The Solitude of Compassion by Jean Giono Read Free Book Online

done quickly.”
    â€œâ€¦and close the door tightly…”
    But she accompanied them, watched them leave, then firmly set the latch, pushed the lock, and set the bar.
    A cold and tenacious rain was falling.
    Under the streetlight the man opened his hand. It was ten cents. The blue eyes looked at the little coin and the hand all marked with scrapes and mud.
    â€œYou will get tired,” he said, “I am a chain around your neck, me, sick. You will get tired, leave me.”
    â€œNo,” said the large man. “Come.”

Prelude to Pan
    It happened on the fourth of September, the year of those big storms, that year when there was misfortune for everyone in our land.
    If you will recall, it began with a sort of landslide by Toussière in which more than fifty pines were knocked head over heels. The ravine carried away the long cadavers of the trees, and it made a lot of noise… It was a shame to see all of those trunks of good wood thrown against the rocks, and all that getting washed out in shreds like meat from a sick person. Then there was that gushing of the spring at Frontfroit. Do you recall? The high prairie was suddenly all wet, then that spring mouth which opened up under the grasses, and you heard the black water splashing, then this retching which took hold of it on the mountain and in the valley which wailed under the heavy load of cold water.
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    Those two things made people talk; they were entranced by them. More than one person got up in the middle of the night and went barefoot over to the window to listen, in the depths of the darkness, to the mountain quaking like a sick child. Still we had a little peace.
But the days were not in their usual health. On the border of Léchau a green fog floated; there was this fog stuck to all the corners of the mountain as if the wind was heavy with sea grasses. Towards Planpre it smelled like crushed gentian. One day a forest girl came with a beautiful mushroom, larger than a hat, pale and spotted with black like a dead man’s head.
    All of that should have set us on our guard, and, to tell the truth, we were on guard against all of it; but life is life; go ahead try and stop the flow, you get used to anything, even fear.
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    The fourth of September is our votive festival. It made our reputation, as they say. From my younger years it united three or four communes. They came from Vaugnières, Glandages, Montbran, crossing the ridge… At the time in question they had largely stopped celebrating with us; there was no longer anyone coming but folk from the high farms, tall woodsmen, and shepherds who came on the sly and entered the village in the evening to have a glass. They left their herds alone on the Oches’ pastures.
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    As I said to you, there was a great calm. Above us there was a round patch of blue sky all spread out, perfectly neat, all clean. On the circumference of the horizon there was a thick bar of heavy, purple clouds; it was there mornings and evenings, without moving, always the same, breaking the backs of the mountains.
    â€œIt will get the others,” is what they said.
    â€œIt should rain in Trièves.”
    â€œIt should be bad on la Drôme.”
    We said it, but even so we looked at the round blueness which weighed on the village like a millstone.
    Now that we know, we know that it was the mark, the sign, that
we were destined for something, that by this circle they had wanted to indicate our village and make it shine in the sun in order to designate it for evil. So it was, we were happy.
    â€œThe weather purged itself before. You will see that it will be nice for the festival.”
    â€œIt should be for once.”
    The son of the blacksmith went around to all the houses with a list, and one gave, perhaps a hundred cents, perhaps three francs, so that our festival would be a nice festival and not make us be ashamed. By the school there was already a booth which smelled of caramel