Letters From My Windmill (19 page)

In the afternoon, the shack is especially charming. Throughout our
beautiful, southern winter days, I enjoy being alone by the tall
mantelpiece, while several twigs of tamarisk smoke away in the hearth.
The howling mistral or tramontana makes the doors bang, the reeds
scream, and a range of noises that make the great, natural clamour all
around. The rays of the winter sun gather and are then scattered by the
fierce wind. Great shadows race around under a perfect blue sky. The
light comes in flashes, and the noise in crashes, and the flock's bells
are suddenly heard, then lost in the wind, only to emerge again under
the rattling door like a charming refrain…. Twilight, just before the
hunters come back, is the most exquisite time of day. By then the wind
has moderated. I go out for a moment; the great red sun, at peace at
last, goes down in flames, but without heat. Night falls and brushes
you with its damp, black wing as it passes over. Somewhere, at ground
level, there is a bang, a flash, as the red star of a rifle shot bursts
into the surrounding blackness. What is left of the day rushes past. A
long flight of ducks flies by, low, as if looking for somewhere to
land; but suddenly, catching sight of the cabin where the fire is lit,
they take fright. The one at the head rises, and the rest follow as
they fly away screaming.

Soon afterwards, a great shuffling sound, something like rain falling,
approaches. Thousands of sheep, brought back by the shepherds and urged
on by the dogs, are anxiously and haphazardly and breathlessly
scurrying about towards the folds. I am overrun by them and they barge
into me as I am caught up in a maelstrom of woollen curls, and
bleating. It was an ocean swell of sheep that seems to carry away the
shepherds on leaping waves of wool…. Behind the flock, friendly
footsteps and joyful voices are heard. The shack fills up, and becomes
lively, and boisterous. The kindling blazes on the fire. The more tired
they are; the more they laugh. It is a dizzy, happy fatigue, their
rifles stacked in a corner, long boots strewn about, and game bags
emptied into a bloodied heap of red, golden, green, and silver plumage.
In the smoke, the table is set out with a good eel soup. Silence falls;
the huge silence of robust appetites; only broken by the ferocious
growling of the dogs as they scuffle to sample their bowls by the
door….

The evening will soon end. By now, there is only the keeper and I in
front of the flickering fire. We chat desultorily, occasionally
throwing half-words at each other, peasant-like, with Red Indian style
grunts, which fizzle out like the last sparks of the dying fire.
Eventually, the keeper stands up, lights his lantern, and I hear his
heavy footsteps fade into the night….

The
wish-and-wait!
, what an appropriate name for the lookout, the
expectancy of the hunter lying in wait, and the uncertainty of hours of
total concentration, waiting and wishing between day and night. The
morning lookout is just before sunrise. There is a lookout posted from
evening until twilight, which is the one I prefer, especially in this
marshland where the swamp water sustains the daylight for so long….

Sometimes the lookout takes place in a tiny, punt, a narrow, keelless
boat, which rolls at the drop of a hat. Hidden to peak of his cap by
the reeds, the hunter, lying on the bottom of the boat, keeps an eye
out for ducks. The gun barrel and the dog's head sniff the air. The dog
catches mosquitoes or else stretches out its huge paws and pitches the
whole shooting-match over and fills it with water. All this looking out
is a bit too complicated for my tyro's taste. Most of the time, I go to
the
wish-and-wait
on foot, paddling deep into the swamp in enormous
leather waders. I move slowly and carefully for fear of getting stuck
in the mud. I try to avoid stinking reeds and jumping frogs….

Happily, an islet of tamarisks finally appears and I can get myself
onto some dry land. The keeper did me the honour of leaving his dog
with me, a huge Great Pyrenees with a long, white, shaggy coat, a prime
hunter and fishing dog, whose presence never ceases to intimidate me
somewhat. When a water fowl comes within firing range, the dog has an
ironical way of looking at me and throwing his head back like a
disdainful arty type, and with his two long ears flopping in front of
his eyes, he freezes, and wags his tail, in a perfect mime of
impatience, as if to say:

—Shoot… go on then, shoot!

I obey. I miss. So, he lies down full length, and yawns and stretches
himself out giving the appearance, for all the world, of being tired,
discouraged, and insolent….

Oh! Very well, then, you're right, I am a bad shot. What really
fascinates me about the lookout is the sunset; the dimming light taking
refuge in the water of the shining lakes, which transform the grey tint
of the overcast sky into a fine shade of polished silver. I love the
smell of the water, and the mysterious rustling of long leaves and
insects in the reeds. Every so often, a darker note sounds and rolls
across the sky like the sound of a conch shell. It's the boom of the
bittern as it plunges its huge, wader's beak to the bed of the
swamp…. Noisy crane flights startle me and I can hear the movement of
their feathered, plumed wings. Then—nothing. It's the night, the deep,
dark night, with just a glimmer of daylight left lingering on the
water….

Suddenly, I feel sort of nervous unease, as if someone was behind me. I
turn round and am reassured by the sight of that ubiquitous travelling
companion of fine nights, the moon; a low, large, and full moon rising
calmly and with a visible motion which slows gradually as it rises
above the horizon.

A moonlit patch is already clearly visible nearby, then another, then
one further off…. Eventually the whole marsh is bathed in moonlight,
and the least tuft of grass gives a shadow. The lookout is over, the
birds can see us—we have to return to base. We walk bathed in a
dusting of weak, blue light; each step we make in the open water and
the irrigation channels stirs the horde of reflected stars and the
moonlight that penetrates the depths of the water.

Within rifle range of the shack, there is another one similar, but more
rustic. It's home to our keeper, his wife and their two eldest
children. The girl is responsible for the men's meal, and doing repairs
to the fishing nets, while the boy helps his father look into the keep
nets, and maintain the sluice gates in the ponds. The two youngest
children are in Arles, staying with their grandmother, until they have
learned to read and have taken their first communion. It is too far to
the school and the church from here, and the atmosphere of the Camargue
is completely unsuitable for young children. The fact is that, come the
summer, when the marshes are dry and the white mud of the irrigation
channels cracks in the great heat, the islet isn't really habitable at
all.

I experienced it once when I came in August to hunt ducklings and I
will never forget the miserable and ferocious appearance of the
burningly hot landscape. Here and there ponds were steaming in the sun
like huge fermentation vats, keeping scant signs of life, perhaps just
salamanders, spiders, and water insects looking for some moisture.
There was a pestilential air about, a miasmic, brooding fog thickened
by innumerable clouds of mosquitoes. At the keeper's house everybody
had the shivers, everybody had the fever, and it was pitiful to see the
yellowed, drawn faces, and the circled, popping eyes, of these
unfortunates, who were condemned to drag themselves around for three
months under this high, pitiless sun, which burnt, but didn't warm….
The life of a gamekeeper is miserable and hard in the Camargue. At
least ours has his wife and children round him; but a little further on
in the marsh, a horse-warden lives absolutely alone, from one year's
end to the next, Robinson Crusoe like. In his home-made reed cabin,
there isn't a single household utensil not made by him; the woven
wicker-work hammock, the three black stones that form the hearth, the
tamarisk roots made into stools, even the lock and key made from white
wood that secures this unique accommodation.

The man himself is at least as strange as his dwelling. He is a sort of
silent thinker like so many solitary people, hiding his peasant's
wariness under thick bushy eyebrows. When not on the pasture land, he
can be found sitting outside his door, and with touching, childlike,
care, slowly fathoming out one of the little coloured leaflets which
are wrapped around phials of medicines for his horses. The poor devil
hasn't any recreation but reading these leaflets. Despite being
neighbours, our keeper and he don't see each other. They actually avoid
each other. One day when I asked the stalker the reason for this, he
replied in a serious manner:

—It's because of a difference of opinion…. He is a red; I am a white.

Well, even in this wilderness, where solitude ought to have brought
them close together, these two unsociable people, as ignorant and naïve
as each other, these two cowherds of Theocritus, who barely go to town
once a year, and the small cafés of Arles must seem like the Palace of
Ptolemy to them, have managed to fall out about politics of all things.

One of the finest sights in the Camargue is lake Vaccares. I often
leave the hunt to sit down by the shore of this beautiful, brackish
lake, this baby inland sea, which seems a true daughter of the ocean.
Being locked indoors, so to speak, she is made all the more appealing
through her captivity. There is none of the dryness and aridity that
often bedevils the seaside, around our Vaccares. On its high banks, it
boasts a fulsome covering of fine, velvet-smooth grass, a perfect
showcase for unique and charming flora. There are centauries, clover,
gentians, and those lovely flowers that are blue in winter, and red in
summer, apparently changing their clothes to suit the weather, and,
when they have an uninterrupted flowering season, show their full range
of colours.

About five o'clock in the evening, as the sun is going down, these
three watery delights, without boat and sail to cover and change them,
open out into an amazing scene. No longer is it just the intimate charm
of the open-water and the irrigation channels appearing here and there
between folds of marl, where the smell of water pervades, and is likely
to emerge at the least depression in the ground. Here, lake Vaccares
gives an impression of size and space. The radiant waves attract
flights of scoter ducks from far away, and herons, bitterns, and
white-flanked, pink-winged flamingos, lining up to fish all along the
banks, in many-coloured strands. Then there are ibis, the sacred ibis
of Egypt, truly at home in this splendid sunshine and silent landscape.
From where I am, I can hear nothing but the lapping of water and the
ranger calling his horses from around the lakeside. Each animal on
hearing its name, rushes in, mane flowing in the wind, and takes hay
from his hand….

Further on, still on the same bank, there is a herd of beef cattle free
ranging like the horses. Sometimes, I notice their bony, curved backs
hunched over a clump of tamarisk, and their small, immature horns just
visible. Most of these Camargue cattle are bred to run in the branding
fêtes in the villages, and some of them are already famed in the
circuses of Provence and Languedoc. In one herd of the neighbourhood,
there was a terrible fighter amongst them called the Roman, who has
been the undoing of I don't know how many men and horses at the
bullfights at Arles, Nîmes, and Tarascon. His companions also made him
the leader, for in these strange herds the animals organise themselves
around an old bull which they adopt as their leader. When there is a
storm on the Camargue, it is truly terrifying on the great plain, where
there is nothing to divert or stop it. It's an amazing sight to see the
herd group themselves behind their leader, all their heads down and
turned into the wind, their whole strength behind their foreheads.
Shepherds in Provence call this manoeuvre:
turning the horn to wind
.

Perish the herd that doesn't do it. Blinded by the rain, and carried
away by the storm, the herd turns in on itself, becomes panicky,
scatters, and is overwhelmed. To escape the storm, they have been known
to dash headlong into the Rhone, the Vaccares, or even the sea.

This morning, at first light, a formidable drum-roll woke me with a
start….

A drum-roll from amongst my pines at this hour!… What a ridiculous
thing. For goodness sake.

As quickly as I can, I jump out of bed and run to the door.

Nobody about! The noise has ceased…. From the midst of some wet wild
vines, a couple of curlews fly off noisily…. A light breeze sings in
the trees…. Towards the east, on the sharp ridge of the Alpilles, a
golden dust amasses, from which the sun slowly appears…. The day's
first sunbeam is already touching the roof of the windmill.
Immediately, the drum-roll starts again, hidden, this time from in the
fields….

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 passed 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.

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