by Jean Giono
By six we were all already there, eighty men: father, sons, brothers, and grandfathers, thrilled to hear how familiar our Langlois was with all the names of our localities: small valleys, peaks, alpine huts and sheep pens, and our most secret trails. Not a single slipup, not one unnecessary word, not one forest mistaken for another: everything in its place, each route marked out worse than for a royal inspection. Every step mapped ahead of time, every halt for rest indicated, every call of the horns marked not only at the exact minute when but also in the very spot where they were to sound.
And if we he’d thought our Langlois had forgotten our names, ha! Not on your life. Our names and our parentage (which we hold so dear) rolled off his tongue!
“So and so, son of so and so, father of so and so, will be at such and such a place at such and such a time. Baculard will be on his left.” (He specifically said the son, and was even more specific: I say the son because I know that the son . . .)
And then, it wasn’t only names and parentage, but the particular traits of each man, his most secret talents.
“I say the son because I know that the son can easily lift a one-hundred-and-twenty-liter barrel of plonk by himself and, at that exact spot, I need a man with a strong back because . . .” and he would explain why.
As if Baculard (the son) would have missed his spot by a millimeter or a second! You could have heard a pin drop. We devoured Langlois with our eyes. That was a man!
I don’t think anyone slept much that night. With open eyes, we dreamed about our routes he’d traced so precisely that we could see them in every detail as if they were in front of us: the corners and fringes of the woods, the clearings, the glades; with open eyes we dreamed about that man who knew us like the back of his hand and who never consented to give us a smile.
In the morning, everyone was standing at the ready, polished, perfect. Louis-Philippe could have come on hands and knees begging us for a favor, we would have sent him packing. And how!
We saw a sleigh from Saint-Baudille arrive, pulled by three horses. Empty save for a simple blanket of Tibetan goatskin, but what a blanket, oh! Forty kilos! You’d think the sleigh was carrying snow. Collars, sleigh bells, and tassels on the horses’ browbands. On the driver’s seat, Bouvard with his mustaches. A master driver! Taking the turn through the lindens on the square at full trot; taking the turn so that the runners trace a circle as if with a compass. Coming to a dead stop right in front of the Café de la Route.
And what do we see next? Sausage!
What a shame that at that moment no one could remember her real name. It wasn’t Sausage, that’s for sure!
But what name could you use? All we could say was “Milady,” since we didn’t remember her name. And she was a lady. Truly! It was no longer a question of sixty years old, or fifty, or seventy, of the Café de la Route or anything else. It was a matter of something we’re very sensitive to. A matter of knowing your trade well.
The woman who came out of the Café de la Route was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a first-class worker in the business of being a woman. Let the queen and the queen of queens come! Sausage had been among us for at least ten years, and for at least ten years we’d been seeing her: enormous, flabby, with a trace of beard even, her age all too evident (I forgot how old she was because I was thinking of how she looked as she got ready to climb into the sleigh). Not that she’d been foolish enough to disguise herself in youthfulness; I’m talking about knowing your trade. She’d retained her age, she’d kept her big bulges; she hadn’t tried to corset herself to death or to falsify anything. She’d simply made use of what she had. Which is the sign of a good worker. And what good use! She was just a tiny bit sassy, and that was fine: her sturdiness, thickness, heaviness, old age, and the desperate tenderness of her eyes and her gloved hand. And naturally, a dress that dazzled you: moirés, velvets, satins, laces, and even, despite her natural corpulence, a hint of a bustle that made her look a little like a pheasant.
And so she was perfectly at ease climbing into the sleigh that Madame Tim had sent for her. And Bouvard, who knew her like the back of his hand—he was a pillar of the Café de la Route to whom she’d served at least two thousand brandies and five thousand coffees and with whom she’d played cards and traded curses—Bouvard came to cover her with the Tibetan goatskin blanket. And (we devoured her with our eyes, as you can imagine) she did not display indifference like someone forcing herself to be indifferent; and she wasn’t overfamiliar like a woman who was still a hussy at heart. You know what she did? Well, with a beautiful smile for her old pal Bouvard, who was making her snug under the Tibetan goatskin, she gave a sweet pat of her gloved hand to the huge gloves that went on busying themselves about her.
Then off she went toward Saint-Baudille. Morning was breaking, all this having occurred in the smoky half-light of seven o’clock, in the scent of the pinecones that our women were lighting in the hearths. We hadn’t worried about our households that morning; our thoughts were turned only to our assigned routes, to the way Langlois had been able to recite our parentage to us, and to our clothing that was, I have to say, all our Sunday best even though we were about to trek through the forest. Do you have to be told that our Sundays are made of homespun and leather? They can easily tolerate tears and cuts from any number of coppices.
A greenish light, a touch of north wind, northwest weather, omens of what would be called here, at this time of year, a nice day. I mean, what you others would call not fit for man nor beast. A gentle but icy wind, hard snow in the open spaces, soft snow in the sheltered areas, in the vales and the combes, and at the southern edge of the woods. Moderate visibility (what is called here very good visibility), the cloud flutters and rises a few meters above your head before dropping back down and scraping the ground; for an instant, we see clearly; then, when the cloud sinks again, we know enough to go on as if we can still see clearly. And you can bet that when the cloud rises again, I’ll be able to find, at first glance and in their new spots, the things (people and animals) that had moved under cover of fog. A question of habit. Which I say not only to put things in perspective but also to make you understand that, for a sensible person, the outfit of “That Woman from the Café de la Route” wouldn’t have made any sense. But then what sense does anything make?
Was there any sense to what we saw happen next? (We were getting the spears ready and a few men were greasing their boots, which should always be done in the cold and not the heat like people think. In reality, we were waiting for the watchword; no, in reality we were waiting for Langlois.) There we were, all eighty-three men from here, standing about at seven in the morning on an unusual Sunday, and what happened? The legendary royal prosecutor is what happened. Don’t you think there must have been (at least) fifty trials in which it would have made sense for him to weigh in, instead of being here like this? There was no lack of trials at the time; and, if this royal prosecutor deserved his reputation, the reputation of having a “deep knowledge of the human heart” (so the paper said), of being a “lover of souls” (we had retained the words), if he really deserved that reputation, then surely it was as a prosecutor that he should have been preparing to know, deeply, the human heart. And not here. What was going on here? A wolf hunt. Obviously a bit militaristic. And nothing special! But speak of the devil! He’s coming! He’s here!
It was no mean feat for him to descend from his carriage! Finally he tumbles out all at once and then, talk about a belly that he carried like a drum! He was wearing a cartridge belt around his waist, making him look three times fatter than usual! And that buckle! Those gaiters on his legs! There’s no describing those legs!
Well, you never can tell. But I’ve never seen a man more solid than this great lump. And I’m speaking now from memory; his companions in the hunt never got one step ahead of him. Everything they did—mountain people that they were—he, the royal prosecutor, did as well, at the same time, at the same speed, the same way they did, not withstanding his age and the whole lib
rary he housed in his eyes and in which, that evening, I saw the deep knowledge people talked about—and the sadness!
But just then, he wasn’t sad; he was irritated. Langlois must have been watching for him from behind his curtains because he was downstairs as soon as the prosecutor arrived.
Langlois? We all took a step toward him. And we must have worn questioning looks, somewhere between pleasure and displeasure. Because of everything. Because of that unusual Sunday. Very unnerving, an unusual Sunday! What do you cling to when there’s no more routine?
Langlois? Oh, I have to say, when it comes to something to cling to, Langlois made a fine piton! And we were reassured: His bearing was calm, as if he knew where he was going. He showed not the slightest trace of worry, to the point that (it was as obvious as the nose on your face) even the legendary royal prosecutor was puzzled.
We got the sleighs in the blink of an eye. They were ready. Do you think we would have stood blustering in front of that door from which the “austere and brusque man” (like I said) was about to emerge if the sleighs hadn’t been ready to arrive at the drop of a hat? There were fifteen of them, harnessed with two horses, or one, and even a few with oxen. No matter: we would be going at a walk. Three horses and a gallop are for ladies or the sons of archbishops. We had work to do.
A league from the village, we left off some soldiers. They were to fan out as skirmishers on command, following last night’s directions in the schoolroom. They were placed at a point that blocked the three small valleys through which we would need to clear our way next. Again and again, Langlois gave us precise instructions. With a few words warmer than brandy he would remind us of the hamlets we would come to, the ones we would pass at such and such a time, and others at such and such a time, constantly checking his pocket watch. Then he had us take the empty horse cart with us.
It was like this all the way to Saint-Baudille. I was dropped off at my designated spot, along with Romuald and Arnaud Firmin. A hundred meters to our left we had Félix Petit, Bouscarle, and Ravanel (the son); a hundred meters to our right we saw Frédéric II, Ravanel (the father), and Moutte (the son). And in front of us the Chalamont valley opened out.
•
Where am I? What’s happening to me? It was a very odd morning. At one time or another, almost all of us had come face-to-face, alone, with the depths of solitude or some deep lair where a wild beast defends the scrap of warmth it has made for itself by tucking its thighs under its belly. This wasn’t the first time we’d contended with the winter forests and, to tell the truth, the Chalamont valley is only a little denser, a little darker, and a little more disreputable than the others.
And afterwards? Who doesn’t have it in him? I mean, so many times we’d already confronted those landscapes on our own. And when you’re alone, don’t you think you always find a way to accept your situation, to overlook all sorts things? But that time was odd, with those groups of three or four scattered all along the edge of the woods, at a hundred meters distance in the snow, controlling every way out. All very visible. There was no place to admit any guilt. So what to do? Smoke a pipe.
Let’s say we stay there for an hour, and then the horn bearer turns up. We were being well taken care of: it’s Pierre-le-Brave in person. We say, “Hey, now we know we’re the finest!”
He explains that it isn’t a question of music—our three groups are right at the center of the whole business.
“This thing here,” he says, patting his instrument, “is a telegraph machine today.”
Fine. A telegraph. Apparently there was, over by Langlois, another professional horn player who knew how to “make brass sing.” Which is how Langlois intends to give us our orders. That seemed pretty good to us. Especially since he’d sent us Pierre-le-Brave so we could answer.
“Won’t you play us a few fantasias?” we asked.
“If it’s worth it,” he said, “why not?”
Well, we would make sure it was worth it. Can’t you see our Langlois, over there, and somewhere at his side no doubt is the Captainess. (And all of a sudden we also thought about, finally!, the lady from the Café de la Route! . . . Where was she? Over there? With the high society? It was a mystery.) But to get back to the point, can’t you see our Langlois over there as he suddenly hears a top-quality fanfare from over here and says to himself, “Oh, the bastards!” (And as he says that, he sees us, he knows it’s us.) “Ah, the bastards! Those are real men!”
Then, from over near Saint-Baudille, a sound like the bellowing of a calf reached us, to which Pierre-le-Brave responded in kind.
“There you go,” he said. “That meant ‘onward’ and I answered ‘all right.’ ”
Then we signaled with our arms to the groups on the left and on the right who were wondering what those calf sighs meant; and everyone fanned out in skirmishing position and began to climb toward the woods.
Just before we got there, we pulled out of our game bags the big wooden noisemakers with which we replace the church bells at Easter.
Hey, I was just struck by another idea. We went into the woods. Silence and solemnity. Perfectly clear signs that we had no damn business in such a place. And what business had brought us here?
I could see Romuald, Félix Petit, and a little farther away Ravanel (the father), on the other side of Ravanel (the son); fir trunks covered in nielloed frost and leaves fat with snow hid Frédéric II from me; I could imagine the long line of skirmishers in the woods and each of them like me, slithering along snakelike while looking right and left, noisemaker in hand. Pierre-le-Brave had put his horn to his mouth. And, from a distance, above the treetops, once again the sigh of a calf with a bad cold flew to us like a bird. So Pierre set off his own fanfare, and it rang in our ears, through our avenues, echoing in the trees touching us and deep in the small valley across the way. And together everyone began to make our big noisemakers crackle, to crush the silence and the solemnity.
And what if I told you that just then we straightened bolt upright like a horse being pricked from behind? So we raced ahead and the more noise there was, the more we wanted to make, and we would have been capable (perhaps) of tearing a wolf apart with our teeth. In any case, the desire was there. And worse than the desire: while that horn was blowing, and the noisemakers were crackling, we had our eyes on the underbrush to see if the black-and-red snout and gaping maw of a wolf wasn’t going to burst out. We looked at each other furtively and I don’t know what kind of gaze I had, but I know what kind of gaze the others had on me. Yes, me. Who never hurt a fly.
Silence and solemnity. Thinking about it now, well, the royal prosecutor’s famous inanity, the one that Sausage had heard, the thingamajig about the truth, it wasn’t as inane as all that. Silence and solemnity—perhaps it was just a pause before the truth exploded.
Could I tell you I was thinking all that? Of course not; it came to me little by little. In any case, we weren’t there to think.
The Chalamont valley, already at its fringes, was amazingly dense with vegetation. Even if we thought that with all the racket we were making the rapscallion—or rapscallions—must have hightailed it out of there, we were wary nonetheless.
It’s commonly thought foxes are the wily ones. It’s wolves that are. Cruelty, you see, inspires. The wolf is crueler than the fox and thus much wilier. A fox’s malice evaporates. But the malice of a wolf! Around here we say “Spot the wicked wolf, shout with all your might,” meaning that a wolf is so clever, so direct, so swift, and so unhesitating (so cruel, too) that you let out a shout of terrified surprise, and it also means that you only shout once, because before you can shout again, usually you already have teeth sunk in your skin. Wolves like the one or ones we were looking for might well say to themselves, “They think fear will make us leave, but no; fear will make us stay.” And then, only three steps away, the wolf leaps out and dazzles us, smashing through the line, before getting the hell out of here. That Langlois! . . .
But there wasn’t much risk. We were fant
astic grenadiers.
Till noon, everything is fine, or just about. That is, we walk, we work our noisemakers, we don’t see anything. Every now and again, above the woods, comes that sigh of a calf with a bad cold whose nostrils Langlois is stroking.
And depending on how this calf sneezes, it means: “Is everything all right? Did you see anything? Are you respecting the assigned route?”
And Pierre-le-Brave answers for us: “Yes, everything’s fine. No, we haven’t seen a thing. Yes, we’re respecting the assigned route.” And we hear from hither and yon the others responding in kind.
At noon we grab a quick bite. Pierre-le-Brave sums up the situation based on the morning’s horn blowing: no one saw a thing; the woods are empty. And we take off again.
The afternoon light quickly grows dim and we start seeing things that don’t exist. Twenty times Pierre puts his horn to his lips; twenty times we say to him, “Hold your fire.” Doesn’t bode well. We were deep in the thickets of the Chalamont valley where nothing but copses seemed to leap away from each other. Our eyes were tired.
Suddenly, exactly the opposite of what we were expecting occurred. Right in front of us, we saw a gray, sideways movement, like the swaying branch of a fir tree. We didn’t pay much attention to it; we continued moving forward, never imagining that this fluid motion could be anything other than the sleepy gesture of a bough freeing itself of its snowy burden. Only when we arrived at fresh tracks, deep and terribly big, did our imaginations really go to work.
“This time,” said Pierre-le-Brave, “I think I can sound a sighting.”
“Not that we’ve seen much,” we said, “but there is this: tracks that show a long leap and, beyond that, dark branches in the thicket that something or someone has knocked clean of snow.”
So Pierre-le-Brave stationed himself (it was worth the trouble) to sound a magnificent sighting, and he repeated it twice because the whole line of snipers had instantaneously fallen silent.