Jean Giono - The Serpent of Stars

“No!”

Then I remembered that the day before I had played my flute just as the sun went down. And I picked up my flute and sniffed the holes. And then, yes, I smelled the sulfur.

“It’s the planet,” he said.

DAWN ARRIVED like any other. No different, except for our flock, still all clotted together like bad milk, and our dog, who could not stop trembling and wouldn’t leave my side. I went to my boss’ hut.

“Macimin!” I cried.

But the hut was empty. He had grabbed his blankets, shoulder bag, staff, and flask, and he had taken off. A shiver ran up my spine especially as the dog came to sniff the empty hut, looked up at me, looked at the sheep, and then took two little steps across the grass. The sheep were asleep. The dog took off, extending himself into a long gallop. Then, the sheep stood up. It was understood; they had risen and they hadn’t shaken their heads like sheep just waking up, but instead they tilted their ears to catch the whistling of the grass under the galloping feet of the dog, to trace his route. The dog stopped in his tracks; he sniffed the wind; he tried to lie low, to make his way back toward me along the lower, hidden trail. Then a huge mass of sheep, packed together belly-to-belly, rolled forward to block his path.

I took my staff and started to run, crying, “Fédo! Fédo!” when I heard Bouscarle’s voice in my ear, “If you have hit them, too bad for you.”

And I stayed on my hillock to watch.

All the clots of sheep were on the move like clouds in the grass. They ran, making great circles, following a plan they cried out to one another in an entirely new kind of bleat. The panic-stricken dog was dancing about in the thick of them. Finally, they surrounded him, and he knew that his last moment had arrived. He no longer put up a fight, but I saw the sheep close in on him, engulf him, trample him, trample him to death, with the great mindfulness required of a thing that has to be done well.

I ran toward the rocks. From there, you could look down over our whole region and then the “Vermeil” meadow and a bit of Norante. Above, I found the boss stretched out on the ground, his hat over his eyes, and fourteen of our poor men, their lips white with fear.

Because, below, it was like a thunderstorm had struck. A stampede of running sheep filled the valleys. It tore up the fences. It seethed in beasts who leaped against our rocky hill. It ripped up the earth, and it ran in torrents as determined as rushing water. In the midst of this noise, we heard the village below sound its alarm. When night came, the boss lifted his hat. He said to us, “Count the fires.”

We focused our eyes to count the watch fires. There were no longer any more of ours. Far off, on the mountain’s large back, there were the other herds from Arles, Crau, Camargue, Albaron. And someone said, “Master, there are the five Crau fires, the three Albaron fires, and ten for the Camargue.”

“Watch them carefully,” the boss told him.

He stared wide-eyed until it hurt. He stayed there a good minute, and then he cried, “Master, master, they’re going out, they’re going out, no more Albaron fires, no more fires for the Crau, no more for the Camargue. Nothing’s left, master, nothing, they’ve all gone out.”

The boss lay down again, and covered his eyes with his hat. As though he were speaking to himself, we heard him say, “Over there, too. So, it’s the great revolt.”

So that was what I saw, me, a little shepherd, something seen only once in a hundred years, this revolt of the beasts, on an order that came from the sky, with the smell of sulfur. This was what I saw, and this was what I did.

I took up my flute, and I played very softly, for myself, I played this fear in my heart and the great voice of the mystery. That night, throughout the world, there was a terrible noise of sheep bleating and of bells from the church towers, of wooden houses cracking, and the cries of men, and the cries of women, and a great angry stream which hurtled down the steps of the mountains.

Bouscarle said, ‘Play for us all.”

Then, I took a good mouthful of air, and with all the fullness of my breath, I began to play the flute for us all.

IT WAS getting late. Only a little meadow of sun remained up high on the hill between the evening overflowing into the valleys and the sky gleaming like new iron. We climbed toward Césaire’s. He was there in front of his clearing, his arms dangling at his sides, his hands heavy with clay. The kiln was smoking.

In a little grass nest, the shepherd carried his sheep milk cheeses tucked in his arm.

“I saw the sheep pass by,” said Césaire, between mouthfuls. “They made the day tremble. They poured over the whole road.”

I spoke, too, of the herds from that morning, that great flood of animals running through the straits of Mirabeau and their stop near the fountain.

The shepherd listened. Then he asked for the postal calendar. He looked at the card, pointing to the days with his finger. Then he said, “This is the day, or rather, the night, this is the night. Césaire, we ought to leave.”

Césaire looked at the pale woman, the red-haired girl and the children, then me.

“And him?” he said.

“Him? We’ll take him along.”

I believed we were leaving for a gathering of the shepherds. The haste with which everything had been decided, the slow advice of the white woman, “Take your coat, take along the blanket, let him have grandfather’s coat,” left me a little nervous in the end. Then the shepherd looked at the county map on the other side of the calendar and I saw his finger trace far into the white of the back country.

Then Césaire said, “We’ll have to borrow Chabrillan’s horse, and so we’ll have to leave right away because if we don’t, the farm gates will be closed and we’ll lose more time when there’s none to spare.”

Then I asked softly, “Are we going far?”

“We’re going there!” said the shepherd.

I looked at where his finger pointed. It was the Mallefougasse plateau.

I only knew of the Mallefougasse because I had heard talk of it. All the stallholders I had kept company with before finding shelter under the thick, leafy branches of Césaire and the shepherd had spoken to me of that country at one time or another. Each time, it was the end of the world. But I especially remember Pierrinet the horse dealer, when he placed his hand sideways, half on the café table, half off it, and what he said to me, “Mallefougasse is like that. It’s still a little bit attached to the earth. Although. .! But, above, below, it’s all sky. It’s like something stuck out into the sky. The sky is all around that land like a sucking mouth. Do you understand?”

I had understood then. I understood much better now. I understood that finger resting on the flimsy calendar map, Césaire who was borrowing a horse, and everything that was going to carry me, rolled in the grandfather’s coat, toward that land the sky sucked like a mouth.

At the Chabrillans’, the gates were closed.

“I knew it,” said Césaire, “when you’re in a hurry, it’s always like that.”

We banged on the gate with our fists and our feet; that set the iron chains clanging. We cried out, “Bartholomé! Bartholomé! Of all the luck! Are you going to wake up or not?”

The farm went on sleeping, eyes shut tight. But the dogs howled in the yard.

“All the same, we’re making a hell of a noise,” said the shepherd. “What if they aren’t there?”

“That can’t be it,” said Césaire, “there’d have to be some disaster. They have a little girl. They wouldn’t have left her alone.”