The Solitude of Compassion

by Jean Giono

  I fold my paper—pen—my cap quickly. I have to know where Vassili spends his nights. He does not go into the ordinary passageway, but I perceive his silhouette on the underground ramp which descends into the heart of the fort. I walk soundlessly down the slope. Detours, I hurry; Vassili’s casual step scrapes the paving stones; a stairway plunges into a hole of darkness after the last electric light. He goes down as if into black water: legs, chest, cat hair. Then nothing. Vassili has disappeared; the sound of his step on the soft soil becomes fainter, is lost, falls silent.

  What am I doing? Hmm, I have not really decided.

  Finally, let’s go.

  I walk along a wall to avoid the halo of the lamp and I take a chance on the stairs. Perhaps Vassili’s evil eye is surveying me from the depths of those shadows.

  On the sides of the stairs is earth, a little humid you could say. A faint light guides me; it is a square of night darker than the shadow with a little star in the middle. And now I hear muted sounds of the accordion: “Vagonitika” or rather something more lugubrious, a quintessence of melancholy, of pain, of irremediable sadness with brief spurts of hatred, furious caprioles in a flat key.

  “There must be trouble tonight in Vassili’s soul.” Quietly I approach the opening—wreckage—I see the irregular breach filled with night.

  The smooth ascension of an illuminating shell: the accordion is quiet. I raise my head a little, ah I recognize the place; it is on the side of the fort, facing the Krauts’ trenches; it is torn out by shell fire and it is forbidden to come here because of the machine gunners who pepper the area during the day. I see Vassili crouched on two sacks of earth. He presses the accordion against his chest; he is hunched over this box of linen and wood from which his cruel dream flows. The shell falls, a bullet cracks against the wall. Night.

  And the melodic moaning goes on. Oh Vassili, cold and mute, I know why, now, you look for solitary corners. I know it because I have watched the famous dream to which you give your heart bit by bit emerge from the waves of music.

  And each day friendship draws me closer to Kossiakoff, a fur trapper the man-woman told me; Vassili, a student. That one, nothing can be done, especially since the night I watched him. He is sleeping, or rather, hunched over like some terminal god in the depths of the fort, he dreams a long confused dream.

  With Kossiakoff holding me by the hand I run over the sheltered glacis and when I arrive, out of breath, he raises me up on his solid arms and carries me like a child despite my cries. We go to the canal and fish for carp with grenades; at the co-op in the windmill we buy jellies, and we eat them while walking, using our hands as spoons. I smoke Russian tobacco, cigarettes as thick as your finger, rolled in blotting paper. Kossiakoff procured me a shirt like his; he calls me Ivan, and he puffs on my pipe without any great conviction.

  In the evenings he writes long letters to my cousin in Russian. Then, he mimes his hopes to me: he is married to her and furs abound: soon he is rich: a big belly, whiskers, a beautiful, thick and heavy vest, and an assortment of children arranged in order of descending height like the fluting of a syringe.

  The little man-woman inserts himself in the opening of the door. I keep scraping out the stock of my pipe, but my two companions rise up out of the darkness and stand petrified. Then, without noticing them, he comes to me:

  “Monsieur,” he says, “you have to go to the artillery observation post. There are convoys at the crest of Fort B. and we do not want to watch them pass by in peace. It is a Russian battery that covers the sector; signal the arrival of the cars to them, and the result of the strike” (all that in a sweet and lisping voice).

  I stand up:

  “I am going right away, Monsieur, but I have never telephoned your batteries and I’m not sure how it works.”

  The man-woman makes a gracious gesture. It is a bit like the wing of a dove. And that is to say?…

  In the little, rusted metal hut Kossiakoff is very uneasy. He tries two positions before he succeeds in resting his long legs. From a hole in the roof the glances we shoot would appear more deadly than the inescapable arrows of Apollo.

  On the horizon is a grey pimple: Fort B. A hump of the gentle hill descends and disappears in the woods.

  I take out my binoculars. Everything seems just as dead as it does with the naked eye; on the wavy carpet of earth, a spot moves. Pride from my discovery. I hold my breath.

  “Hello, battery?”

  “Hello.”

  At the exit of the woods of B., the head of a convoy. The spot moves slowly towards the fort. Through the opening in the water tank, they must already see the postern of the opposite slope. Let’s move on, another difficult task accomplished.

  A trail of smoke appears on the crest: two, three, three pale mushrooms; like my own land in the summer when it thunders beyond the hills. The smoke blows in the wind. Through the binoculars I see the spot again; it has stopped; around it three black points are spread. It seems to me that one of them is making for the woods, an illusion; it is so far…

  Kossiakoff laughs. That is how it is all day long.

  But towards evening Kossiakoff finds something interesting in the sector of the Russian batteries. I have already noticed this yellow splotch which seems to be panting in the wind. It’s a field of grain. On the border two reapers hurry to gather in the horses’ rations. They came out a little too early; the evening is not yet thick enough to hide them; a little regular flash betrays them. And Kossiakoff rests his hand on the leather box where the telephone sleeps.

  I stop him. Why kill? Today we have already wiped out the water tanks. It is beautiful, a reaper in the open. They must cast furtive glances at the fresh shell holes around them. Kossiakoff insists. It is his duty. They told him: anything that moves. He does have his secret pleasure of being a watchdog. So I speak and speak. Kossiakoff yawns while listening to my dead words. An anguish torments me, he does not understand; he does not understand. Yes, he has seen my eyes, his arm falls again, a light smile tugs at his lips. He caresses my knee. No more duty: friendship. Duty yes, but happiness given to a friend is something tender, and I would like to tell him, but I am unable. There are steppes between us. Then I make with my hand the same gesture as the man-woman, a bit like the wing of a dove.

  I do not understand right away since the man-woman has such a thin voice.

  “What, Monsieur?”

  “Your company is moving for good this evening. You will continue service until tomorrow morning’s connection. You will rejoin Champfleury. You tell your captain that I am very pleased with you.”

  I ask:

  “You don’t think that I could come back?”

  “No. The sector will be entirely maintained by our artillery which has moved into position. I thank you Monsieur, farewell.”

  He shakes my hand.

  Before he leaves:

  “Would you, Monsieur, tell all that to my comrade Kossiakoff? I can never make him understand my gestures.”

  He turns towards Kossiakoff fixed at his guard post. He speaks. In the entire length of my friend, only his eyes move. As the words reach him, his glance falls slowly on me.

  “There, he knows.”

  The man-woman presses my hand again then—he shows Kossiakoff still stiff—“You have made yourself an excellent friend there. Ah! The Russians, Monsieur…” He is going to tell me… No, he salutes, turns on his heels, and goes out.

  A beautiful morning with larks and a little sun. On the glacis of the fort Easter daisies have bloomed; I had not noticed them before.

  Kossiakoff carries my bag. Our walk over the fine gravel is the only sound of the morning with the loud rustling of the larks. His step, my step; his step mingled with mine, mine alone. I turn my head: Kossiakoff stops and plucks an Easter daisy.

  He has given me that blond tobacco which I do not like, a packet of tea and a roasted sausage. He did not want to accept anything from me, not even this old steel lighter, which he wanted, but which I slipped into the
pocket of his jacket without his seeing.

  At the canal there is a Russian sentinel. Kossiakoff parleys: there is nothing to be done; he cannot go beyond the bridge. He unbuckles the bag; he helps me on with it. This is it, I balance it with a heave of my back (these moments are still precise inside me), I give him my hand—even to a Frenchman I would not know what to say at this moment. Kossiakoff seizes me by the shoulders, kisses me lightly on the mouth, then with great strides and without a look back, he turns past the shell depot and disappears.

  Dumbstruck, alone, empty, I try to call Kossiakoff and the name sticks in my throat.

  A hunting plane in the depths of the sky buzzes like a bee.

  I went to knock on the little door of the windmill.

  “A bottle of Banyuls, if you please.”

  And I drank. Then I went to sleep in the straw.

  It is late. Late for my little village in Provence. The bell has just cast to the wind the ten seeds of the nocturnal hour. On the hearth the kettle still chatters a little with the last embers: I relight my extinguished pipe. The tobacco is very good tonight, unctuous, peppered, strong the way I like it; the peaceful smoke curls around the lamp. My bed awaits me, candid and blossoming purple with amazing, freshly washed linens and a great covering warmly doubled with old silk.

  Ivan Ivanovitch Kossiakoff was executed at camp Chalons in July 1917.

  Manosque 1920.

  The Hand

  It was morning. When I went out of the town, dawn was hardly a drop of water. All of the fountains could be heard. The first ray of sun, I met it halfway up the hill. And so it is that now, seated on the slope, I hear steps coming down the path. Who is this early riser, who is even earlier than I?

  His step is a heavy step, forceful in its solidity and strength, but slow. The man seems to be testing the position of the stones and leaning on them carefully. I hear a stick searching. It is Fidélin the blind man. There he is at the turn; standing there, in all his height, his eyes reflect the sun like pieces of glass. He rests his spade on his shoulder. I call to him from afar, so as not to surprise him.

  “I am coming,” he says to me.

  And, sure enough, he comes, without hurrying, having veered off a little towards the slope.

  “Here you are bright and early,” I say to him.

  “About what time is it?”

  “I don’t know, maybe four o’clock.”

  “I thought so.” I told him. I told him: “It is now exactly four o’clock my friend,” then I thought, “He knows that better than you do,” that is what makes me return. Four o’clock! I still have time to make three rounds.

  “Are you caring for the olive tree?” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “Who told you that it was later than four o’clock?”

  He taps the slope with his cane, then with his hand, and as he sits down with a great cracking of his old bones, he says to me:

  “An earthworm.”

  He continues:

  “An earthworm. When they come out it is five o’clock. I need to touch things. Nothing comes into me through my eyes. They are cold. So I touch with my hands.”

  “You touch it with your hands?” I say. “With your hands, Fidélin, like that? Like when I touch a table or the grass or even faces?”

  I look at his large torn hands and the rough man’s skin. Tanned hands from the great tannery, cooked hands, lifeless hands, baked hands in a carapace of dead skin like a glove of mud.

  “Better!” says Fidélin.

  He raises his right hand, he moves it, and then, in a stroke, I see all of the intelligence of his fingers, all the fluctuating disquietude of the palm, all the knowledge of the base of his thumb, all the enormous appetite of this hand that sees.

  “Better! You know that I got it when I was young. The day of the procession for Saint-Pancrace. It was warm, it was May around here, everything was sunny and there was the thick steam of the earth, and I followed the saint, with my hat off, at high noon, at the height of the heat. The one who carried the reliquary in front was named Mathurin, he was a woodworker from Observantine Road. At Notre-Dame, I was one of the first people in the church. The cold gripped my head. They put the reliquary down into the crypt: ‘Boy, lend a hand,’ said Mathurin, ‘It is heavy.’ I put my shoulder under the reliquary, beside the shoulder of Mathurin, and I helped set the holy corpse down. I said to myself: ‘You have something out of sorts in your head.’ Below it was black. Since then it has been black. They brought me back up by lending me a hand. They did not say a thing. I did not say a thing; I was dumbstruck. I was young. I remember the last thing that I saw: Mathurin’s shoulder, and then a big candle that was weeping, and then the stairway below my feet. My foot stepped on it, and then nothing.

  “I stayed for a long time in my chair. They placed me in front of the door. My mother kept saying: ‘Look, look, just try.’ I tried and still I had a black brain. In the end I gave it up and cried, I left my eyes alone, I said no. Then, and from that moment on, all that was around me said yes to me and I began to see.”

  I watch this hand in the grass. It touches a sprig of thyme. The big fingers follow the twisted wood then the palm caresses this cheek of flowers.

  “I recall the time when I was a young man. My beard grew. Across from our house was a seamstress shop. At four o’clock vespers they allowed the girls to go out into the courtyard by the iron pits, you know, where there is that old wall older than the town. They came up to me. The ladies called over to me: ‘Fidéline, Fidélin,’ then ‘Here is your cane,’ then ‘You look like Jesus Christ,’ but very nicely, leaning against me rubbing, making me smell the openings of their blouses, laughing, telling me, ‘Give me your hand’ and they put things that were round and warm into my hands, fleshy things that I knew later to be breasts. But there it was in the blouse. Poor me! A young man of twenty without eyes! You understand, Monsieur Jean?”

  “I understand Fidélin, I understand that I would have suffered. All that suffering which I avoided. Never again will I complain, Fidélin. I was twenty, and I had my eyes, may the good Lord protect them!”

  “No, it’s not that. You understand, Monsieur Jean, all the happiness that it gave me? They were not mean. One fine day, one of them came all alone. She said to me: ‘It is evening,’ then ‘you cannot see anymore, but they broke the lamp at the end of the road,’ then ‘I was the one who broke the lamp with rocks, last night.’ I said ‘I heard you.’ ‘Touch,’ she said to me. She took my hand and placed it open on her face. ‘Touch my eyes,’ she told me, ‘touch my nose, touch my mouth, touch my chin; you feel how fine my skin is? You feel how it makes a stream there between the cheek and the nose? You feel how round my cheek is, perfectly round, and then there, between my nose and my mouth, this little border with two slopes, and then pass your fingers there, over my lips, you feel how soft they are? And also the design, follow it, and then, you see, I’ll kiss your fingers, touch my hair…’—‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you are beautiful. ’—‘My name is Antonia,’ she told me: ‘I love you, and you?’”

  He stopped speaking. After a moment, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, I have to say something to keep myself amused, don’t I, Monsieur Jean?”

  Annette or A Family Affair

  “You must understand,” Justin told me, “tomorrow the woman is going to Chausserignes, then…”

  “Just that, on a weekday? Isn’t it the market day?”

  “No, it is for a family affair.”

  Right away he took on a slightly distant expression which was just enough to leave a corner of his eye watching me. As for me, I know, I had to pretend to have something else on my mind; I watched the clock.

  “Well I am leaving, you must have things to get ready.”

  “Ah! No,” said Justin, “stay a little longer; it is barely two o’clock, and besides, it’s raining. And besides, sit down. Mélanie, bring us another liter.”

  We filled our pipes; Justin filled his over the brim so th
at it would last a long time, then he wet his thumb with saliva and packed down the tobacco by turning his thumb. He lit the very middle and sucked gently.

  “Look, I will tell you about this affair… You remember my wife’s sister, Rosine? No? You don’t remember? A lady, a real little tart, a little bitch, with allthe trimmings, defrosted, there you go… They found her once with Barnabus, you don’t recall? That’s strange!”

  “Tell me, Justin: Barnabus, is that the one you were speaking about, he is at least eighty, well…”

  “This is true, this is, look; I thought that you were older. This is true, this is, but it does not mean anything, listen: this Rosine, she had a daughter by her first husband, then this daughter married…”

  “Wait a minute, Justin; how do you expect me to remember? That was at least fifty years ago.”

  He thinks for a moment.

  “Ah! Fifty years, at least that; at least, you said it right, but still it is strange, I remember it myself. Maybe it is because we talked about it in the family, and then, I must have seen Rosine’s photograph. Yes, that’s right, I must have seen her photograph.

  So, Bertha, Rosine’s daughter marries and she has a daughter.”

  “Ah! Well, Justin, she has daughters, that she does!”

  “Yes she had three, but that does not mean anything, it begins here. They called their daughter Annette. She was one, she was two, two and a half, perhaps even three years old, but at that point my Bertha dies. She wore herself out sewing linens for others, going to the washhouse in the middle of winter, doing praiseworthy house-work. She dies. Good. Her husband was one of those, you know, who was a weakling. On top of that, he liked absinthe. Six months later he died too, all burned up inside by drink. Good. So the little girl is all alone. I remember that at that time my wife told me every evening: ‘Also, Justin, that little girl is all alone,’ and I told her ‘Ah! Yes,’ and then we would go to sleep. Rosine wrote to her brother, Eugène, who was a locksmith in the village: ‘If you could take the little girl in with you…you who have a workshop, you could keep her; as for myself I am remarried and my husband, you know…’