Letters From My Windmill Alphonse Daudet (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📖

One evening, as we were running before the storm, our boat found refugein the opening to the Straits of Bonifacio, in the midst of anarchipelago…. They were not a welcoming sight: huge bare rockscovered with birds, a few clumps of absinth, some lenticular scrub, andhere and there pieces of rotting wood half buried in the silt. But,believe me, for a night's stay, these ominous rocks were a much betterprospect than the half-covered deckhouse of our old boat, where thewaves made themselves very much at home. In fact, we were pleased tosee the islands.

The crew had lit a fire for the bouillabaisse, by the time we were allashore. The Master hailed me and pointed out a small outcrop of whitemasonry almost lost in the fog at the far end of the island:

—Are you coming to the cemetery? he said.

—A cemetery, Master Lionetti! Where are we then?

—The Lavezzi Islands, monsieur. The six hundred souls from theSémillante are buried here, at the very spot where their frigatefoundered ten years ago…. Poor souls, they don't get many visitors;the least we can do is to go and say hello to them, while we're here….

—Of course, willingly, skipper.

* * * * *

The Sémillante's crew's last resting place was inexpressibly gloomy.I can still see its small low wall, it's iron gate, rusted and hard toopen, its silent chapel, and hundreds of crosses overgrown by thegrass. Not a single everlasting wreath, not one remembrance, nothing!Oh, the poor deserted dead; how cold they must be in their unwantedgraves.

We stayed there briefly, kneeling down. The Master was praying loudly,while gulls, sole guardians of the cemetery, circled over our heads,their harsh melancholy cries counterpoint to the sea's lamentations.

The prayer finished, we plodded, sadly, back to the spot where the boatwas moored. The sailors had not wasted any time; we were met by a greatroaring fire in the shelter of a rock, with a hot-pot steaming. We allsat around, feet drying by the flames, and soon everyone had two slicesof rye bread to dunk into a soup-filled terra cotta bowl on our knees.The meal was eaten in silence; after all, we were wet, and hungry, andnear to the cemetery…. However, once the bowls were empty, we lit ourpipes and started to speak about the Sémillante.

—Well, how did it happen? I asked the boat's Captain, who was lookingthoughtfully into the flames, head in hands.

—How did it happen? Captain Lionetti repeated by way of a reply. Thenhe sighed,—Alas, monsieur, nobody alive can tell you. All we know isthat the Sémillante, loaded with troops bound for the Crimea, hadleft Toulon in bad weather the previous night. Later, things changedfor the worse; wind, rain, and enormous seas the like of which hadnever been seen before…. In the morning, the wind moderated, but thesea was still in a frenzy. On top of that, the devil's own fogdescended—you couldn't see a light at four paces. Those fogs,monsieur, you can't believe how treacherous they can be…. But itdidn't make any difference, I believe the Sémillante must have losther rudder that morning, for there is no such thing as a risk-free fog,and the Captain should never have gone aground there. He was a toughand experienced seafarer, as we all know. He had commanded the navalstation in Corsica for three years, and knew his coast hereabouts aswell as I; and it's all I do know.

—At what time do you think the Sémillante foundered?

—It must have been at midday; yes, monsieur, right in the middle ofthe day. But, my word, when it comes to sea fogs, midday is no betterthan a pitch-black night…. A local customs' officer told me, that atabout half past eleven that day, as he went outside to close hisshutters, the wind got up again and a gust blew his cap off. At therisk of being carried away himself, he began to scramble after it alongthe shore—on his hands and knees. You must understand that customs'men are not well off, and a cap is an expensive item. It seems that ourman raised his head for a second and noticed a big ship under barepoles, running before the wind blowing towards the Lavezzi Islands.This ship was coming fast, so fast that he hardly had time to get agood look at her. No doubt it was the Sémillante because half an hourlater, the island shepherd heard something on these rocks…. Buthere's the very shepherd I'm talking about, monsieur; he will tell youhimself…. Good day, Palombo, don't be frightened, come and warmyourself.

A hooded man, whom I had seen a moment ago hanging around our fire,came timidly towards us. I had thought he was one of the crew, notknowing that there was a shepherd on the island.

He was an old, leprous person, not quite all there, and affected bysome awful disease or other which gave him obscenely thickened lips,horrible to look at. We took great trouble to tell him what it was allabout. Then, scratching his diseased lip, the old man told us that, yesindeed, from inside his hut he had heard a fearful crash on the rocksat midday on that day. The island was completely flooded, so hecouldn't go out-of-doors and it wasn't until the next day that heopened up to see the shore covered in debris and bodies washed up bythe sea. Horrified, he ran to his boat to try to get some help fromBonifacio.

The shepherd was tired by all this talking, and sat down, and the

Master took up the story:

—Yes, monsieur, this was the unfortunate old man that came to raisethe alarm. He was almost insane with fear, and from that day on, hismind has been deranged. The truth is, the catastrophe was enough to doit…. Imagine six hundred bodies piled up haphazardly on the beachwith splinters of wood and shreds of sail-cloth…. PoorSémillante…. The sea had crushed everything to such tiny fragments,that the shepherd, Palombo, couldn't find enough good timber to make afence round his hut…. As for the men, practically all of them weredisfigured and hideously