 
 the assaults of the mistral or the tramontane, the 
 door bursts in, the reeds cry out, and all these 
 
In Camargue. 177 
 
 little shocks are a mere echo of the great agita- 
 tions of Nature going on around me. The winter 
 sun lashed by the wind scatters itself, joins its 
 beams, and again disperses. Great shadows flit 
 beneath a glorious blue sky. Light comes in 
 jerks, noises also, and the bells of the flocks heard 
 suddenly, then forgotten, lost in the wind, return 
 to sing at the shaken door with the charm of a 
 chorus. The exquisite moment is the twilight 
 hour, just before the hunters come back. Then 
 the wind calms down. I go out for an instant. 
 In peace the great red sun descends, flaming, yet 
 without heat. The night falls; it brushes me in 
 passing with its damp black wing. Over there, at 
 the level of the soil, the flash of a gun runs along 
 with the light of a ruddy star, brightened by the 
 environing darkness. For the rest of the day, life 
 hastens. A long triangle of ducks fly low, as if 
 they meant to take to earth, but the hut, where the 
 lantern is now lighted, keeps them away. He who 
 heads the column draws in his neck and mounts, 
 while others behind him utter savage and angry 
 cries. 
 
 Presently an immense pattering is heard like a 
 noise of rain. Thousands of sheep, called in by 
 the shepherd, and driven by the dogs whose con- 
 fused gallop and panting breath can be heard, are 
 hurrying to the fold, timid and undisciplined. I 
 am invaded, brushed against, surrounded by this 
 cloud of curly wool, all bleating ; a perfect mob, in 
 which the shepherds and their shadows seem borne 
 along in a bounding flood. Behind the flock come 
 
1 78 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 well known voices, joyous voices. The hut be- 
 comes animated, noisy. The roots flame. They 
 laugh the most who are most weary. It is a 
 laughter of happy fatigue, guns in the corner, the 
 great boots flung away pell-mell, the gamebags 
 emptied, and close beside them, plumages, red, 
 golden, green, silvery, all stained with blood. The 
 table is laid, and in the fumes of a good eel-soup 
 silence reigns; the silence of robust appetites, 
 interrupted only by the ferocious growls of the 
 dogs lapping their porringers before the door. 
 
 The evening will be short. Already no one is 
 left but the keeper and myself beside the fire, and 
 that is blinking. We talk, or rather, we toss to each 
 other, now and then, the half-words that charac- 
 terize the peasantry, interjections almost Indian, 
 short and quickly extinct, like the sparkles of the 
 now consumed roots. At last the keeper rises, 
 lights his lantern, and I hear his heavy step going 
 out into the darkness. 
 
 III. 
 
 A l'espere! (on the watch.) 
 
 L'ESPERE ! — hope ! — what a pretty name by 
 which to describe the watch, the expectation of 
 the ambushed huntsman and those undecided hours 
 when everything waits, hopes^ hesitates between 
 day and night. The watch of the morning a little 
 before sunrise, the watch of the evening in the 
 
Ill Camargue. 179 
 
 twilight ! It is the latter that I prefer, especially 
 in this marshy region, where the ponds hold the 
 light so long. 
 
 Sometimes the watch is kept in the negochin, a 
 very small boat, narrow, without keel, and rolling at 
 the slightest motion. Sheltered by the reeds, the 
 sportsman watches for the ducks lying in his boat, 
 above which nothing is seen but the visor of a cap, 
 the muzzle of a gun, and the head of a dog snuff- 
 ing the wind, snapping at the gnats, or else, with 
 his big paws extended, hanging over the side of 
 the boat and filling it with water. That watch is 
 too complicated for my inexperience. So I usu- 
 ally go to the esphe on foot, paddling through 
 the marsh in those enormous boots that are cut 
 from the whole length of the leather. I walk 
 slowly, cautiously, for fear of being sucked in. I 
 push through the reeds full of briny odours where 
 the frogs are hopping. 
 
 At last here 's an island of tamarisks, a spot of 
 dry earth, where I install myself The keeper, to 
 do me honour, leaves me his dog, a huge dog of 
 the Pyrenees with a great white coat, hunter and 
 fisher of the highest order, whose presence does 
 not fail to intimidate me slightly. When a water- 
 fowl passes within aim of my gun he has a certain 
 sarcastic way of looking at me; throwing back, 
 with an artist's toss of the head, the long, limp 
 ears that overhang his eyes; then he poses to a 
 point with a quivering motion of his tail and a 
 whole pantomime of impatience, which says to me, 
 " Fire ! Come, fire ! " I fire and miss. Then, 
 
i8o Letters from My Mill. 
 
 lying down at full length, he yawns and stretches 
 with a weary, discouraged, and insolent air. 
 
 Well, yes ! I admit that I am a bad sportsman. 
 The watch, for me, means the falling day, the fad- 
 ing light taking refuge in the water, in the ponds 
 that gleam, polishing to silvery tones the gray 
 tints of a sombre sky. I love that smell of water, 
 the mysterious rustle of insects in the reeds, the 
 little murmur of the long leaves waving. From 
 time to time a sad note passes, rolling through 
 the sky like the rumbling sounds in a sea-shell. 
 It is the bittern, plunging into the water his im- 
 mense, fisher-bird's beak and snorting — rrrououou ! 
 Flocks of cranes file above my head. I hear the 
 rustle of wings, the ruffling of down in the clear 
 air ; then nothing. It is night, profound darkness, 
 except for a gleam still lingering on the water. 
 
 Suddenly I am conscious of a quiver, a sort of ner- 
 vous sensation, as if some one were behind me. I 
 turn, and see the companion of beautiful nights, the 
 moon, a large moon, quite round, rising gently with 
 an ascending motion, at first very perceptible, then, 
 apparently diminishing as she leaves the horizon. 
 
 Already the first ray is distinct beside me, and 
 another is a little farther off. . . . Presently the 
 whole swamp is illuminated. The smallest tuft of 
 grass casts its shadow. The watch is over, the 
 birds see us ; we return. We walk in the midst of 
 an inundation, a dust, of vaporous blue light, and 
 every step in the pools and the marches scatters 
 the stars and the moon-rays which lie in the water 
 to its depths. 
 
In Camargue. i8i 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE RED AND THE WHITE. 
 
 Close to us, within gunshot of the hut is an- 
 other hut which resembles ours, but is more rustic. 
 It is there that the gamekeeper lives with his wife 
 and elder children. The daughter attends to the 
 feeding of the men and mends the fishing-nets; 
 the son helps his father to take up the seines and 
 watch the sluices of the ponds. The two younger 
 children are at Aries with their grandmother, and 
 there they will stay till they have learned to read and 
 have made their ton jour [good day, first commun- 
 ion] ; for here their parents are too far from church 
 and school, and besides, the air of the Camargue 
 would not be good for the little ones. The fact is 
 that in summer, when the marshes dry up and 
 the white clay of the pools cracks in the great 
 heat, the island is scarcely habitable. 
 
 I saw that once in the month of August when I 
 came to shoot young wild-duck ; and I shall never 
 forget the sad, ferocious aspect of the burnt-up 
 landscape. From place to place the empty ponds 
 smoked in the sun like monstrous vats, keeping 
 low at their bottom a remainder of water, of life, 
 which stirred with a crawling swarm of salaman- 
 ders, spiders, and water-beetles seeking for damp 
 spots. At the keeper's house all were shivering, 
 
1 82 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 each had the fever; and it was really piteous to 
 see those drawn, yellow faces, the black-circled 
 eyes of those poor unfortunates, compelled to drag 
 themselves about for three months under an inex- 
 orable sun which burned the sufferers but did not 
 warm them. Dreary and painful life is that of a 
 gamekeeper in Camargue ! This one at least had 
 his wife and children with him ; but two leagues 
 farther on, in a marsh, lives a horse-keeper, abso- 
 lutely alone from one end of the year to the other 
 — a Robinson-Crusoe existence. In his hut of 
 reeds, which he built himself, there is not a utensil 
 he did not make, from the braided osier hammock, 
 the fireplace of three stones, the roots of tama- 
 risk cut into stools, to even the lock and key of 
 white wood which close this singular habitation. 
 
 The man is as strange as his dwelling. He is a 
 species of philosopher, silent as a hermit, shelter- 
 ing his peasant distrust of every one behind his 
 bushy eyebrows. When he is not in the pastures 
 you will find him seated before his door, decipher- 
 ing slowly, with childish and touching application, 
 one of those little pink, blue, or yellow pamphlets 
 which wrap the pharmaceutical phials he procures 
 for his horses. Though the huts are near together, 
 our keeper and he never visit each other. They 
 even avoid meeting. One day I asked the rou- 
 de'irou the reason of this antipathy. He answered 
 gravely: '^On account of opinions: he is red; I 
 am white." 
 
 So in this desert, where solitude might have 
 brought them together, these two savages, both 
 
In Camargue. 183 
 
 ignorant, both naive, these two herdsmen of The- 
 ocritus, who go to the city scarcely once a year, 
 and to whom the little cafes of Aries, with their 
 mirrors and their gilding, are as dazzling as the 
 palace of the Ptolemies, have found means to hate 
 each other on account of their political convictions. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE VACCARES. 
 
 The finest thing in the Camargue is the Vac- 
 cares. Often, abandoning the hunt, I go and sit 
 on the shore of that salt lake, a little sea like a bit 
 of the ocean captured and shut in by earth and 
 content with its captivity. In place of the dryness, 
 the aridity that casts sadness everywhere, the 
 Vaccares, with its rather high banks, green with a 
 velvety fine grass, exhibits an original and charm- 
 ing flora, centaureas, water-trefoil, gentians, and 
 the pretty saladelky blue in winter, red in summer, 
 which changes colour with change of atmosphere, 
 and in its ceaseless blooming marks the seasons 
 with diverse tints. 
 
 Towards five in the afternoon, as the sun de- 
 clines, these three leagues of water, without a boat, 
 without a sail to limit them, transform their extent 
 and take on a charming aspect. It is no longer 
 the charm of the pools and the ponds appearing 
 now and then in a dip of the marly soil, beneath 
 which one feels the water percolating. Here the 
 
184 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 impression is broad and fine. From afar this radi« 
 ance of water allures great flocks of divers, bitterns, 
 herons, flamingoes with white bosoms and rose- 
 coloured wings, all standing in line to fish along the 
 shore in a manner that exhibits their various tints 
 in a long even strip. Also the ibis, the true Egyp- 
 tian ibis, who feel themselves much at home in the 
 silent landscape beneath that splendid sun. From 
 the place where I lay I could hear nothing but the 
 water rippHng and the voice of the keeper, calling 
 to his scattered horses on the brink. They all had 
 resounding names : " Cifer ! (Lucifer) Estello ! 
 Estournello ! " Each animal, hearing itself called, 
 came galloping up, mane streaming, to eat his oats 
 from the hand of the keeper. 
 
 Farther on, still on the same shore, was a vast 
 herd of cattle peacefully feeding like the horses. 
 Now and then I could see above the clumps of 
 tamarisk the line of their bent backs and their 
 small horns as they raised their heads. Most of 
 these oxen of the Camargue are raised to run in 
 the ferradeSy the village fetes, and some have 
 names that are even celebrated in the circuses 
 of Provence and Languedoc. Our neighbouring 
 herd counts among others the '^ Roman " who has 
 ripped up I know not how many men and horses 
 in the races at Nismes, Aries, Tarascon. Conse- 
 quently, his comrades have accepted him as leader. 
 For in these strange herds, the animals govern 
 themselves by laws, grouped around some old bull 
 whom they take for leader. When a hurricane 
 falls upon Camargue, terrible in that great plain 
 
In Camargue. 185 
 
 where nothing diverts it, it is a sight to see the 
 herd pressing together behind its leader, all heads 
 turning to the wind their broad foreheads where 
 the strength of the ox is concentrated. The Pro- 
 vencal herdsmen call that manoeuvre vira la bano 
 au giscle — turning horn to the wind ; and sorrow 
 to the herd that does not do so. Blinded by rain, 
 driven by wind, the routed herd turns upon itself, 
 is terrified, dispersed, and the distracted animals, 
 rushing before them to escape the tempest, plunge 
 into the Rhone, the Vaccares, or the sea. 
 
1 86 Letters from My Mill. 
 
 BARRACK HOMESICKNESS. 
 
 This morning, at the first gleam of dawn, the 
 loud roll of a drum awoke me with a start : Ron 
 plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! 
 
 A drum among my pines at such an hour ! Sin- 
 gular, to say the least of it. 
 
 Quick, quick, I jumped out of bed, and ran to 
 open the door. 
 
 No one. The noise has stopped. From among 
 the wet creepers two or three curlews fly out, shak- 
 ing their wings. A slight breeze sings in the leaf- 
 age. To eastward, on the delicate summit of the 
 Alpilles lies a golden dust from which the sun is 
 slowly issuing. A first ray touches already the roof 
 of the mill. At that instant the drum, invisible, 
 begins to beat again in the covert: Ron — plon 
 — plon, plon, plon ! 
 
 The devil take that ass's skin ! I had forgotten 
 it. But who can the savage be who salutes Au- 
 rora in these woodland wilds with a drum? In 
 vain I looked about me; I saw nothing — nothing 
 but tufts of lavender and pine-trees racing down- 
 ward to the road. In that thicket there must be 
 some imp, engaged in making fun of me — Ariel, 
 no doubt, or Master Puck. The scamp has said 
 to himself as he passed my mill : — 
 
Barrack Homesickness. 187 
 
 "That Parisian is too tranquil here. Til give 
 him a serenade." 
 
 On which he takes a big drum, and — Ron plon 
 plon ! Ron plon plon ! Will you be quiet, you 
 rascal of a Puck? you '11 wake my grasshoppers. 
 
 It was not Puck. 
 
 It was Gouguet Francois, called Pistolet, drummer 
 of the 31st infantry, off on a fortnight's furlough. 
 Pistolet is bored in the country ; he is homesick, 
 that drummer, and when the village is willing to 
 lend him its drum, he goes off to the woods in 
 melancholy mood to beat it and dream of his 
 barracks. 
 
 It was on my little green hill that he had come to 
 dream on this occasion. There he stands against 
 a fir-tree, his drum between his legs, rejoicing his 
 heart. Coveys of startled partridges rise at his feet 
 without his seeing them. The wild thyme is balmy 
 about him, but he does not smell it. 
 
 Neither does he notice those delicate spider- 
 webs trembling in the sunshine among the branches, 
 nor the spicy pine-needles that skip on his drum. 
 Absorbed in his dream and his music, he lovingly 
 watches his sticks as they tap, and his big, silly 
 face expands with delight at each loud roll. 
 
 Ron plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! 
 
 " How fine it is, our big barrack, with its paved 
 courtyard, its rows of windows, all in a line, the 
 men in their forage-caps, and the low arcades 
 where the canteens rattle ! " 
 
 Ron plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! 
 
1 88 Letters from My MilL 
 
 " Oh ! that echoing staircase, the white-washed 
 corridors, the close dormitory, the behs that one 
 pipe-clays, the blacking-pots, the iron bedsteads 
 with their gray coverlets, the guns that glitter in 
 the rack ! " 
 
 Ron plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! 
 
 " Oh ! the good days in the guard-house, the 
 cards that stick to one's fingers, that hideous 
 queen of spades with feather furbelows, and the 
 old tattered Pigault-Lebruns lying round on the 
 camp beds." 
 
 Ron plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! ^ 
 
 " Oh ! the long nights mounting guard at the 
 gates of the ministries, the chinks in the sentry-box 
 which let in the rain, the feet that are always cold, 
 and the fine gala coaches that spatter you as they 
 go by. Oh ! that extra duty, the days in the 
 stocks, the vile-smelling bucket, the wooden pillow, 
 the cold reveille of a rainy morning, and the taps 
 of a foggy night, when the gas is lighted and the 
 roll-call brings every one in all breathless ! '* 
 
 Ron plon plon ! Ron plon plon ! 
 
 " Oh ! the forest of Vincennes, the white cotton 
 gloves, the walks on the ramparts. Oh ! the 
 Barriere de I'Ecole, the soldier's girl, the cornet 
 in the Salon de Mars, the absinthe in the garden, 
 the secrets between two hiccoughs, the sabres 
 unsheathed, the sentimental song — sung with a 
 hand on one's heart ! " 
 
 Dream, dream, poor man ; it is not I who will 
 prevent you ; tap your drum boldly, tap hard with 
 
Barrack Homesickness. 189 
 
 all your might. I have no right to think you 
 ridiculous. 
 
 If you are homesick for your barrack, have not 
 I, I myself, a longing for mine ? 
 
 My Paris pursues me even here — like yours. 
 You drum beneath the pines and I make copy. — 
 Fine Provencals we are, i* faith! Down there, 
 in the barracks of Paris we regret our blue 
 Alpilles and the fresh wild odour of lavender; 
 but here, in the heart of Provence we miss our 
 barracks, and all that recalls them to us is 
 precious. 
 
 Eight o'clock IS striking in the village. Pistolet, 
 not relinquishing his drumsticks, starts to go back. 
 I hear him, descending through the pines, still drum- 
 ming. And I, lying on the grass, sick with nos- 
 talgia, I fancy I see, to the sound of the drum as 
 it recedes, my Paris, the whole of my Paris defiling 
 among the firs. 
 
 Ah Paris ! . . Paris ! . . Forever Paris I 
 
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