The Horseman on the Roof

by Jean Giono

  Angelo had taken his little saber in his hand, but felt himself absurd. “And yet,” he thought, “a naked blade, with which I’d strike immediately, will make a much greater impression on these runaway bourgeois than a pistol. For it’s easy to press a trigger, and they know it, being themselves capable of such a pretty exploit, which brings its man down without any necessity for courage. At the moment, I feel pretty small myself. That’s why I feel stupid with this cabbage-chopper in my hand. But the moment danger comes, it’ll be a saber again: and I know that with such a weapon I can be very frightening.”

  Thus he did not pay undue attention to the sickening stench from the pyres. Often, without knowing it, he escaped much more general causes of disgust in the same fashion.

  At last, after wandering for some time through the tangle of sometimes sunken tracks leading to the different blocks of land belonging to the suburbs, they set foot on a small hard road that climbed up the wooded slopes on the other side of the town.

  Quite soon they were in a sparse fir forest, which was purring like a cat. The moon was rising in a murky sky.

  “In half an hour’s time she’ll be out of the clouds and it’ll be almost as bright as day. We passed the ticklish spot at the right moment. I confess your little saber cheered me. When we were walking in the light of the braziers I thought, watching you, that I was at a romantic opera. I had the impression that at any moment you were going to burst into an aria, and I wasn’t frightened. Mind you, I trusted you and perhaps you would have used the thing. But anyhow the danger’s passed; it always reduces me to such a jelly that afterwards I have to joke. Then I can breathe again. What’s more, I’m going to leave you. I’m not going to Gap. And this road’s yours but it takes me out of my way.”

  Angelo and the young woman bade him good-bye rather coldly. He set off through the woods. He seemed to know what he was about.

  “I think we’ve walked enough for today,” said Angelo. “I’d never have believed you were so strong. But let’s not overdo it. We shall have to do as much again tomorrow. I like this district less and less. I want to get out of it as quickly as possible. You march like a foot soldier. But in a short while it won’t be your head but your knees, your ankles, and your hips that take command, and with these things there’s no arguing. If you strain yourself too far, all of a sudden you’ll drop like a sack and be unable to put one foot before the other. And suppose we again have to hurry past people who are burning their dead…”

  He even added a certain tenderness to his following remarks. “If I’m not nice to her,” he thought, “she’ll be obstinate, and I shall end by being stupidly tied to a young woman who can’t walk a step and whom I shall feel bound to protect through thick and thin. That wouldn’t be funny.”

  “I am tired, you’re right,” she said, “and since the road started to climb I’ve been dragging. You’ve been kind to act as if you didn’t notice, but in five minutes’ time I’d have had to tell you that I’m not altogether up to certain circumstances.”

  “No one can exceed his physical strength. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m tired myself.”

  “You couldn’t tell me anything more cheering. I just felt all the heart go out of me, seeing our companion go off gaily on his way, as if he’d just jumped out of bed. He’s walked as much as we have.”

  “He hasn’t gone far,” said Angelo. “I bet he’s simply gone down into the valley to sleep. I know the ways of his kind, especially when they reach a certain age. They’ll never let go of anything while you’re watching. They’re only themselves when they’re alone. He hasn’t taken his road. He’s looking for a corner to lie down in.”

  Now and then the moon freed itself from the dappled clouds rising from the south. Then its milky brightness gave the theatrical architecture of the beeches the lightness of vapor.

  They left the road and moved into the undergrowth. The soil was springy and covered with crackling leaves. They chose a tall beech on the edge of the valley and retired under its cover. Facing them they had a great slab of curdled sky; the edge of each cloud glittered like salt; low on the horizon of black mountains a few stars shone, veiled and confidential; from the wooded valley hollowed out at their feet emerged high branches frosted with moonlight, the way submerged forests rise again from a lake that is drying up. The air was warm and still. Alone in the sky, the slow rising of the clouds gave life to the night, opening and closing over the woods a fan of gleams and shadows.

  Angelo pitched their camp at the foot of the beech, where the dead leaves were thick and warm. He hobbled the mule, which immediately dozed off on its feet, and then, sure that they were staying there, lay down peacefully without ceremony.

  “Try to sleep,” said Angelo.

  He again referred to the leather breeches, without the least self-consciousness.

  Under the circling beacon of the moon the forest became laden with shadows and mystery, then through its white branches opened up vistas in which the stripped trees assumed tragic poses. Saint-Dizier, hidden by the shoulder of the mountain, threw up occasional red glows into the sky.

  “Did you notice,” said the young woman, “that the man who’s just left us never came close to us while we were walking with him, but took care to keep to his side of the road?”

  “It seemed to me quite natural,” said Angelo. “Nowadays it’s preferable for people to keep away from each other. I dread the death that lurks in the coat of the passer-by. And he dreads the death that’s in mine. If he had been too familiar with us, I should have said something about it out loud and he’d have gone back to his place.”

  “And yet for six days now we’ve been together, you and I,” said the young woman. “I’ve never seen you shrink from approaching me. And I sleep in your cloak.”

  “Naturally. What is there to fear?”

  “The death that may lurk in my skirt, as in the coat of the passer-by.”

  Angelo didn’t reply. She asked if he was asleep.

  “Yes,” he said. “I was dropping off.”

  “Peacefully, by my side?”

  “Of course.”

  “Without dreading the death I might give you, the same as anyone else?”

  “No, not just the same. I’m sorry,” he added. “I was asleep when I answered just then. That’s not what I meant. I meant to say that we are companions and have nothing to fear from each other, because on the contrary we protect one another. We’re traveling together. We try not to catch the plague but, if you were to do so, do you suppose I’d make a bolt for it?”

  She did not reply and almost immediately after gave the deep sighs of sleep.

  The night was one of vast, motionless peace, except for the sky, where the clouds were soundlessly moving; but even this movement, powerful, slow, and regular, added to the serenity of the silence. The mule’s nostrils snorted; racing field-mice ruffled the dry leaves; from time to time the big branches stretched and groaned. A faint rumble, like the one that comes out of deep wells, filled all space.

  Down in the valley a wood owl began to hoot. Then it uttered a long, composed phrase. It was not an owl but a clarinet, peacefully playing a sad and tender tune.

  “He didn’t go very far,” thought Angelo. “He talked a great deal but he said nothing of what he really meant, nothing essential. Like all of us. He waited till he was alone.”

  The rather absurd warble of the clarinet became transfigured by the swelling echoes, the white décor of the forest, the ceremonious prologue that the beeches rounded out slowly and ceaselessly into noble gestures beneath the moon.

  “Those are Mozart’s ‘German Dances,’” said the young woman.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I wasn’t asleep, I had my eyes closed in peace.”

  Day came with a dirty and somber sky.

  “We must move on at once,” said Angelo, “and find shelter. It’s going to rain.”

  They quickly boiled the tea, encouraging the fire with dry beech le
aves that flared up briskly. They ate some cornstarch, but without much appetite.

  “I am thirsty for cold water,” said the young woman. “This weather, heavy with rain, slows me down.”

  “The plague has a predilection for organisms that are tired and cold. It’s unpleasant walking in the rain, and where we are going there are heights where in cloudy weather it’s very cold for people with wet clothes. I’m afraid of houses, but I’m also afraid of rain, indeed that’s perhaps what I fear most on your account. We have to choose. And above all, we must get on our way. We may have the luck to find a hut by this forest track or, better still, a cave. I would love a drink of cold water too. I dream so much of unhealthy drinks that I’ve only to close my eyes to hear fountains flowing. But let’s think of keeping alive.”

  They walked through hilly woods under an increasingly overcast sky that made threatening gestures. The gusts of warm wind smelt of water. Rain scampered like rats among the leaves. From the top of a knoll they looked out over the great forest through which they were passing. It was thick as fleece. It covered a humped, dark blue country, without much hope. The trees were selfishly rejoicing in the imminent rain. These vast vegetable expanses, living a well-organized life, perfectly indifferent to anything that was not their immediate concern, were as frightening as the cholera.

  There were no longer even any crows. They saw a falcon searching for something quite other than corpses.

  Fortunately the track was clearly marked. Though not a carriage road, it sufficed for the mule, and above all it showed signs of having been kept up. It clearly existed for some reason, and led to inhabited places. At all events, very remote ones. Though Angelo and the young woman forced their pace, they saw nothing but trees and undergrowth the entire morning. The clouds had finally resolved themselves into a fine drizzle that barely seeped below the pines but spread the sound of the sleeping sea over the whole countryside. The indifference of it all was such that Angelo found a distant roll of thunder most attractive. He much preferred to be assaulted directly. At last, as they were crossing the donkey-back of a ridge, they saw at one and the same time the black workings of the sky, and about a quarter of a league ahead, the reddish patch of a clearing and the front of a large house.

  The autumn storm, indolent but brutal, struck two or three heavy blows in the neighboring valleys. Dense curtains of rain fell all around in the woods. The sound made the mule prick up its ears and step out more vigorously. The young woman held on to the strap of the pack-saddle. They ran. The downpour caught them. Yet they had time to see that they were crossing a sort of park before they were in shelter under the porch of the house’s front door.

  “Dry your hair quickly,” said Angelo. “Don’t catch cold in your head. We’ve got here just in time.”

  After a mild flash and a rumble that shook up echoes like caldrons, the rain began to fall with violence. The enormous house, deserted and acting as a drum for the rain, increased their sense of solitude.

  “This is a curious place,” said Angelo. “The box bushes have been trimmed and the trees planted in avenues, more than a hundred years ago, to judge from the thickness of those maple trunks that form the drive. What’s this barrack doing in the woods? Can’t you smell sulphur?”

  “Yes. But if you’re trying to frighten me, it’s no good. I’m not thinking of the devil. I remember this smell of rotten eggs. It woke me up in my closed carriage the first time I passed through this district. According to my husband, there are four or five villages about here with sulphur springs, and people bathe in them. This barrack must be simply a sort of hotel used in summer during the watering season.”

  “I only thought of the devil vaguely,” said Angelo, “and merely because the devil’s better than nothing. So you think we’re in the right direction, since you’ve already smelled this smell on the way to Gap?”

  “If we’re on the outskirts of one of those villages, we’ve only ten or twelve leagues left before reaching Gap, and Théus is three more beyond. I remember too that we went through woods. But it was night. I was riding in a carriage and not worrying. I was a long way from supposing that one day I’d have to find my way on foot through these forests.”

  For conscience’s sake, Angelo knocked on the big door against which they were sheltering. His blows echoed down empty corridors. The rain had settled in. The thickness of the clouds was bringing twilight before its time.

  “We should be able to get inside,” said Angelo, “light a fire in a fireplace, and spend the night under cover. Stay here. I’ll scout along the walls. There’s sure to be an easier door to force than this one.”

  He found one that led into a storeroom, and there they unloaded the mule. It was a harness room; the stable was behind; one could enter it freely. They scraped up from the racks enough oats and dry straw for their beast.

  “This looks too good not to explore it further, don’t you think?”

  “Provided we keep our pistols handy,” said Angelo.

  He greatly enjoyed listening to all the suspicious noises of the deserted house and exaggerated their strangeness.

  Three steps led them into a corridor. It was long and ended at a glass door full of phantasmagoria. It connected with offices and a great kitchen like a torture chamber with its spits, wheels for dumbwaiters, coppers, and smell of burnt fat. Somewhere the rain was drumming on skylights, making stairwells echo.

  The glass door was merely on the latch. Beyond there broadened out a rather pretentious hall. The daylight filtering through the chinks of the shutters was only just enough to reveal on the walls the faint gleams of what must be the colors and gilding of painted panels, doubtless hunting-scenes. Groping his way forward, Angelo touched the edge of a billiard table set in the middle of the hall.

  “I’ve found something very interesting,” said the young woman.

  “What?”

  “A candlestick with candles.”

  It took a little time to get the wick to light—it was old. At each spark of the tinder the hall and its colors opened out in the darkness like a flower. And indeed, when the candles were lit, they saw that they were in a vast room with every square inch gilded in a bourgeois and banal style. Chairs stood in rows along the walls, under Pomonas, Venuses, trophies of fruit and game, all far larger than life.

  “Here you are again with a candlestick in your hand,” said Angelo, “like the first time I saw you, at Manosque. But that evening you were in a long dress.”

  “Yes, all alone. I used to dress in the evening. I had even put on some rouge and powder. It was a way of giving myself courage. But when I took the plunge, to end by meeting you and arriving here, I only brought my riding-skirt and pistols. One finally knows just what to do about the cholera.”

  “You impressed me.”

  “That’s because I was frightened. I impress even my husband then.”

  The hall gave on the entrance hall, out of which there rose a wide, curving staircase, with the rain drumming above it.

  Going upstairs, Angelo advised caution.

  “For me,” he said, “cholera is a staircase that I go up or down on tiptoe, to find myself before a half-open door that I push open, and I have to step over a woman of whom there’s nothing left but hair, a corpse in a nightcap, or linen that’s not pretty to see. Stay behind me.”

  There were no corpses. In all the rooms the bedding had been carefully rolled, beaten, folded, and camphorated. The floors were clean, the seats and armchairs under dust-covers. The tall pier-glasses reflected the light of the candles and the two anxious faces.

  “We shall be able to sleep in beds.”

  At the end of the corridor they entered rather more boldly into a large room used as a salon, less overloaded with gilding than the hall, but florid enough with its scrolls and cupids.

  “All we have to do is light a fire in this fireplace and stay here.”

  They even found a tall pressure-lamp half filled with oil, and three more candlesticks complete with new
candles.

  Angelo remembered having seen a pile of firewood near the kitchen. They returned downstairs to fetch some. The wood had been carefully stacked against a door, and they moved it aside. When tapped, the door sounded hollow. It was locked, but not firmly, and Angelo sprang the bolt with his knife.

  “Here’s something funny,” said Angelo.

  He had just discovered some steps down to a cellar.

  “Come along.”

  They descended five or six steps and found themselves on a floor of soft sand, under cobwebbed vaults and facing standard racks of empty bottles. But in a corner the earth seemed to have been raised as though by a group of moles, and by scratching the sand, they uncovered a whole nest of full bottles, carefully sealed. There was red wine and white, and even some liqueur, too transparent and fluid to be marc; it must be kirsch. At any rate, there were more than fifty bottles of wine there.

  “It’s perhaps the only chance we’ll have of a cool drink without risk,” said Angelo. “This wine’s been sheltered from the flies for over five years, if the date on the labels is to be trusted; and why not? There was no cholera then. What do you say to it?”

  “I’m even thirstier than you,” said the young woman. “I was thinking of our daily maize with horror. See if there’s a light red wine.”

  “There is. But we must eat before we drink. We’ve been marching with just a little tea inside. Be thankful we’ve got the maize. Besides, I’m going to make the polenta with white wine. That’ll take away fatigue.”

  There was a very handsome corkscrew in the drawer of the kitchen table and glasses on the dresser. But Angelo was adamant. He lit a fire in the drawing-room, set the glasses to boil in a saucepan of water, and began to stir his polenta with wine.

  “You’re old as the streets,” said the young woman. “Much older than my husband.”

  He was sure he was acting as one should; he did not see what he could be blamed for. Naïvely he replied: “That surprises me. I’m twenty-six.”