Letters from my Windmill Part 15

--Husband, you are so rich! Buy me something really expensive....

And so, he brought her something really expensive.

Things continued like that for two years. Then, one morning, the young wife died, like a bird, no one knew why. Her funeral was paid for in gold, or at least with what was left of it. The widower arranged a lovely burial for his dear, departed wife. Peals of bells, substantial coaches done out in black, with plumed horses, and silver tears in the velvet drapery; nothing was too good for her. After all, what did the gold matter now?...

He gave some to the church, some to the pallbearers, and some to the everlasting-flower sellers. Oh yes, he spread it around alright, without stopping to count the cost.... By the time he left the cemetery, he had practically nothing left of his wonderful brain, only a few particles on the outside of his skull.

Then he was seen going out into the streets like someone lost, his hands stretched out in front of him, and stumbling like a drunkard. In the evening, as the shops lit up, he stopped in front of a large window with a well-lit, grand display of material and finery. He stood and glared for a long time at two blue satin bootees trimmed with swan down. "I know someone who will be very pleased with those bootees," he smiled to himself, and, in denial of his young wife's death, went straight in to buy them.

The shopkeeper, who was in the back, heard a great scream. She rushed out to help and jumped back in fear as she saw a man standing propped up against the counter and staring blankly at her. In one hand he had the blue bootees with swan down tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and in the other was offering her some bloodied, gold sc.r.a.pings in the end of his nails.

Such, madam, is the story of the man with the golden brain.

Despite it's air of fantasy, this story is true from start to finish.... Throughout the world there are unfortunate people who are condemned to live by their brains, and pay in that finest of gold, blood and sweat and tears, for the least thing in life. It brings them pain every day, and then, once they tire of their suffering....

THE POET, FREDERIC MISTRAL

Last Sunday, I thought I had woken up in Montmartre. It was raining, the sky was grey, and the windmill was a miserable place to be. I dreaded staying in on such a cold, rainy day, and I felt the urge to go and cheer myself up in the company of Frederic Mistral, the great poet who lives a few kilometres from my precious pines, in the small village of Maillane.

No sooner said than gone; my myrtle walking stick, my book of Montaigne, a blanket, and off I went!

The fields were deserted.... Our beautiful catholic Provence gives the very earth itself a day of rest on Sundays.... The dogs are abandoned in the houses, and the farms are closed.... Here and there, was a carter's wagon with its dripping tarpaulin, an old hooded woman in a mantle like a dead leaf, mules dressed up for a gala, covered in blue and white esparto, red pompoms, and silver bells, jogging along with a cart-load of folks from the farm going to ma.s.s. Further on, there was a small boat on the irrigation ca.n.a.l with a fisherman casting his net from it....

There was no possibility of reading as I walked. The rain came down in bucketsful, which the tramontana then obligingly threw in your face....

I walked non-stop and after three hours I reached the small cypress woods which surround the district of Maillane and shelter it from the frightful wind.

Nothing was stirring in the village streets; everybody was at high ma.s.s. As I pa.s.sed in front of the church, I heard a serpent playing, and I saw candles s.h.i.+ning through the stained gla.s.s windows. The poet's home is on the far side of the village; it's the last house on the left, on the road to Saint-Remy--it's a small single-storey house with a front garden.... I went in quietly ... and saw no one. The dining room door was shut, but I could hear someone walking about and speaking loudly behind it ... a voice and a step that I knew only too well....

I paused in the whitewashed corridor, with my hand on the doork.n.o.b, and feeling very emotional. My heart was thumping.--He's in. He's working.

Should I wait. Wait till he's finished.... What the h.e.l.l. It can't be helped. I went in.

Well, Parisians, when the Maillane poet came over to show Paris his book, _Mireille_, and you saw him in your salons; this n.o.ble savage, but in town clothes, with a wing collar and top hat, which disturbed him and much as his reputation. Do you think that was Mistral? It wasn't.

There's only one real Mistral in the world, and that's the one that I surprised last Sunday in his village, with his felt beret, no waistcoat, a jacket, a red Catalonian sash round his waist, and fiery-eyed, with the flush of inspiration in his cheeks. He was superb, with a great smile, as elegant as a Greek shepherd, bestriding the room manfully, hands in pockets, and making poetry on the hoof....

--Well, well, well! It's you, Daudet? Mistral exclaimed, throwing himself around my neck, delighted that you thought to come!...

Especially the day of the Maillane Fete. We've got music from Avignon, bulls, processions, and the farandole; it will be magnificent.... When mother comes back from the ma.s.s, we'll have lunch, and then, hey, we shall go to see the pretty girls dancing....

As he was speaking, I was rather moved as I looked around at the little dining room with light wallpaper, which I hadn't seen for such a long time and where I had spent such happy hours. Nothing had changed. There was still the yellow check sofa, the two wicker armchairs, Venus de Milo and Venus d'Arles on the fireplace, a portrait of the poet by Hebert, a photograph by Etienne Garjat, and his desk in a place close to the window--a small office desk--overloaded with old books and dictionaries. In the middle of the desk I noticed a large, open exercise book.... On it was written the original of his new poem, _Calendal_, which should be published on Christmas day this year.

Frederic Mistral has worked on this poem for seven years, and it is six months since he wrote the last verse, but he won't release it yet. You see, there is always another stanza to polish and another even more sonorous rhyme to find.... Even if Mistral writes his verses in true Provencal, he works as though everybody will read it and acknowledge his craftsmans.h.i.+p....

Ah, the brave poet. Montaigne must have had someone like Mistral in mind when he wrote, _Think of those, who, when asked what is the point of spending so much time and trouble on a work of art that can only be seen by a few people, replied, "A few is enough. One is enough. None is enough."_

The very exercise book in which _Calendal_ had been written, was in my hands, and I leafed through it, with great emotion.... At that moment, fifes and tambourines began playing outside the window, and there was my hero, Mistral, rus.h.i.+ng to the cupboard, fetching out gla.s.ses and bottles, and dragging the table to centre of the room, before opening the door to the musicians and confiding to me:

--Don't laugh.... They have come to give me a little concert.... I am a Munic.i.p.al Councillor.

The little room filled up with people. Tambourines were put on chairs, the old banner placed in a corner, and the sweet wine pa.s.sed round.

After several bottles had been downed, to Monsieur Frederic's health, the fete was seriously discussed, concerning such matters as whether the farandole was as good as last year, and if the bulls had played their part well. Then the musicians moved off to play concerts to other Councillors. Just then, Mistral's mother entered.

With a flick of her wrists, she laid the table with beautiful, white linen. But only for two. I was familiar with her household routine; I knew that when Mistral had company, his mother wouldn't sit down at the table.... The old dear only knows Provencal and would feel very uneasy trying to talk to French people.... Also, she was needed in the kitchen.

Goodness! I had a great meal that day--a piece of roast goat, some mountain cheese, jam, figs, and Muscat grapes. Everything washed down with a good _Chateauneuf du Pape_, which has such a wonderful red colour in the gla.s.s....

After the meal, I fetched the exercise book and put it on the table in front of Mistral.

--We'd said we'd go out, said the poet, smiling.

--Oh, no. _Calendal! Calendal!_

Mistral resigned himself to his fate and in his sweet musical voice, while beating the rhythm with his hand, he began the first canto:

Of a maid who fell in love and madly, And a tale I told that turned out sadly, Now of a child of Ca.s.sis, If G.o.d's will it may be, As a poor little boy casts out for anchovy...

Outside, the vesper bells ring, the fireworks explode in the square, and the fifes play marching up and down the streets with the tambourines. The bulls from the Camargue bellow as they are herded along.

But I was listening to the story of the little fisherman from Provence, with my elbows on the table cloth, and my eyes filling with tears.

Calendal wasn't just a fisherman; love had forged him into an heroic figure.... To win the heart of his beloved--the beautiful Esterelle--he took on Herculean tasks, in fact, those twelve famous labours paled by comparison to his.

One time, having it in mind to get rich, he invented some ingenious fis.h.i.+ng devices to bring all the fish of the sea into port. Then there was this terrible bandit, count Severan, who was going to re-launch his evil trade amongst his cut-throats and molls....

What a tough guy our little Calendal turns out to be! One day, at Sainte-Baume, he came across two gangs of men intent on violently settling their hash on the grave of Master Jacques, a Provencal who did the carpentry in the Temple of Solomon, if you please. Calendal threw himself into the heart of the murderous mayhem, and calmed the men and talked them down....

These were superhuman efforts!... High up in the rocks of Lure, there was an inaccessible cedar forest, where even lumberjacks wouldn't go.

Calendal, though, does go up there, all alone, and sets up camp for thirty days. The sound of his axe burying its head into tree trunks is heard the whole time. The forest screams its protest, but, one by one, the giant old trees fall and roll into the abyss, until, by the time Calendal comes down, there isn't a single cedar left on the mountain....

At last, in reward for so many exploits, the anchovy fisherman won the love of Esterelle and was made Consul of Ca.s.sis by its inhabitants.

That's it then, the story of Calendal.... But why all this fuss about Calendal? The star of the poem is Provence itself--the Provence of the sea; the Provence of the mountains--with its history, its ways, its legends, its scenery, indeed a whole people, free and true to themselves, who have found their poetic voice, before they die....

Nowadays, follow the roads, the railways, the telegraph poles, hunt down the language in the schools! Provence will live for ever in _Mireille_ and _Calendal_.

--That's enough poetry! said Mistral closing his notebook. To the fair!

We went out; the whole village was in the streets, as a great gust of wind cleared the sky, which radiantly lit up the red roofs, still wet with rain. We arrived in time to see the procession on its way back. It took a whole hour to go past. There was an endless line of hooded, white, blue, and grey penitents, sisterhoods of young, veiled girls; and gold flowered, pink banners, great faded, wooden saints carried shoulder high by four men. There was pottery saints coloured like idols with big bouquets in their hands, copes, monstrances, green velvet canopies, crucifixes framed in white silk; and everything waving in the wind, in the candle light and the sunlight, amongst the Psalms, the litanies, with the bells ringing a full peal.