The Horseman on the Roof

by Jean Giono

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “Pardon my language, but what does it matter? There’s nothing but dead bodies in the farms over there. This place is unhealthy. I didn’t even look for water when I saw how things were. Let’s go.”

  They set off along the ridge, through the pine woods.

  “Do you know what sort of bird it was, really?” said the young woman.

  “No.”

  “A crow. They were crows that wooed us last night; and it was a crow that passed from words to deeds this morning and at which I so stupidly fired.”

  “It wasn’t stupid,” said Angelo. “Let’s remember to reload your pistol directly we’ve calmed down a bit. But I’ve never heard crows with voices like that.”

  “No more have I. When you left me just now, I was tired out by our sleepless night, and perhaps I was dreaming with my eyes open, but I’ve never heard a creature address me in that way. It was repulsive, but seductive to a degree you can’t imagine. It was horrible. I could understand perfectly and realized that I was giving in, that I was consenting. It was only at the first peck that I screamed and leaped for my pistols. Even the stink of it didn’t disgust me, to tell the truth.”

  “Forget it,” said Angelo, rather roughly.

  The forest was warm and very light, in spite of the cloudy sky, which seemed bent on rain. A few puffs of wind were already moist. The pines, very tall and widely spaced, left free a wide expanse of undergrowth.

  They reached a ledge overlooking a valley covered with red earth and the straight lines of a fairly large vineyard. A prosperous farm, with a green-shuttered house, sheds, sheepfolds, and stables, sprawled there between wide ponds, under tall plane trees already turned to copper. Two threads of smoke rose from the chimney of the house and that of the farm buildings respectively. Here the people were alive.

  They descended by a rugged track, but the young woman was an excellent rider and above all she wanted to atone for the pistol shot. At the bottom they found a lane, which ran straight through the vines toward the tall plane trees. Everything was well kept and gave evidence of hard work and constant care.

  They were trotting toward the fountain when someone sitting by its basin stood up, fifty yards ahead of them, and shouted to them to stop. At the same time he raised a gun to his shoulder.

  The morning’s events had brought Angelo before the bar of his Italy, and in spite of the weapon pointed at him he slowed his horse to a walk but continued to advance.

  “Don’t move or I’ll fill you with lead,” shouted the man.

  He was young, and, in spite of several weeks’ growth of beard and hands black with filth, he wore with ease a well-cut hunting-jacket and a fine pair of boots.

  Angelo advanced upon him without replying; on the contrary, clenching his teeth. He never took his eye off the black circle of the barrel facing him and the extremely dirty finger resting on the trigger.

  He was on top of the young man, who hastily fell back, continuing to shout the order to stop.

  “Don’t be unpleasant,” he said. “We haven’t come to harm you. All we want is water.”

  “We don’t want anyone coming near our water,” said the young man. “We leave others alone; let them leave us alone.”

  “I suppose this is too complicated for you,” said Angelo, “but I have no wish to cause any extra fright, either in you or in your family. Are there any other fountains besides this one where we can fill our kettle?”

  “Go to the village.”

  “Excuse me,” said Angelo coldly; “I never go to the devil when people suggest it.”

  He dismounted without looking at the gun. He went to the young woman’s stirrup.

  “Pass me the kettle, please; it’s tied to your saddlebag.”

  While she was untying it she whispered: “I’ve still got one loaded pistol.”

  “It’s not needed,” he answered a low voice.

  “Here’s my kettle,” he said, placing it on the ground six paces from the young man. “I’m not interested in going near your water, but this lady wishes to drink and so do I. If you have a grain of common sense, this is what you’ll do. Go and fill a jug at your fountain—at the spout, please, not from the basin—and come and pour it yourself into our kettle.”

  From the hunting-jacket and boots Angelo judged that he must be the owner of the estate; on the other hand, there was the beard, the filth, and the gun. “I was even dirtier than he on the roofs of Manosque,” he thought, “but I had nothing. Besides, he could have fired just now. I wasn’t stingy about giving him a target.”

  He added, aloud, with the utmost insolence: “Since you prefer to act as my servant.”

  “We’ve had our fill of fine manners, you know,” said the young man.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” replied Angelo, more insolently than ever.

  The other growled, but did what he was asked.

  “Now put your gun down and draw back ten paces while we turn.”

  “I shan’t shoot,” said the other; “be off with you.”

  Angelo assumed his most English air, and accepted condescendingly. He transferred the water from the kettle to his goatskin bottle, then remounted and, making the young woman ride ahead, went off protecting the rear.

  In the middle of the vineyard they found a public road leading toward thickly wooded and narrow gullies. They proceeded along it until they considered they were off the estate. They were at the entrance to a defile into which the road descended. They lit a fire against a bank. At last they could eat and drink.

  They had been there about an hour, and were half asleep after their meal of bread and tea, when they heard the trotting of a horse. A mounted man was approaching, undoubtedly a dragoon. He had the red dolman.

  “Don’t let’s move,” said Angelo. “He’s alone and I’m his match.”

  It was indeed a captain. He was riding in the open country as though on parade, with great arrogance and affectation. He was careful to make his little Sunday cloak flutter as it should. He passed without saluting.

  It was still very dark under the cloudy sky. As often at the approach of rain, absolute quiet had laid hold of the countryside. Everything was motionless, down to the smallest blade of grass, and the topmost leaves of the trees did not stir.

  Angelo asked permission to smoke a small cigar.

  “They’re very pretty,” said the young woman.

  “They’re very good,” he said, “but you’re right, I like them besides because they’re long and thin. If you feel sleepy, go to sleep, and I’ll mount guard. If not, we ought perhaps to hold a little council of war. Are we going the right way?”

  “Where are we, first of all?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll see at the next village. Did you have a plan?”

  “First of all, to get away, but I’ve done that. Next, as I told you, the idea of going to take refuge with my sister-in-law, at Théus near Gap. I realized it was no good taking the main road, because of all the barricades. Once I crossed over the mountains from this side with my husband. I’ve come back here instinctively.”

  “If you know the country, that will make things easy.”

  “I don’t know it at all. We traveled partly by night in hired carriages. I only saw the scenery, not the route. I know one goes through Roussieux, and later through Chauvac, because we slept in both those villages, but that doesn’t get us much further. I know the country is poor and deserted (that’s what decided me). There’s also a fairly important town called, I think, Sallerans, or something of the sort. And that’s all I know.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” said Angelo. “Now we’ve got some landmarks. I can accompany you as far as Théus, because that’s on my way. And I think it’s just as well I should. But we must find a spot called Sainte-Colombe.”

  He pulled from his pocket the piece of paper on which Giuseppe had drawn the famous map.

  “With the name and this little plan,” he continued, “I believe we can get there, i
f we ask peasants the way. Apparently it’s a hermitage in a gorge, precisely one of those deserts you mentioned. I have a rendezvous there with my foster-brother and his wife, who stayed behind at Manosque and are to join me after settling some business. We shall be four, and from then on our troubles will be over.”

  “You misjudge me because of that pistol shot,” said the young woman, “but I don’t consider we’ve had many troubles up to now. Without claiming that I exactly foresaw the crow, I did expect quite a bit of trouble and I was relying on myself alone. We’ll go to Sainte-Colombe, since that’s where your business is, and very gladly.”

  “I’m so far from misjudging you,” said Angelo, “that I now ask you to let me reload your pistol.”

  “I shall do it myself,” she said. “I like to be sure of my rounds.”

  She took her tools from a satchel, and did the job very dexterously. She put in a full charge with a little extra, and backed up the bullet with small shot.

  “We must take care not to goad her to heroism,” thought Angelo, who could be penetrating about other people. “There’s enough there to kill three.”

  He was also very intrigued by her way of tearing the wad with her teeth like a trooper and without braggadocio.

  “A full charge like that will give a remarkable recoil,” said Angelo.

  “A remarkable splash, too,” said she. “By the time my wrist hurts, the bullet will have already left for its address.”

  They struck camp and entered the defile. The road descended gently and wound between wooded slopes. They emerged onto a little heath covered with pale junipers.

  They had gone half a league over this wide empty space overwhelmed by clouds, when they saw a riderless horse trotting briskly toward them. They placed themselves so as to bar its way, but the animal suddenly swerved, almost under their noses, and set off at a gallop across the heath. There could be no question of catching it.

  “It’s the horse of that dragoon who passed us not long ago,” said Angelo. “The stirrups are hitting him in the belly. He’ll bolt. So an officer lets his horse give him the slip. Not in the manual!”

  He laughed at that arrogant man who had the good fortune to be in uniform. But a quarter of an hour later they found the captain lying in the middle of the road, his face already black, his cheek buried in his vomitings. There was obviously no need to help him.

  They spurred their horses to a canter, and kept to it for a long time.

  The heath must have stretched for three or four leagues in the direction they were traveling. From horseback they commanded a view over the low vegetation; as far as they could see there was nothing but this gray desolation and, ahead of them, a mass of lowering clouds, through which they could sometimes distinguish the black bulk of a mountain. They passed by a ruined house, long uninhabited. The roof and floors had caved in. In what remained of a small cellar, however, there were traces of a fire recently made between two stones. They heard a fox bark. Finally they perceived some thin fields, shocks of carefully scythed barley, almond orchards, and a crossroads with a small watering-trough and three houses. All three empty.

  “I don’t understand,” said Angelo; “here they had shelter.”

  Then he thought of the captain.

  The horses, which had covered a lot of ground the day before and had not been unsaddled all night, were beginning to snort. Angelo took great pleasure in watering them, washing them, grooming them. The leather of the saddles and saddlebags, the hides salty with sweat, had a comforting smell of barracks, of male fraternity, in this desert, in this sinister light. He was very pleased with his stout farm horse. He remembered the little skirmish in the meadow and the fine spirit he had suddenly felt in the animal. The young woman’s horse was likewise very sturdy, though better bred. Also he was more subtle. He preened a little under the curry-comb and responded prettily to the grooming hand. He tended to take an interest in distant objects. He pricked his ears and rolled his eyes when Angelo tethered him in a little field, beside the big farm horse.

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know,” said the young woman. “I stole him. I wanted to buy him at first, but they held a knife at my throat.”

  “Did you really steal him at pistol-point, as I did this summer on the high road?”

  “No, I broke a padlock. I went groping for him in the dark in the stable where they’d showed him to me.”

  “You made a good choice. He’s certainly a half-blood. One can see at once that he’s got sturdy legs. If he were trained over fences he’d make an excellent hunter.”

  “I saw that too, at the first glance. Later the desire to have him became irresistible. I didn’t wave my pistols under anyone’s nose because there wasn’t anybody guarding him; but I’d have done so. I was mad to get away. Not, as the phrase goes, to save my skin, but to leap, to fly over the obstacles, the barricades, the disgusting corpses, to bound off into the Alps. The cholera frightens me. I shouldn’t like to die in that way.”

  “Nor should I: it’s too stupid.”

  “What’s the good of being a captain,” he was thinking, “if one has to die vomiting something that looks like boiled rice?” He was drawing a contrast with the corpses left behind on the field by a charge.

  “When I see the reason for something, I don’t care,” he said; “but in this case I’m like you. Something you don’t even know picks you up by the ears like a rabbit from a hutch, gives you a sharp blow on the neck, and you’re done for. There’s no way of gilding that pill.”

  “Add that it’s the common lot,” said she, “and then we’re ready for most things.”

  In spite of the gray light that flattened out colors and shapes, they were enjoying their delicious insecurity near those emaciated houses.

  “The only unpleasant thing,” thought Angelo, “is that corpse lying across the road, a couple of leagues from here.”

  They heard the sound of nailed shoes attacking the road, and they saw come out from the crossroads a man carrying a largish bundle on his back. The stranger waved, obviously in friendship, and approached them. He was a figure so mustached and bearded that he no longer looked human. He greeted them from a long way off by raising his hat. He took care, nevertheless, to keep his distance: he stopped twelve or fifteen feet away from them, put his bundle down, and greeted them again. Only his smiling eyes were visible in his hairy face.

  “Good day, m’sieu-dame,” he said. “May I have your leave to rest my legs by the side of two living Christians?”

  He was a sturdy peasant with enormous hands.

  “Things seem to have been shaken up here too,” said Angelo.

  “We must cling to straws, monsieur,” said the other. “It’s the only way.”

  “What’s this place called?”

  “This is Villette, madame.”

  “What happened to make them leave?”

  “They went two different ways, monsieur. The green shutters over there was Jules’s. He kicked the bucket more than a month ago. The others wouldn’t stay. It’s understandable. If they’d listened to me, I’d have given them the formula.”

  “The formula for what?”

  “The formula for keeping alive, by God!”

  “If you know that, you’ll make your fortune.”

  “I don’t exactly make a fortune, but I make a living.”

  “You sell it?”

  “Well, you don’t think I’d give it away? It isn’t dear, that’s a fact. One little écu, three francs, what’s that when you’ve got your ass in a fire? Sometimes I give it away. In certain cases. But it’s a queer thing; I’ll have to admit that in those cases it doesn’t work very well. People have to pay. Then it works. And properly. I’ve already saved hundreds and thousands.”

  “What with?”

  “With what’s in this bundle of mine, madame. Herbs. I go a long distance to get them, and it’s hard on my shoes. They’re not very plentiful, and you need a sharp eye. If you wanted to get some, you cou
ld search till you dropped. But I know a lot of things. I give my fellow men the benefit. You’ve got fine-looking animals. You wouldn’t like to sell me one? I’ve got money in my pocket.”

  “No, my friend,” said Angelo. “These are our herbs.”

  “I’ll bet they help,” said the man. “And where are you going?”

  “Do you come from here? Do you know the country well?”

  “Like my pocket, madame. There’s not a bush I haven’t looked at all the way round. I live up there, and I’m making my rounds for about the twentieth time.”

  “Where does this road go?”

  “That way, monsieur, takes you to Sainte-Cyrice. But it’s not very nice there.”

  “And the other way?”

  “There you might have a little less trouble. You go through Sorbiers, Flachères, and then Montferrant before you hit the highway.”

  “The highway to where?”

  “The highway to everywhere. Wherever you want.”

  “Doesn’t it pass through Chauvac, or Roussieux? Do you know a place called Sallerans?”

  “Sallerans, no. But Chauvac—that’s a long way off. If it was clear, you’d see a mountain over there. It’s called Charouilles; Chauvac’s behind it.”

  “And Sainte-Colombe, do you know that?”

  “Yes, monsieur, it’s in the same direction. But it’s not much of a place. Nothing to shout about.”

  “Can we have a frank talk?” said Angelo.

  “That depends,” said the man. “Generally speaking, it isn’t fatal.”

  “I’m going to buy five packets of your medicine,” said Angelo; “with an extra écu thrown in, that makes a louis. I’ll throw it down at your feet if you’re not afraid of contagion.”

  “I have my formula,” said the man. “And a louis never gave anyone cholera. Go on, but don’t ask me about the moon.”

  “What are the soldiers up to hereabouts?”

  “You’ve hit the bull’s eye: they’re a public nuisance.”

  “They seem to be everywhere.”

  “I’ll give you your money’s worth. Toward Chauvac, where you’re heading, it’s packed with dragoons, and even with infantry, because it’s the highway and it’s crowded with civilians. They put them through a sieve. They have to go through fifteen days’ quarantine at the friars’ school, which has been converted into a hospital. If you’ve got any cash, you run two risks: first they beat you up, to prove you tried to grease their palms, and then they pick you clean—confiscation they call it. Since they have to give it all back to you when you leave, they like you to leave feet first. And that’s what happens.”