What’s he thinking about?
He just goes on farting, farting, farting.
THE DONKEY
I
HE COULDN’T CARE LESS. Every morning, at a smart official trit-trot, he pulls the postman Jacquot in his carriage to the villages, where he delivers things that have been ordered in town: spices, bread, butcher’s meat, newspapers, a letter.
Having done the rounds, Jacquot and the donkey work for themselves, and the carriage turns into a cart. Together, they go to the vineyard, the wood, the potato patch. They sometimes bring back vegetables or broom or anything else, depending on the day.
Jacquot keeps on saying “Gee up,” for no apparent reason; it’s like snoring. Sometimes the donkey stops because he’s seen a thistle or because of some idea or other that’s just come into his head. Jacquot puts his arm round his neck and tugs. If the donkey stays put, Jacquot bites him on the ear.
They don’t come home till dark. Their shadow moves slowly from tree to tree.
Sometimes the silence of the lake in which everything is bathing and sleeping is broken, shattered.
Who’s the housewife who, at this time of night, can be winding up buckets of water from the well, with this noisy, rusty, creaking winch?
It’s the donkey raising and flinging out his voice, until he runs out of breath. He’s braying that he couldn’t give a damn, not one damn.
II
Donkey: a rabbit who’s grown up...
THE PIG
GRUMPY YET FRIENDLY, YOU STICK your nose into everything and use it as an extra leg.
You hide your little black currants of eyes behind your beet- leaf ears.
Your belly is as round as a gooseberry and you both have the same long hair, pale skin, and short curly tails.
And nasty people call you “Dirty swine!”
They say that, even if you never find anything disgusting, you yourself disgust everybody and that the only drink you like is greasy washing-up water.
But that’s a slander.
If they cleaned you up, you’d look fine.
If you neglect yourself, it’s their fault.
They’ve made your bed, so you must lie in it. Being filthy is only your second nature.
THE PIG AND HIS PEARLS
AS SOON AS HE’S SET FREE in the meadow, the pig starts nibbling and never lifts his snout from the ground.
He’s not choosy, he goes for the first grass he finds, no matter what it’s like, tirelessly following his nose, like a plow or a blind mole.
His only concern is to have a fat, round belly shaped like a tub. He never worries about the weather.
Why should he worry if the midday sun has nearly set fire to his silky hair or if that heavy cloud, swollen with hail, spreads out and bursts over the meadow?
True, the magpie has automatically flown away, the turkeys are hiding in the hedge, and the young—very young—colt has taken shelter under an oak tree.
But the pig stays put and just goes on eating.
He doesn’t miss a mouthful.
Peppered with hailstones, he just grunts: “There they go again with their stupid pearls!”
THE NANNY GOAT
NOBODY BOTHERS TO READ THE official notices pinned up on the wall of the village hall.
I’m telling a lie. The goat does.
She stands up on her hind legs, rests her front legs at the bottom of the notice board, and wagging her beard and horns, she moves her head from left to right, like old women reading.
Having finished reading, since the paper has a nice smell of fresh glue, she eats it.
Not everything goes to waste in the community.
THE BILLY GOAT
HIS SMELL GOES AHEAD OF HIM. Even before you can see him, you know he’s on his way.
He’s leading his flock and the ewes are following, helter-skelter, in a cloud of dust.
He’s got a long dry coat of hair, with a parting down the backbone.
He’s not as proud of his beard as he is of his size, because nanny goats have beards under their chins.
When he goes by, some people hold their noses, others like the smell.
He doesn’t look right or left, he walks stiffly forwards; he has pointed ears and a short tail. If men have blamed him for their sins—randy as a goat—he ignores them; his responsibility is to leave behind him a string of droppings.
When the day’s over and the sun’s disappeared, he comes back to the village with the harvesters, and his horns, bent under the weight of years, are gradually becoming curved, like sickles.
TWO RABBITS
IN A FOREST OF TALLISH TREES, with their paws all nice and warm, wrapped in fur, Lenoir and Legris are eating like pigs. They only eat once a day.
If nobody has yet tossed them some fresh grass, they nibble the old grass down to the root—they even tackle the roots.
And now someone has dropped them a head of lettuce. Lenoir and Legris set about eating it.
Nose to nose, they busily nibble away. Their heads are bobbing up and down, their ears going clippety-clop.
When there’s just one leaf left, they each take an end of it and see who can eat faster.
You’d think they were playing a game, even if they’re not laughing, and that once they’ve swallowed the last bit, they’ll rub noses, like brothers.
But Legris is feeling rather poorly. Ever since yesterday, he’s had a swollen stomach, as big as if it had a bag of water inside it. He really was stuffing too much in. Even though you don’t need to be hungry to eat a lettuce leaf, he can’t eat it. He drops the leaf and lies on his side, in his droppings; he’s having spasms.
And now he’s lying stiff, with paws apart, like gun-shop advertisements: YOU CAN KILL OUTRIGHT, YOU CAN KILL FROM AFAR.
Lenoir is so surprised that for a second he stops eating and sits up on his hind legs, like a candlestick. Breathing gently, with his lips together, he’s staring with his pink-rimmed eyes.
He looks like a magician, probing some mystery.
His ears are sticking up to mark this final moment.
Then they droop down.
He finishes off the lettuce leaf.
THE HARE
PHILIPPE HAD PROMISED TO SHOW me one in its lair. It’s tricky and you need to have the eyes of someone who’s done a lot of shooting.
We were crossing a field of stubble, sheltered from the north by a low hill.
A hare takes shelter against the wind in the morning, and even if the wind changes direction during the day, it will stay there until it’s almost dark.
When I’m out shooting, I look at the dog, the trees, the larks, the sky. Philippe keeps his eye on the ground. He’ll glance at every furrow on an upward or downward slope. He peers at every stone, every clod of earth. Is that a hare? He goes to check.
And this time, it is!
“Would you like me to shoot it?” Philippe says, in a low voice.
I turn around. Philippe has stopped and is looking at a spot on the ground, ready to lift his gun.
“Can you see him?” he asks.
“Where is he?”
“Can’t you see his eye moving?”
“No.”
“There, in front of you.”
“In the furrow?”
“Yes, but not in that one. In the next one.”
“I can’t see a thing.”
My eyes were misting up. I wiped them. Still no good. Philippe had gone pale with the shock of seeing the hare.
He again asked, “You can’t see him? You really can’t?”
His hands are trembling. He’s afraid that the hare will get away.
“Point your gun at him.”
“There you are, his eye’s at the end of my barrel.”
I stand behind him, and even when I look along the sights of his gun, I still can’t see the hare.
It’s really very annoying!
I can see something but that can’t be a hare, it’s a lump of earth, yellow like all the lumps of earth in t
his field of stubble. I’m still looking for that eye. There isn’t one. I nearly said to Philippe, “All right, go ahead!”
The dog, who’d been running around in the distance, has come back. He can’t scent the hare because the wind’s in the wrong direction, but he’s liable to dash off and chance his luck. Still speaking in a low voice, Philippe warns him not to move, if he doesn’t want a slap or a kick.
Philippe has stopped talking. He’s done everything possible, and more. He’s expecting me to give up.
Oh, where is that eye as big and round as a plum, the eye of a terrorized hare?
Yes, there he is!
When I fire, the hare leaps out of his shelter, I’ve smashed his head in.
And it really was the hare I’d seen. I’d seen him almost immediately, I’ve got good eyesight. I’d been misled by the way he was lying. I thought he was rolled up into a ball like a puppy, and I was looking for that ball. But hares lie stretched out, with their front paws together and their ears down. They only make a hole to put their behinds in, so as to be at the same level as the stubble. Their behind is here and their eye a long way away, over there. That was why I’d been a bit uncertain.
“It’s wrong to kill a hare in its nest,” I said to Philippe. “We should have thrown a stone and taken a shot at him as he was running away. He couldn’t have escaped.”
“Some other time,” said Philippe.
“Nice of you to have shown me where he was, Philippe. Not many people who go shooting would have done that.”
“I wouldn’t have done it for everybody,” said Philippe.
THE LIZARD
THE WALL: “I can feel a shiver running along my back.”
THE LIZARD: “That’s me.”
THE GREEN LIZARD
BEWARE OF THE PAINT.
THE GRASS SNAKE
WHOSE STOMACH HAS DROPPED THAT bit of diarrhea?
THE WEASEL
POOR, BUT CLEAN AND DISTINGUISHED-LOOKING, she hops to and fro across the road, from one ditch and one hole to another. She’s a teacher giving private lessons.
THE HEDGEHOG
YOU’LL HAVE TO TAKE ME as I come; don’t hug me too tightly.
THE SNAKE
TOO LONG.
THE WORM
YOU CAN SEE ONE THERE, lying down, stretched out like a lovely noodle.
FROGS
THEY’RE SUDDENLY RELAXING THEIR SPRINGS. That’s how they take exercise.
They’re leaping out of the grass like heavy drops of frying oil.
They pose, like bronze paperweights, on large water lilies.
One of them is soaking in air. Through his mouth, you could drop a coin into the money box of his stomach.
They rise like sighs, out of the mud.
Motionless, with their large eyes level with the water, they seem like growths on the flat pond.
Squatting like tailors, they’re yawning, stupefied at the setting sun.
Then, like street vendors deafening people as they yell, they croak the latest news items of the day.
They’re giving a party this evening, at home. Can’t you hear them polishing the glasses?
Sometimes, they snap up an insect.
Others are only interested in love.
And they all tempt the fly fisherman.
For a fishing rod, it’s easy to break off a branch.
I’ve got a pin stuck in my jacket; I can bend it to make a hook.
I’m not short of string.
But I still need a bit of wool, something red.
I search high and low, all over my clothes.
Can’t find anything and look sadly (but not reproachfully) at my buttonhole, ready and willing to be decorated with the nice red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, which nobody seems anxious to give me.
THE TOAD
BORN OUT OF A STONE, he’s living under a stone. He’s building a tomb there.
I often visit him, and each time I lift the stone up, I’m afraid of seeing him—and afraid he may not be there.
He is there, hiding in this dry, clean, narrow den which he owns and fills, completely; he’s as swollen as a miser’s purse.
If rain forces him to leave it, he comes towards me. A few lumpy jumps and there he is, watching me through his blowsy eyes.
People are unfair: they insult him by treating him as a leper. I squat down beside him and move my human face close to his.
Then I’ll swallow any disgust I still feel and I’ll stroke you, you toad!
You have to swallow many more insults in your lifetime that make you sick.
But yesterday, I was tactless. He was oozing and fermenting, his warts had all burst.
“You poor chap!” I said. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings but, heavens above, aren’t you hideous!”
He opened his toothless, childish mouth and replied, with a slight English accent, “And what about yourself?”
THE GRASSHOPPER
IS HE THE ANIMALS’ POLICEMAN?
All day long, he leaps around, hot on the heels of invisible poachers. He never catches them.
Even the longest grass won’t stop him.
He’s not afraid of anyone, because he’s got seven-league boots, a bull neck, the forehead of a genius, the belly of a ship, celluloid wings, diabolical horns, and a big saber—on his behind.
You can’t have a policeman’s virtues without having his vices, so I have to tell you that grasshoppers chew tobacco.
If you think I’m lying, get hold of him by playing a game of “four corners,” and when you’ve caught him as he’s leaping from one leaf of alfalfa to another, examine his mouth: between his terrifying jawbones, he’s secreting a black froth, like tobacco juice.
But he’s already got away. His urge to leap is insatiable. With a sudden effort, this frail little green monster has gone. And he can be taken to pieces: he’s left a small thigh in your hand.
THE CRICKET
IT’S THE TIME WHEN THIS swarthy insect, tired of wandering around, has returned from his walk and is carefully restoring order to his estate.
First, he rakes his narrow avenues of sand.
He files the root of that tall grass that seems likely to get in his way.
He takes a rest.
Then he winds up his tiny watch.
Has he finished? Or is it broken?
He goes back to his den and shuts the door.
He’s taking a long time turning the key in the rather tricky lock.
Now he’s listening:
No sound of any alarm outside.
But he doesn’t feel safe.
So he lowers himself underground by means of a little chain which has a pulley that grates.
Now there’s nothing to be heard.
The countryside is completely still, the poplars are like fingers pointing at the moon.
THE COCKROACH
BLACK AND CLOGGED UP like a keyhole.
THE GLOWWORM
I
WHAT’S UP? Nine o’clock and he’s still got his light on!
II
That drop of light in the grass!
THE SPIDER
A LITTLE HAIRY BLACK HAND, tensely poised on yet more hair.
THE MAY BUG
I
A LATE-FLOWERING BUD OPENS and flies away from the chestnut tree.
II
Heavier than air, an airship almost impossible to control, obstinately humming, he can still reach his destination with his chocolate wings.
ANTS
EACH ONE LOOKS LIKE A 3.
And what a lot of them! What a lot of them! There are 333333333333...to infinity...
THE SNAIL
AT THAT TIME OF YEAR when people catch colds, the snail draws in his beanpole of a neck and stays at home, bubbling like a snotty nose.
A SUNRISE
EVEN THE LAZIEST WRITER MUST, once in his lifetime, see a sunrise. He must be scrupulous, though, and entitle his story “A Sunrise” and not, like major authors, “The Sunrise.”
The sun doesn’t rise twice in the same place and in the same way. There are as many suns as there are impressions of them, which would cancel each other out. Anyway, it’s very nice to see once a year and you’re quite likely to miss it the first time. All it needs is for the sky to be closed down. The following day, are we likely to be less keen? It’s possible that on the third day, we’ve given up trying to see such a capricious sight or that the sun rises only in our imagination and the reader is still not deprived of a stylish page of fiction.
Here’s a miserable sunrise that I saw from my garden terrace this year.
As I jump out of bed at four o’clock in the morning, first of all, to reassure my family who were rather worried, I call out, “Don’t be alarmed, I’ve got a migraine (or a stomachache) which is keeping me awake!” And I close the door in case the gardener thinks there’s a thief. I walk down the garden path and look at the horizon. It’s not easy to guess exactly at which point of the orient the sun will appear. You lose patience and almost always have your back turned when it rises. And that’s what happens to me. It must be that tiny dull pink circle over there, in the mist. I’ve missed it. Where does it come from? You don’t need to be an eagle to locate it; the most modest man can do it. And slowly the pale sun cuts through the mist, turning it into clouds that shift, become recognizable shapes, and move apart. And one can’t really be sure that the sun has come up until it has dispersed them all and is quite alone, gleaming and blinding us.
Nature Stories (9781590175682) Page 4