The Horseman on the Roof

by Jean Giono

  It must have been about noon. The sun was beating straight down. The heat, as on the day before, was heavy and oily, the sky white; mists like dust or smoke were rising from chalky fields. There was not a breath of air, and the silence was impressive despite the sounds from the cattle sheds: bleating, neighing, kicks against the doors, scarcely any louder than the sound of a pan of fat on the fire in the great mortuary chamber of the valley.

  “I’m a fine one,” thought Angelo. “I really ought to rush off somewhere as fast as I can with the news and get these dead buried before they start a first-rate plague. Especially if this air continues to cook them. And now I have no horse, and I don’t know the country.”

  To return to Banon would mean recrossing the whole mountain. On foot it would take all day. Besides, in spite of his anger and Italian appetite for mystery, emotion had deprived Angelo of his legs. He could feel them giving beneath him at each step. Revolving these considerations, he walked along the little road bordered with still poplars.

  It was straight, and he had hardly gone a hundred paces when he saw a horseman approaching at a trot. Furthermore, he was leading by the bridle something that must be the runaway horse. Angelo in fact recognized his horse. The man rode like a sack of spoons. “Watch your step,” Angelo told himself: “don’t lose face before a peasant who will certainly be dumfounded at the story you’ve got to tell him, but afterward will have everybody laughing at your drawn face.” That steadied his legs and he stood waiting, stiff as a post, preparing a short, extremely nonchalant sentence.

  The horseman was a bony young man whose long arms and legs bounced with the horse’s trotting. He was hatless, though wearing a respectable coat, and tieless; moreover the coat was all covered with hay dust and even with cruder filth, as if he had emerged from a henhouse. “I should have kept my spade,” thought Angelo. He stepped into the road and said sharply: “I see you’re bringing me back my horse.”

  “I hardly hoped to find its rider still on his legs,” said the young man. Pushing back the long hair that his ride had shaken down over his forehead, he revealed an intelligent face. His short curly beard failed to conceal a pair of fine lips, and his eyes were certainly not those of a peasant.

  “He didn’t throw me,” said Angelo very proudly and fatuously. “I dismounted when I saw the first corpse.” He had realized his fatuity, but counted on the word “corpse” to redress the balance. He had been disconcerted by the lips and by those eyes so clearly accustomed to irony.

  “Then there are corpses here, too?” said the young man very calmly. Whereupon he made efforts to dismount, and finally succeeded, very clumsily, although his mount was a stout cart horse. “Did you touch them?” he said, staring fixedly at Angelo. “Are your legs cold? Have you been here long? You look queer.” He undid a satchel tied with cords to the strap that held down the folded blanket he was using for a saddle.

  “I’ve just arrived,” said Angelo. “Perhaps I do look queer, but I shall be interested in how you look when you’ve seen what I’ve seen.”

  “Oh!” said the young man, “probably I shall vomit just as you did. The main thing is that you shouldn’t have touched the corpses.”

  “I killed a dog and some rats that were eating them,” said Angelo. “I did it with a spade. These houses are full of dead people.”

  “I thought you must have been throwing your weight about,” said the young man. “You’re just the type. Do your legs feel cold?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Angelo. He was more and more disconcerted; his legs were not cold, but they once more seemed like cotton wool and very flimsy.

  “Nobody ever thinks so,” said the young man, “until the moment when they know. Drink some of this, take a good swig at it.” He held out a flask that he had pulled out of his satchel. It was a rough liqueur, flavored with herbs and very raw-tasting. At the first gulp—and he had gone to it eagerly—Angelo lost his head and would have laid into the young man with his fists if he had not been gasping for breath. He had to be content with glaring ferociously through eyes filled with tears. Still, after several violent sneezes, he felt restored, and his legs felt solid beneath him.

  “To get to the point,” he said, as soon as he could speak, “will you tell me what’s going on?”

  “What?” said the young man. “Don’t you know? Where are you from? It’s cholera, morbus, my friend. The finest shipment of Asiatic cholera we’ve ever had! Have another round,” he said, holding out the flask. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” He waited till Angelo had sneezed and wept. “I’m going to have one myself, too, see?” He took a drink, but did not seem to be disturbed by it. “I’m used to it,” he said. “It’s kept me going for three days. The sight of the villages down there ahead of us isn’t exactly a bedtime story either.”

  Angelo perceived that the young man was at the end of his tether and only kept on his feet by the force of things. It was his eyes that made him ironical. Angelo found this very likable. He had already forgotten the chill breath of the corpses. “That’s the way to be!” he told himself.

  “You say these houses are full of dead?” asked the young man. Angelo described how he had gone into three or four of them and what he had seen in each. He added that the others were full of birds and that there was no chance of finding anyone alive there.

  “That’s the end of the story for Les Omergues,” said the young man. “It was a decent little hamlet. I came here to treat some cases of inflammation of the lungs six months ago. I cured them too. I used to get some fine drinks right over there, believe me! I’ll look the place over in a minute. You never know. Suppose there’s still one who isn’t completely moldy in some corner or other. It’s my job. But what the hell are we doing in the middle of the road?” he added. “Don’t you think we’d be better off under those trees?”

  They went into the shelter of some mulberry trees. The shade was not cool, but they felt freed of a cruel weight on their necks. The grass crackled as they sat down.

  “You’re in a bad spot,” said the young man; “we may as well face facts. Leave your legs in the sun. What on earth were you doing in these parts?”

  “I was heading toward the Château de Ser,” said Angelo.

  “The Château de Ser is done for,” said the young man.

  “Are they dead?” asked Angelo.

  “Certainly,” said the young man. “And the others, who weren’t much better, piled into a post-chaise and decamped. They won’t get far. I wonder what you’ll do?”

  “Me?” said Angelo. “Well, I don’t mean to decamp.” He was addressing the ironical eyes.

  “Against this mess, my friend,” said the young man, “there are only two remedies: fire or flight. A very old system, but a good one. I hope you know that?”

  “You look as if you knew it yourself,” said Angelo, “yet here you are.”

  “My job,” said the young man. “Otherwise, take my word for it, I’d be off in an instant. Seems it hasn’t started yet in the Drôme, and that’s back yonder, five hours away by mountain trails; let’s be sensible. How are those legs of yours?”

  “All right,” said Angelo, “they’re damned good legs, but I can guarantee they only go where I want them to.”

  “That’s up to you,” said the young man. “You’re a better color now. Obviously, as soon as you’re a better color you’re the sort it’s difficult to make understand where his interest lies.”

  “Now it’s you who look queer,” said Angelo, smiling. The ironical eyes appeared to understand his smile perfectly.

  “Oh, that! I admit I’m a bit washed out,” said the young man. He leaned back against the trunk of the mulberry tree. “Would you mind passing me the drug, please?”

  Thanks to the bitter-smelling alcohol in the little flask, and above all to the presence of the ironical eyes, Angelo’s blood was back where it should be. He suddenly longed for a smoke. He must have a few cigars left, from those he had had the hostler buy him yesterday at Banon; there
were just six when he opened his case.

  “You want to smoke?” said the young man. “Well, that’s a good sign. Here, give me one, just to see. I must say, for three days and nights I haven’t given tobacco a thought; I can’t guarantee it won’t knock me out, you know.” But he puffed away with great contentment. “Odd bodies we have,” he said, when he was sure that the tobacco was doing him good. “I was a bit on edge just now when I ran into you.”

  Angelo, too, was greatly enjoying his cigar. “His eyes are looking better,” he thought, “and they’re now in harmony with those pretty little child’s lips in that beard of his. Oh, I know all about that last cartridge irony! It must look lovely in the villages he’s come from!”

  The young doctor told him how the cholera had broken out at Sisteron, the town at the end of the little valley, where its stream joins the Durance. How the municipality and the sous-préfet had tried to organize things in the midst of the panic. How they had got the warning from a mounted gendarme who had come to tell them that there were jolly goings-on in the Jabron valley; how he himself had been given full powers; how he had arrived to find an unspeakable shambles. He had sent a shepherd-boy from Noyers with a note asking for ten soldiers from the garrison and some quicklime to bury the dead. “But who knows if the child will ever reach Sisteron? Maybe he’s already passed out under a bush with my paper in his pocket.” In any case, here the situation was clear. There were six left at Noyers. He had packed them off up the mountain tracks with their bundles and some drugs. “No way in particular; there are farms up there where if they’re lucky they’ll escape. The rest? Well, it’s just a question of digging ditches big enough. There was one still between life and death—at the algid stage, though—in the little hamlet of Montfroc, a league down below those rocks; he slipped through my fingers this morning. It wasn’t long after I had sat down outside his door—sat down! Well, sat like a sack because I’d had about enough—that I saw your nag strolling by, and he let me catch him by the bridle without any objection. If he’d raised any he could have done as he pleased! It was all I could do to stand upright.”

  He said that the worst problem was finding something to eat. Everything was so infected that one had to beware of swallowing anything, meat or scraps, loaves or cakes, to be found in the houses. It was safer to go hungry. Still one couldn’t do this indefinitely.

  “Tell me,” he said, “is it just me, or do you hear those noises too.” It was the noise from the cattle sheds. “That’s one more thing,” said the young man; “those animals haven’t eaten for three days. I’ll go and let them out; it’s no joke, to die of hunger between four walls. But have you any pistols? Lend them to me; I’ll have to finish off the pigs. They’re voracious beasts and they eat the dead.”

  Angelo first took a good puff at his cigar. “I don’t claim to be braver than another man,” he said; “I’ve only the character nature gave me. I’m rather likely to be scared by something unexpected that upsets my nerves. But as soon as I’ve had a quarter of an hour to think it over, I become completely indifferent to danger. That said, and if you’ve no objection, I’ll stay with you until those ten soldiers you mentioned just now get here. I’ll lend you a hand. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re obviously all in.”

  “As soon as I saw you,” said the young man, blinking, “I’d have bet forty to one that you were one of those who act the fool as naturally as they breathe; and I’d have won. In your place I’d give a couple of cigars to the imbecile with full powers in this valley of Jehoshaphat and I’d cut out for the Drôme, where you have some chance of escaping this mess, if what they say is true. At any rate, I’d have a try. One only lives once. That said—as you put it—I won’t hide the fact that I’m in a cold sweat at the thought of spending one more night all alone in these blessed regions. You are obviously stronger than I am, and I can’t send you on your way by force. You can’t imagine,” he added, “how nice it is to talk and hear someone talk; I could let it lull me to sleep.…” It is a fact that Angelo, too, took pleasure in talking in very long sentences. The young man’s eyes had lost all irony.

  “Take a rest,” said Angelo.

  “Hell, no,” he replied; “a dose of medicine, and let’s get going. They creep off to die in the most unlikely corners sometimes; I’d so much like to save one or two. It’s the sort of thing one remembers with pleasure in fifty years’ time. Take care of the cigars. We’ll reward ourselves with one after the dirty work.”

  Angelo checked his arsenal. He had two pistols and ten rounds for each. “Five for the big pigs,” said the young man. “We’ll club the small ones. Keep the other rounds, we may need them. Seriously,” he went on, “thanks for staying with me. I feel quite fit. You’re taking a huge risk—there, I’ve given you fair warning! Anyway, thank you; I know now that when there’s cholera, especially the morbus, the only way to pry you loose would be to snip off your snout, like a tick. I’m a bit drunk, you know, but the thanks are sincere. And now to work!”

  The animals had clearly not been fed for some days. As soon as the doors were opened the sheep galloped off across the fields toward the mountain. The horses’ tethers had to be cut. They were so maddened by their empty racks that they shot out like rockets. Once free, they made for the stream, and from there, soon after, they could be seen setting off in groups in the same direction as the sheep. Angelo blew out the brains of three huge pigs; they were mad with rage and had already devoured half the door of their sty. From the top of a low wall the young man bashed in a sow’s head with a billhook. This one was ferocious and charged the man like a bull. She had eaten her piglets.

  “Well, now it’s silent as a tomb,” said the young man. It was true: there was now no longer any sound except the silky fluttering of the birds; they gave no cry.

  “I’m going to take a look inside there,” said the young man. “You wait here.”

  “What do you take me for?” said Angelo. “Besides, I’ve already been in; that’s where I killed the rats.”

  “Excuse me, Your Highness,” said the young man.

  “You’re laughing at my clean coat,” thought Angelo, “but you’ll find I can dirty it just as well as you.”

  “Unquestionably done for,” said the young man before the spectacle of the corpses. “Did you look in the corners?” He opened the cupboards and the door of a low scullery, and began to rummage, striking a light from his tinderbox.

  “What are you looking for?” said Angelo, who needed to talk.

  “The last one,” said the young man. “The last one must have dragged himself off to some unspeakable corner. As he’s the one who has a chance, he’s the one we have to find. I’m not here just to look around. When they’ve got the strength, they travel. I bet you there are some stretched out under the broom bushes. But in cases of sudden collapse, they go burrowing into places you’d never dream of. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Let me talk, don’t mind me. It keeps me occupied. Yesterday, I talked all day to myself. It’s no joke finding blue people in rat-holes. At Montfroc, just now, I ran one to earth in the dovecot. A quarter of an hour sooner and I might have done something for him, but he had hidden himself too well. I wouldn’t have saved him, but I could have done something for him. He’d have had a much more attractive death. Well! there’s nothing here, old man, except something extremely precious for you and me, and anyone we come across who needs rubbing.”

  He emerged from the scullery with a bottle of a white liquid like water. “Eau de vie,” he said, “the well-named. That’s something we can let ourselves steal. It’s a remedy. I ran out of my last drops of laudanum and ether long ago. I still have a little morphine left, but I’m saving it. To tell you the truth, I give ’em rather potluck treatment. Anyhow, with this we can do a first-rate massage. I’d have preferred to find something to get my teeth into, but that, of course, is taboo. Talk,” he added, “talk without stopping, it relaxes the nerves.”

  They went over the house from top to b
ottom. The young man ferreted in the darkest recesses.

  In one of those houses, apart from the main group, into which Angelo had not yet penetrated, they found a man who was not quite dead. He had hidden himself in a storeroom, behind some sacks of grain. He was doubled up in his death agony; his mouth was disgorging over his knees floods of that whitish matter like rice pudding, which Angelo had already noticed in the mouths of the corpses.

  “Can’t be helped,” said the young man, “we’re not here for fun. Grab him by the shoulders.” They laid him on the storeroom floor. His legs were drawn up and had to be forced flat. “Cut me a twig from that heather broom,” said the young man. He made a little mop with some lint from his satchel and cleaned the man’s mouth. Angelo had not yet touched the sick man except, and with great repugnance, to haul him out of his hiding-place. “Unbutton his trousers,” said the young man, “and pull them off. Rub his legs and thighs with the alcohol,” he went on, “and rub hard.” He had poured some eau de vie into the sick man’s mouth, which kept emitting a harsh rattle and a sharp hiccup. Angelo hastened to obey. He puffed out his cheeks to stem great retchings of wind that rose up from his stomach. At length, after a long struggle, rubbing those spindly legs and thighs with all his strength, though they remained blue and icy, Angelo heard the young man telling him to stop; there was nothing more to be done.

  “Not one will let me have the pleasure of saving him,” said the young man. “Hold on there, don’t do more than you have to.” Angelo hadn’t realized that he had remained kneeling by the corpse, his hands spread flat on the thin thighs soiled with rice pudding. “Quite enough have got it, without your trying to catch it,” said the young man. “Don’t you think I have enough patients as it is? Pour some eau de vie over your hands and come here.” He struck a light and set fire to the alcohol with which Angelo’s hands were covered. “Better a few blisters than the squitters at a time like this, believe me. Anyhow, it only burns the hairs. Don’t wipe them, let them alone, and come and smoke a cigar outside amid the beauties of nature. We’ve earned it!”