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

sob….After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of driedraisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and abottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.

—There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to herplace at the window.

* * * * *

I tried to engage her in conversation as I was drinking up.

—You don't often get people here do you, madam?

— Oh, no, monsieur, never, no one…. It was very different at thetime when we were the only the coaching inn around here. We did thelunches for the hunt during the soter bird season, as well as coachesall the year round…. But since the other place has opened up, we'velost everything…. The world and his wife prefer to go across the way.They find it just too miserable here…. The simple fact is that thisplace doesn't interest them. I'm not beautiful, I have prickly heat,and my two little girls are dead…. Over there it's very different,there is laughter all the time. A woman from Arles, a beautiful womanwith lots of lace and three gold chains round her neck, keeps theplace. The driver, her lover, brings in customers for her in the coach.She also has a number of attractive girls for chamber maids…. Thisalso brings lots of business in! She gets all the young people fromBezouces, from Redessan and from Jonquières. The coachmen go out oftheir way to call in at her place…. As for me, I'm stuck in here allday, all alone, eating my heart out.

She said all that with a distracted, vacant way, forehead still pressedagainst the window pane. Obviously, there was something in the innopposite that really interested her…. Suddenly, over the road, a lotstarted to happen. The coach edged forward in the dust. The sounds ofcracking whips and a horn was heard. The young girls squeezed togetherin the doorway and shouted:

—Goodbye!… Goodbye!… And above all that, the wonderful voice,singing, as before, most beautifully,

Took her little silver can,

To the river made her way,

She didn't notice by the water,

Three young cavaliers, quite near.

The woman's whole body shook on hearing that voice; and she turnedtowards me and whispered:

—Do you hear that? That's my husband…. Don't you think he has abeautiful voice?

I looked at her, stupefied.

—What? Your husband?… So even he goes over there?

Then, with an apologetic air, but movingly, she said:

—What can you do, monsieur? Men are like that, they don't like tears,and I'm always breaking down, since our little girls died…. Then,this dump of a place, where nobody comes, is so miserable…. Wellthen, when he gets really fed up, my poor dear José goes over the roadfor a drink, and, the woman from Arles gets him to sing with thatgorgeous voice of his. Hush!… There he goes again. And, trembling,and with huge tears that made her look even more ugly, she stood therein front of the window, hands held out in ecstasy, listening to herJosé singing to the woman from Arles:

The first was bold and whispered to her,

You're so beautiful my dear!

AT MILIANAH

Notes from the Voyage.

This time, I am going to take you away to spend a day a very long wayfrom the windmill in a pretty little Algerian town…. It will be anice change from the tambourines and cicadas….

… There's rain in the air; the sky is grey; the crests of MountZaccar are enveloped in fog; it's a miserable Sunday…. I'm in mysmall hotel room, lighting one cigarette after another, just trying totake my mind off things…. The hotel library has been put at mydisposal. I find an odd volume of Montaigne between a detailed historyof hotel registrations and a few Paul de Kock novels. Opening it atrandom, I re-read the admirable essay on the death of La Boétie…. So,now I'm more dreamy and gloomy than ever…. A few drops of rain arestarting to fall, each one leaving a large star in the dust accumulatedon the windowsill since last year's rain…. The book slips out of myhands, as I stare hypnotically at the melancholy star for some time….

The town clock strikes two on an old marabout whose slender, high,white walls I can see from here…. Poor old marabout. Thirty yearsago, who would have thought that one day it would have a big municipaldial stuck in its solar plexus, and on Sundays, on the stroke of two,it would give a lead to the churches of Milianah, to sound their bellsfor Vespers?… There they go now, ringing away…. And not for a briefspell, either…

Without doubt this room is a miserable place. The huge, dawn spinners,known as philosopher's thought spiders, have spun their webseverywhere…. I'm going out.

* * * * *

I'm on the main square, now. Just the place for the military band ofthe Third Division, not put off by a bit of rain, which has justarranged itself around the conductor. The Brigade General appears atone of the Division windows, surrounded by his fancy women. Thesub-prefect is on the square and walks to and fro on the arm of theJustice of the Peace. Half a dozen young Arabs, stripped to the waist,are playing marbles in a corner to the sound of their own ferociousshouting. Elsewhere, an old Jew in rags comes to look for a ray ofsunshine he left here yesterday and looks astonished not to find it…."One, two, three…!" the band launched into an old Talexian mazurka,which Barbary organs used to play, irritatingly, under my window lastyear. But it moved me to tears today.

Oh, how happy are these musicians of the third! Their eyes fixed on thedotted crochets, drunk on rhythm and noise, only conscious of countingbeats. Their whole being was in that hand-sized bit of paper vibratingin brass prongs at the end of their instruments. "One, two, three…!"They have everything they need these fine men, except they never playthe national anthem; it makes them home sick…. Alas, I haven't muchof a musical ear and this piece irritates me, so I'm off….

* * *