Read Online The Serpent of Stars by Jean Giono - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jean Giono
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water is not welcoming and that it wells up without bindweed, without rushes, without periwinkle,
without moss, from between bare lips of rock. But so what, must you always have frills? Canât you love cold water for being cold water and do you think you quibble over such things when youâve just spent twenty days going through the dust rising from all of Provence? The water is all by itself in a stream of blue schist. It is the blue of the blue of cornflowers. When it lets out one of its braids, its white heart glistens. Thatâs why we choose to stop at Mallefougasse. We donât have the same spans for measuring fear. For us, the country is wide, comfortable, flat. We have wine from Arnoulas and water in the little valley of seven springs, peace, the joy of feet. Thatâs why!
And then, too, itâs a kind of reunion. Sometimes you have things to say that youâve saved for a whole year. You think, âIâll tell him that at Mallefougasse.â
And so, it must have evolved quite naturally.
There, reunited on the sparseness of Mallefougasse, exhausted herds, heavy shepherds. Night came. They lit a fire. There was only the night full of stars, this land all alone under the sky, bordered all around by sky, and, as in the earliest times, an ocean of beasts surrounded a few men. They huddled close to the fire. The Sardinian was there that time. And he told stories about the stars above, about the earth below. He told them to make the night pass, and also because his heart was all reflections in which the soul of the world moved.
The next time, someone said to him, âSardinian, stand up.â He stood up, and now there were a few more shepherds because it had been repeated from pasture to pasture with âThat Sardinian, really, if you could have heard him!â
The next time, word passed all around, âWhat if we perform? The
Sardinian would lead, and we would speak when it was our turn, what do you say, Sardinian?â And thatâs what they did and it went very well because, among the shepherds, the soul of the universe is like a ray of sunlight in water.
The next time, or maybe that time, the flute warbled in joy, in tune with the words.
And so, beginning from that moment, the infant-poem could walk sturdily. It was alive and well.
THE STAGE, as Iâve said, is a square clearing of about twenty paces. At each corner is a fire which dances on pine and cedar boughs, heaps of dry thyme. Four shepherds are in charge of supplying the wood and herbs and, sometimes, when the flame dies down, they fan the coals briskly with leafy branches. These are actors that really count! First of all, itâs from them that the light comes and itâs from them that the scent comes, that essence of resin and burnt juniper that thickens the air and drifts off towards Ganagobie and makes the villages in the woods nervous.
The drama is accompanied by music, music for three instruments. I wonât talk about that first instrument from which everything springs, from which all music has run, the freely singing earth which is there all around with its weight of animals, herds, trees, grass, wind, springs, the Durance rumbling deep in the valley. The others are the aeolian harp, the tympon, and the water jug. Iâve said how the aeolian harps are made, how the man merges with them to play them, or more precisely,
to play the trees and the wind. But, the mixture of that human touch and that breath, master of time and racer through space, creates a godâs voice which goes all the way to the harmonious depths of the horror.
It is a shepherdâs invention. One of those secret and solitary harps unleashed fear throughout the whole region of Queyras, in â12 or â13, a little before the war. This was a village of simple people, with goiters heavy as melons, and for that reason, with heads bent toward the earth. This country has no water. The village is built on rock, hollowed by
without moss, from between bare lips of rock. But so what, must you always have frills? Canât you love cold water for being cold water and do you think you quibble over such things when youâve just spent twenty days going through the dust rising from all of Provence? The water is all by itself in a stream of blue schist. It is the blue of the blue of cornflowers. When it lets out one of its braids, its white heart glistens. Thatâs why we choose to stop at Mallefougasse. We donât have the same spans for measuring fear. For us, the country is wide, comfortable, flat. We have wine from Arnoulas and water in the little valley of seven springs, peace, the joy of feet. Thatâs why!
And then, too, itâs a kind of reunion. Sometimes you have things to say that youâve saved for a whole year. You think, âIâll tell him that at Mallefougasse.â
And so, it must have evolved quite naturally.
There, reunited on the sparseness of Mallefougasse, exhausted herds, heavy shepherds. Night came. They lit a fire. There was only the night full of stars, this land all alone under the sky, bordered all around by sky, and, as in the earliest times, an ocean of beasts surrounded a few men. They huddled close to the fire. The Sardinian was there that time. And he told stories about the stars above, about the earth below. He told them to make the night pass, and also because his heart was all reflections in which the soul of the world moved.
The next time, someone said to him, âSardinian, stand up.â He stood up, and now there were a few more shepherds because it had been repeated from pasture to pasture with âThat Sardinian, really, if you could have heard him!â
The next time, word passed all around, âWhat if we perform? The
Sardinian would lead, and we would speak when it was our turn, what do you say, Sardinian?â And thatâs what they did and it went very well because, among the shepherds, the soul of the universe is like a ray of sunlight in water.
The next time, or maybe that time, the flute warbled in joy, in tune with the words.
And so, beginning from that moment, the infant-poem could walk sturdily. It was alive and well.
THE STAGE, as Iâve said, is a square clearing of about twenty paces. At each corner is a fire which dances on pine and cedar boughs, heaps of dry thyme. Four shepherds are in charge of supplying the wood and herbs and, sometimes, when the flame dies down, they fan the coals briskly with leafy branches. These are actors that really count! First of all, itâs from them that the light comes and itâs from them that the scent comes, that essence of resin and burnt juniper that thickens the air and drifts off towards Ganagobie and makes the villages in the woods nervous.
The drama is accompanied by music, music for three instruments. I wonât talk about that first instrument from which everything springs, from which all music has run, the freely singing earth which is there all around with its weight of animals, herds, trees, grass, wind, springs, the Durance rumbling deep in the valley. The others are the aeolian harp, the tympon, and the water jug. Iâve said how the aeolian harps are made, how the man merges with them to play them, or more precisely,
to play the trees and the wind. But, the mixture of that human touch and that breath, master of time and racer through space, creates a godâs voice which goes all the way to the harmonious depths of the horror.
It is a shepherdâs invention. One of those secret and solitary harps unleashed fear throughout the whole region of Queyras, in â12 or â13, a little before the war. This was a village of simple people, with goiters heavy as melons, and for that reason, with heads bent toward the earth. This country has no water. The village is built on rock, hollowed by
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