Letters From My Windmill

by Alphonse Daudet

  For most Parisians, this fruit, gathered far away, and unremarkably round, with just a clipping of greenery from the tree, reminds them of sweets and desserts. The tissue they're wrapped in, and the parties at which they make their appearance, add to this impression. Come January, thousands of oranges are on the streets and their discarded skins are in the muddy gutters everywhere, looking as though some giant Christmas tree had shaken its branches of artificial fruit all over Paris. There's just about nowhere free of oranges; they are in the carefully arranged shop windows, sorted and prepared; outside prison and hospital gates, among the packets of biscuits and the stacks of apples, and in front of entrances to dances and Sunday street shows. Their exquisite perfume mixes variously with the smell of gas, the noise of old violins, and the dust in the gods at the theatre. It's easy to forget that it takes orange trees to make oranges, for when the fruit arrives from the Midi, by their thousands of boxfuls, the tree itself, pruned and unrecognisable, is hidden in a warm greenhouse for the winter and makes only a brief summer appearance in public gardens in Paris.

  To really appreciate oranges, you have to see them in their natural setting; in the Balearics, Sardinia, Corsica, and Algeria; in the sunny blue skies of the warm Mediterranean. I can recall with great pleasure a small orchard of orange trees, at the gates of Blidah, just such a place where their true beauty could be seen! Amongst the dark, glossy, lustred leaves, the fruits had the brilliance of stained glass windows and perfumed the air all around with the same magnificent aura that usually envelops gorgeous flowers. Here and there, gaps in the branches revealed the ramparts of the little town, the minaret of a mosque, the dome of a marabout, and, towering above, the immense Atlas mountains, green at the base, and snow-capped, with drifts of snow here and there.

  One night during my stay, a strange phenomenon, not seen for thirty years, occurred; the ice from the freezing zone descended onto the sleeping village, and Blidah woke up transformed, and powdered in white snow. In the light, pure Algerian air, the snow looked like the finest dusting of mother of pearl, and had the lustre of a white peacock's feather. But it was the orange orchard that was the most beautiful thing to be seen. The firm leaves kept the snow intact and upright like sorbets on a lacquered plate, and all the fruits, powdered over with frost, had a wonderful mellowness, a discrete radiance like silk-draped gold. It was all vaguely evocative of a church saint's day; the red cassocks under the lacy robes, and the gilt on a lace altar cloth….

  But my most treasured memories concerning oranges come from Barbicaglia, a large garden close to Ajaccio, where I was about to have a siesta in the hottest time of the day. The orange trees were taller and further apart than in Blidah and reached down to the road, behind a ditched hedge. Immediately beyond the road, there was the deep blue sea…. I have had such happy times in that orchard. The orange trees in flower and in fruit, spread their delightful perfume around. Occasionally, a ripe orange, would fall and drop to the ground near me with a dull thud, and I just had to stretch out my hand. They were superb fruit, with their purple, blood-colour flesh inside, and looked exquisite, toning in with the surrounding stunning scenery. Between the leaves, the sea was seen in dazzling blue patches, like shattered glass sparkling in the sea mist. The ever-moving sea disturbed the atmosphere far away and caused a rhythmic murmur that soothed, like being on a boat. Oh, the heat, and the smell of oranges…. It was just so very refreshing to sleep in that orchard at Barbicaglia!

  Sometimes, however, at the height of the siesta, a drum-roll would wake me up with a start. The boys of the military band came over there to practice on the road. Through the gaps in the hedge, I could see the brass decoration on the drums and the white aprons on their red trousers. The poor devils came into what little shade was offered by the hedge to hide for a while from the blinding light, pitilessly reflected from the dust on the road. And they played on until they became very, very hot! I forced myself from my dream-like state, and amused myself by throwing them some of the golden, red fruit that I could easily reach. My target drummer stopped. There was a short pause, as he looked around for the source of this superb orange rolling into the ditch beside him, before snatching it up and taking a grateful mouthful without even bothering to peel it.

  Right next to Barbicaglia, over a low wall, I overlooked a small, strange garden of an Italianate design in a small plot of land. Its sand-covered paths bordered by bright green box trees and two cypress trees guarding the entrance gave it the look of a Marseille country seat. There was no shade whatsoever. At the far end, there was a white stone building with skylight windows on the ground floor. At first I thought it was a country house, but on closer inspection, I noticed a cross on the roof, and a carved inscription in the stone which I couldn't make out from here. I knew then that it was a Corsican family tomb. These little mausoleums can be seen all around Ajaccio, well-spaced, and surrounded by a garden. The families go there on Sundays, to visit their dead. A setting like that, gives death a less gloomy air than the confusion of cemeteries; and there is only the footsteps of friends to disturb the silence.

  From where I was, I could see an old chap shuffling calmly around the paths. All day long, he trimmed the trees, dug the ground over, and watered and dead-headed the flowers with great care. At sunset, he went into the small chapel, where the family dead lay, to put away the spade, the rakes, and the large watering cans, while displaying all the respectful tranquillity and serenity of a cemetery gardener. The man worked with a certain subliminal reverence, and always locked the vault door quietly, as if wary of waking somebody. Within its great and glorious silence, the upkeep of this little garden troubled no one and didn't by any means depress the neighbourhood; in fact, only the immense sea and the infinite sky had more grandeur. This everlasting siesta—surrounded as it was by the overwhelming sights and forces of nature—brought a sense of eternal repose to everything in sight….

  THE TWO INNS

  I was on my way back from Nîmes, one crushingly hot afternoon in July. As far as the eye could see, the white, blistering road, was turning to clouds of dust between olive groves and small oaks, under a great, silver, hazy sun which filled the whole sky. Not a trace of shade, not a whisper of wind. Nothing except the shimmering of the hot air and the strident cry of the cicadas' incessant din, deafening, hurried, and seeming to harmonise with the immense luminous shimmering…. I had walked for two hours in this desert in the middle of nowhere, when suddenly a group of white houses emerged from the dust cloud in the road in front of me. They were known as the Saint-Vincent coaching inns: five or six farms with long red roofed barns; and a dried up watering hole in a would-be oasis of spindly fig trees. At the end of the village, two large inns faced each other across the road.

  There was something striking about these inns and their strange setting. On one side, there was a large, new building, full of life and buzzing with activity. All the doors were ajar; a coach was in front, from which the steaming horses were being unhitched. The disembarked passengers were hurriedly drinking in the partial shade by the walls. There was a courtyard strewn with mules and wagons, and the wagoners were lying down under the outhouses waiting to feel cool. Inside there was the jumbled sound of shouting, swearing, fists banging on the tables, glasses clinking, billiard balls rattling, lemonade corks popping, and above all that racket, a joyful voice, bursting with song loud enough to shake the windows:

  The lovely Margoton,

  Just as soon as night was day,

  Took her little silver can,

  To the river made her away….

  … The inn on the other side was silent and looked completely abandoned. There was grass under the gate, broken blinds, and a branch of dead holly on the door; all that was left of an old decoration. The entrance steps were supported by stones from the road…. It was so poor and pitiful, that it was a real act of charity to stop there at all, even for a drink.

  * * * * *

  As I went in, I saw a long gloomy, deserted room, with dayl
ight, bursting in through three large, curtainless, windows, which just made it look even more deserted and gloomy. There were some unsteady tables, with dust-covered glasses long abandoned on them. There was also a broken billiard table which held out its six pockets like begging bowls, a yellow couch, and an old bar, all slumbering on in the heavy, unhealthy heat.

  And the flies! Oh, God, the flies! I have never seen so many. They were on the ceiling, stuck to the windows, in the glasses, in clusters everywhere…. When I opened the door, there was a buzzing as if I had just entered a bee hive. At the back of the room, in a window, there was a woman standing, her face pressed against the glass and totally absorbed in looking through it. I called to her twice:

  —Hello, landlady!

  She turned round slowly and revealed a pitiful peasant's face, wrinkled, cracked, earth coloured, and framed in long strands of brownish lace, like old women wear hereabouts. And yet, she wasn't an old woman, perhaps the tears had wilted her.

  —What can I do for you? She asked me, drying her eyes.

  —Just a sit down and a drink….

  She looked at me, utterly astonished, and didn't move as if she hadn't understood.

  —This is an inn, isn't it?

  The woman sighed:

  —Yes … it's an inn, in a manner of speaking…. But why aren't you over the road like everybody else? It's a much livelier place….

  —It's a bit too lively for my liking…. I'd rather stay here.

  And without waiting for her reply, I sat down at a table. Once she had satisfied herself that I was genuine, she began to flit to and fro busily, opening drawers, moving bottles, wiping glasses, and flicking the flies away…. You could see that a customer was quite an event for her. Now and then the unfortunate woman would hold her head as if she was despairing of getting to the end of it.

  Then she disappeared into a back room; I heard her take up some keys, fiddle with the locks, rummage in the bread bin, huff and puff, do some dusting, wash some plates. And from time to time … a muffled sob…. After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of dried raisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and a bottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.

  —There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to her place at the window.

  * * * * *

  I tried to engage her in conversation as I was drinking up.

  —You don't often get people here do you, madam?

  — Oh, no, monsieur, never, no one…. It was very different at the time when we were the only the coaching inn around here. We did the lunches for the hunt during the soter bird season, as well as coaches all the year round…. But since the other place has opened up, we've lost everything…. The world and his wife prefer to go across the way. They find it just too miserable here…. The simple fact is that this place doesn't interest them. I'm not beautiful, I have prickly heat, and my two little girls are dead…. Over there it's very different, there is laughter all the time. A woman from Arles, a beautiful woman with lots of lace and three gold chains round her neck, keeps the place. The driver, her lover, brings in customers for her in the coach. She also has a number of attractive girls for chamber maids…. This also brings lots of business in! She gets all the young people from Bezouces, from Redessan and from Jonquières. The coachmen go out of their way to call in at her place…. As for me, I'm stuck in here all day, all alone, eating my heart out.

  She said all that with a distracted, vacant way, forehead still pressed against the window pane. Obviously, there was something in the inn opposite that really interested her…. Suddenly, over the road, a lot started to happen. The coach edged forward in the dust. The sounds of cracking whips and a horn was heard. The young girls squeezed together in the doorway and shouted:

  —Goodbye!… Goodbye!… And above all that, the wonderful voice, singing, as before, most beautifully,

  Took her little silver can,

  To the river made her way,

  She didn't notice by the water,

  Three young cavaliers, quite near.

  The woman's whole body shook on hearing that voice; and she turned towards me and whispered:

  —Do you hear that? That's my husband…. Don't you think he has a beautiful voice?

  I looked at her, stupefied.

  —What? Your husband?… So even he goes over there?

  Then, with an apologetic air, but movingly, she said:

  —What can you do, monsieur? Men are like that, they don't like tears, and I'm always breaking down, since our little girls died…. Then, this dump of a place, where nobody comes, is so miserable…. Well then, when he gets really fed up, my poor dear José goes over the road for a drink, and, the woman from Arles gets him to sing with that gorgeous voice of his. Hush!… There he goes again. And, trembling, and with huge tears that made her look even more ugly, she stood there in front of the window, hands held out in ecstasy, listening to her José singing to the woman from Arles:

  The first was bold and whispered to her,

  You're so beautiful my dear!

  AT MILIANAH

  Notes from the Voyage.

  This time, I am going to take you away to spend a day a very long way from the windmill in a pretty little Algerian town…. It will be a nice change from the tambourines and cicadas….

  … There's rain in the air; the sky is grey; the crests of Mount Zaccar are enveloped in fog; it's a miserable Sunday…. I'm in my small hotel room, lighting one cigarette after another, just trying to take my mind off things…. The hotel library has been put at my disposal. I find an odd volume of Montaigne between a detailed history of hotel registrations and a few Paul de Kock novels. Opening it at random, I re-read the admirable essay on the death of La Boétie…. So, now I'm more dreamy and gloomy than ever…. A few drops of rain are starting to fall, each one leaving a large star in the dust accumulated on the windowsill since last year's rain…. The book slips out of my hands, as I stare hypnotically at the melancholy star for some time….

  The town clock strikes two on an old marabout whose slender, high, white walls I can see from here…. Poor old marabout. Thirty years ago, who would have thought that one day it would have a big municipal dial stuck in its solar plexus, and on Sundays, on the stroke of two, it would give a lead to the churches of Milianah, to sound their bells for Vespers?… There they go now, ringing away…. And not for a brief spell, either…

  Without doubt this room is a miserable place. The huge, dawn spinners, known as philosopher's thought spiders, have spun their webs everywhere…. I'm going out.

  * * * * *

  I'm on the main square, now. Just the place for the military band of the Third Division, not put off by a bit of rain, which has just arranged itself around the conductor. The Brigade General appears at one of the Division windows, surrounded by his fancy women. The sub-prefect is on the square and walks to and fro on the arm of the Justice of the Peace. Half a dozen young Arabs, stripped to the waist, are playing marbles in a corner to the sound of their own ferocious shouting. Elsewhere, an old Jew in rags comes to look for a ray of sunshine he left here yesterday and looks astonished not to find it…. "One, two, three…!" the band launched into an old Talexian mazurka, which Barbary organs used to play, irritatingly, under my window last year. But it moved me to tears today.

  Oh, how happy are these musicians of the third! Their eyes fixed on the dotted crochets, drunk on rhythm and noise, only conscious of counting beats. Their whole being was in that hand-sized bit of paper vibrating in brass prongs at the end of their instruments. "One, two, three…!" They have everything they need these fine men, except they never play the national anthem; it makes them home sick…. Alas, I haven't much of a musical ear and this piece irritates me, so I'm off….

  * * * * *

  Now, where on earth would I be able to have a nice time, on a grey

  Sunday like this? I know! Sid'Omar's shop is open. I'm going there.

  He may have a shop, Sid'Omar, but
he is no shopkeeper. He is a prince of the blood line, the son of a former Dey of Algeria, who was strangled to death by Turkish soldiers…. When his father was killed, he sought refuge in Milianah with his adored mother. He lived there for several years like a fine gentleman philosopher with his greyhounds, falcons, horses, and wives in this attractive and refreshing palace, amongst the orange trees and fountains. Then the French came; we came. Sid'Omar was our enemy at first and allied himself with Abd-el-Kader, but then he fell out with the Emir and surrendered to us. While Sid'Omar was away from Milianah, the Emir took revenge by pillaging his palace. He flattened his orange trees, made off with his horses and wives; and killed his mother, cruelly crushing her throat under the lid of a large chest…. Sid'Omar's anger knew no bounds: within the hour he had enrolled himself in the French army, and we had no better, fiercer soldier, for as long as our war with the Emir lasted. Sid'Omar returned to Milianah; but even today at the merest mention of Abd-el-Kader, he grows pale and his eyes light up.

  Sid'Omar is sixty now, and despite his age and the smallpox, his face has stayed rather handsome. He has long eyelashes, with an appealing look and a charming smile; very prince-like. The war ruined him, and all he has left of his former opulence is a farm in the plain of Chélif and a house in Milianah, where he lives a bourgeois life with his three sons, who are being brought up under his aegis. The local bigwigs hold him in some veneration. If a dispute breaks out they are only too happy to let him arbitrate; and his judgement usually carries the weight of law. He seldom goes out; you can usually find him every afternoon next door in a shop which opens onto the road. It is not opulently furnished; the walls are whitewashed, and there are a circular wooden bench, cushions, long pipes, and two braziers…. This is where Sid'Omar gives his audiences and dispenses justice. Hey! Solomon in a shop.

  * * * * *

  Today is Sunday and there is a good turn out. A dozen leaders, each in their burnous, are squatting all around the room, a large pipe and small fine filigreed eggcup full of coffee to hand. I go in; nobody moves…. From where he is, Sid'Omar gives me his most charming smile by way of a greeting and beckons me to sit next to him on a large yellow silk cushion. He puts a finger to his mouth to indicate that I should listen.