Letters from my Windmill Part 23

The devil, I had forgotten about it. What sort of idiot, then, greets the day from the middle of the woods with a drum?... I try my best to get a look, but I can't see anyone.... Nothing except the tufts of lavender and the pine trees which go down right to the road.... Perhaps there is some goblin, hidden in the thicket, mocking me.... It must be Ariel or Puck. The rascal must have said to himself as he pa.s.sed my windmill:

--That Parisian is much too tranquil in there, let's have a dawn serenade for him.

Whereupon, he took up his big drum and ... more drum-rolls.... Will you shut that thing up, Puck, you will wake up the cicadas.

It wasn't Puck.

It was Gouget Francois, called Pistolet, drummer in the 31st Battalion, and right now on his biannual leave. Pistolet is bored stiff here and he has his memories, and he has his drum, and--when someone from the village wants to _borrow_ the instrument--he goes out and bangs the d.a.m.ned drum in the woods, and dreams of the Prince-Eugene barracks, back in Paris.

Today, he is honouring a small, green hillock with his reveries. There he is, propping up a pine tree, his drum in his arms, having a field day.... Partridges, alarmed, take to the air from under his feet; but he doesn't notice them. Wild flowers bathe him in their scent; but he doesn't smell them.

He doesn't see the fine spiders' webs vibrating in the sun amongst the branches, nor the pine needles, which jump about on his drum.

Completely given over to his reverie and his music, he looks lovingly at the blur of his whizzing drumsticks, and his large, dull face lights up with pleasure at every roll.

"How lovely the great barracks is, with its large flagged courtyard, its orderly, all in line windows, its men in military caps, and its low arcades full of clattering mess-tins!...

"Oh, the echoing steps, the whitewashed corridors, the smelly dormitory, the belts to be polished, the slab of bread, the tins of polish, the iron bedsteads with grey covers, the gleaming rifles in the rack.

"Oh, the good days with the corps, the cards that stick to your fingers, the hideous queen of spades with her feathered charms, the old newspaper, pages missing, scattered on the beds....

"Oh, the long nights on guard at the Ministry's door, the old sentry box which rains in, the frozen feet!... The carriages which splash you going past!... Oh, the extra fatigues, the days without break, the stinking wash tub, the wooden pillow, the reveille on cold, wet mornings, the retreat in fog and at lights on time, the evening call-out that finds you late and breathless!

"Oh, the bois de Vincennes, the thick, white, cotton gloves, the walks on the fortifications.... Oh, the Military School entrance, the loose women, the sound of the cornet at the Salon de Mars, the absinth in the bars, the shared secrets between hiccoughs, the sabres drawn, the sentimental tale told hand on heart...."

Dream on, poor man! I won't be the one to stop you.... Hit your drum and hit it hard, hit it as hard as you can. I have no right to ridicule you.

So, you are nostalgic for your barracks; am I not just as nostalgic for mine?

My Paris haunts me just like yours. You--you play your drum among the pines. Me--I write here.... What a right pair of Provencal people we are. Back in Paris, we miss our Alpilles and the smell of wild lavender. Right here and right now, bang in the middle of Provence, we miss our barracks, and everything that reminds us of it is so dear to us!...

Eight o'clock strikes in the village. Pistolet, drumsticks at the ready, starts on his way back.... He can be heard, playing non-stop, coming down from the woods.... Me--I lie down in the gra.s.s, overwhelmed with nostalgia. As the drum fades into the distance, All my own familiar Paris pa.s.ses before my eyes, there amongst the pines....

Ah, Paris!... Paris!... Paris for ever!