BLUE BOY by JEAN GIONO. CHAPTER I. Mof my age here remember the
time when he road to Sainte-Tulle was bordered by a erried row of
poplars. It is a Lombard cus om to plant poplars along the wayside.
This road came, with its procession of trees, from the very heart
of Piedmont. It straddled Mont Genevre, it flowed along the Alps,
it caine all the way with its burden of long creaking carts and its
knots of curly-haired countrymen who strode along with their songs
and their hussar pantaloons flutter ing in the breeze. It came this
far but no farther. It came with all its trees, its two-wheeled
carts, and its Pied monteses, as far as the little hill called
Toutes-Aures. Here, it looked back. From this point it saw in the
hazy distance the misty peak of the Vaucluse, hot and muddy,
steaming like cabbage soup. Here it was assailed by the odors of
coarse vegetables, fertile land, and the plain. From here, on fine
days, could be seen the still pallor of the whitewashed farmhouses
and the slow kneeling of the fat peasants in the rows of
vegetables. On windy days, the heavy odors of dung heaps surged in
waves along with the broken, bloody bodies of storms from the
Rhone. At this point the poplars stopped. The carts rolled noisily
into the jaws of the way side inns with their loads of corn flour
and black wine. The carters said, Porca wwdona They sneezed like
mules that have snuffed up pipe smoke, and they stayed on this side
of the hill with the poplars and the carts. The chief inn was
called Au Territoire de Piemont. In those days, our country was
made up of meadows and fair orchards that used to unfold in a
magnificent spring time as soon as the warm weather came up the
Durance Valley. They knewhow to recognize the approach of the long
days. By what means, no one knows. By some bird cry or by that
burst of green flame that lights up the hills on April evenings.
They would simply begin to flutter while the frost was still on the
grass, and, one fine morning, just when the bluish heat weighed
upon the rocky bed of the Durance, the gaily flowered orchards
would begin to sing in the warm breeze. That we have all seen from
the time we were mere urchins in our black school smocks. I
remember my father's workroom. I can never pass by a shoemaker's
shop without thinking that my father still exists, somewhere beyond
this world, sitting at a spirit table with his blue apron, his
shoemaker's knife, his wax-ends, his awls, making shoes of angel
leather for some thousand legged god. I was able to recognize
strange steps on the stairs. I could hear my mother saying below,
It is on the third floor. Go up, you will see the light. And the
voice would reply, Grazia, signora And then the sound of the feet.
They stumbled on that soapstone step near the top of the first
flight. The loose boards in the landing rattled be neath the heavy
boots. Their hands pressed against the two walls in the darkness.
Here comes one of them, said my father. Putamr That is a Romagnol,
said my father. And the man would enter. I remember that my father
always gave them the chair near the window, then he would lift his
spectacles. He would begin to speak in Italian to the man who sat
erect, hands on thighs, all perfumed with wine and new corduroy.
Sometimes it took a long time. At others, the smile came almost at
once. My father spoke without gestures, or with very slow ones,
because he held a shoe in one hand and theawl in the other. He
would talk until he saw the smile. It was useless for the other to
haul out papers, to tap on his papers with the back of his hand.
Porca di Dior Until the smile appeared my father talked on, and
some times the other would say in a hushed tone, Che bellezza! Then
the man would smile. Moreover, they did not come to my father at
once. I do not know by what miracle they came. ...
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