( A Story of a Provencal Shepherd )
When I was a shepherd on the Luberon, I did not see my friends for weeks. I was alone in the pasture with my dog Labri. From time to time, there passed the hermit of Mont-de-I'Ure searching with a sun-burned face of the people of Piemont.
They were simple , artless people, silent because they were for so long alone, not interested in talking and without any knowledge of what was being discussed in villageds and towns. Therefore, every two weeks, when I heard on the mountain road the bells of a mule from our farm carrying two weeks' provinsions, and saw the head of the farmer's boy or the reddish-brown hood of the aunt, Norade, appearing over the hill, I felt very happy. They told me the news of the low country, of baptisms, and marriages; but what interested me most was the news about the daughter of my master,our lady Stephanette. the most beautiful girl for miles around. Pretending indifference, I asked them if she had often visited festivals or vigils or if she had new suitor.
Some people asked me how a poor mountain shepherd such as I should be interested in those things, and I answered that I was twenty and that Mlle.
Stephanette was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen in my life.
Well, one Sunday I was waiting for two weeks' provisions, but they were very late in coming. In the morning I had said to myself:
"It is surely because of the High Mass. "
Then, towards noon, it began to be very stormy, and I thought that the mule had not tarted on account of the bad state of the roads. At last, about three o'clock, the sky became clear, and the mountain was bright with the sun after the rain. I heard, among the dripping of rain from leaves and the sound of the swelling brooks, the bells of a mule as gay, as sharp, as the loud sound of the bells on Easter Day.
But the one who led the mule was neither the little boy nor old Norade. It was ... guess who! ... our young lady, our young lady herself, seated upright between the wicker baskets, rosy-complexioned, in the fresh air of the mountain after the storm. The little boy was ill, and Aunt Norade was at her children's on a short leave. The beautiful Stephanette, getting down from the mule, tole me all about it, adding that she arrived late because she had lost her way. But , dressed up in her Sunday clothes, with her ribbon of floral design, her bright petticoat and her lacework, she looked as if she had been dancing, not lost in the mountains.
Oh, the sweet creature! I was never tired of looking at her. I had never seen her so close before. Sometimes, in winter, when the flocks descended to the plain, and when I returned to the farm for supper in the evening, I had seen her walking briskly across the room, hardly speaking to servants, always well dressed and looking rather proud.
And now there she was before me, for no one but me. Was it not enough to make me crazy? When Stephanette had taken the provisions from the baskets. she looked about her curiously. Raising her beautiful, delicate skirt a little, she entered the fold, and wanted to see the place where I slept, a bed of straw covered with the sheepskin. My big mantle hung on the wall, with my staff and my gun. Everything interested her.
" Then you're living here, my poor shepherd? You must be bored to death to be always alone! What do you do? What do you think fo ?..." How I wished to say, " Of you, Mlle. Stephanette!" but I was so confused that I could not fine a single word . I believe that she noticed it. but the mischievous girl took pleasure in increasing my embarrassment.
"And your sweetheart, shepherd, often comes up to see you?... It must be a golden she-goat or that fairy Esterelle who runs only on the tops of the mountains..."
And she looked like the fairy Esterelle, with her way of throwing her head back laughing, and being in a hurry to return like a ghost.
"Good-bye, shepherd."
"Good-bye, Mlle. Stephanette." And she went away, with her empty baskets. When she disappeared beyond the sloping path, the pebbles, which rolled beneath the hoofs of the mule, seemed to fall one by one on my heart. I heard them for a very long time; and till the end of the day I remained drowsy, not daring to move, for fear of awaking from my dream.
Towards evening, as the bottom of the valley began to get misty and dark, and the sheep pressed against one another to return to the enclosure, I herd some one calling me on the slope, and saw our young lady, Mlle. Stephanette, coming up, no longer smiling but drenched, trembling with cold and fear.
At the foot fo the mountain she had found the Sorgue swollen by the rain. Trying to cross late for het to return to the farm; for she could not find the short cut alone, and I could never have left the flock.
The idea of passing a night on the mountain troubled her very much. especially because her family would be anxious about her. I comforted her as best I could.
" It's July now, the night is short. You'll have to be patient only for a short time". I made a big fire at once to dry her feet and dress soaked with the waters of the Sorgue. Then I brought her some milk and cheese; but the poor girl neither warmed herself nor ate.
At sight of tears gathering in her eyes, I too felt like weeping.
In the meantime, the night had come. On the tops of the mountains there remained only the golden dust of the sun and a vapour of light in the west. I said tl Mlle. Stephanette that it would be well for her to rest in the enclosure. Spreading a beautiful new goatskin on the new straw, I said good night to her and went to sit outside at the gate.
God is my witness that, in spite of the fire of love that burned in my blood , no wicked thought arose in me, nothing but great pride tha in a corner of the enclosure , near the curious flock looking at her sleeping, the daughte of my master - like a ewe more precious and more immaculate than any other - was asleep, confident that I would keep her safe.
Suddenly the lattice of the enclosure opened, and the beautiful Stephanette appeared. she could not sleep. The sheep moved and made the straw rustle, or bleated in their dreams. She wanted to come near the fire.
I threw my she-goat on her shoulders, stirred the fire; and we were seated, close together without speaking.
If you pass the night in the open air, you know that when you are sleep, a mysterious world is awake in solitude and silence. The springs sing more clearly; ponds stir with hidden life. All the spirits of the mountain come and go freely; and there are in the air rustling sounds, imperceptible noises, as if the branches were growing and the grassws shooting forth.
The day is the world of creatures; but the night is the life of things. Accustomed to it as one is, one cannot help feeling fear...
Therefore, Mlle. Stephanette was all of a tremble, and pressed herself close against me at the slightest sound.
Once, a long. melancholy cry came up to us, like a wave. At the same moment a beautiful star, shooting. passing over our heads in the same direction, as if the sad cry that we had just heard carried a light with it.
"What is it?" Stephanette asked me in a low voice.
" A soul that enters a paradise, Mademoiselle," I answered and made the sigh of the Cross.
She crossed herself, too, and remained for a moment thoughtful, looking up. Then she said:
" Then it is true that you shepherds are sorcerers, you and the others?"
"Not at all, young lady. But here we live nearer the stars, and we know better what passes there than the people of the plain."
She continued to look up, her head supported with her hand and wrapped in a sheepskin like a little heavenly shepherd.
" How many stars! How beautiful! I've never seen so many stars...Do you know their names, shepherd?"
"Oh, yes, Mademoiselle... Listen! Just above us, there is the Way of Saint Jacques, (the Milky Way). It goes from France straight to Spain. It was Saint Jacques de Galice who drew it to show the brave Charlemagne his way when he made wat against Saracens.
" Farther on you see the Carriage of Souls, (the Great Bear), with its glorious axles. The three stars before it are the Three beasts, and that small one bear the third is the Driver.
"Do you see that rain of falling stars all around? They are the souls that God does not wish to keep by Him... A little lower, you see the Rake or the Three kings (Orion). It serves us shepherds for s clock. We have only to look up there to know that it is past midnight.
"A little lower, always towrd the south, shines Jean de Milan (Sirius). About that star the following story is told among the shepherds.
"One night Jean de Milan, with the Three kings and the Chicken coop (Pleiades), was invited to the wedding of a star fo their friends.
"The Chicken coop, in haste, started, they say, first and went along the high roas. Look at her, up there, at the bottom of the sky. The Three kings took a short cut and overtook her; but the lazy Jean de Milan, who had been sleeping late, was left far behind. He got angry and threw his staff at them to stop them. That is why the Three kings is called the Staffof Jean de Milan..."
"But the most beautiful of the stars, young lady, is the Star fo the shepherd, which lights us at dawn when we bring out the flock, and also in the evening when we bring it in.
"We call her Maguelonne too, the beautiful Maguelonne who runs after Pierre de Provence (Saturn) and marries him every seven years."
"What ! Are there marriages of stars, shepherd?"
"Oh, yes, mademoiselle." As I was going to explain to her what those marriages were, I felt something fresh and fine weighing lightly upon my shoulder.
It was her head, made heavy by sleep, supporting itself against me with a pretty sound of ribbons and laces and waving hair.
She remained thus without moving till the stars got pale, effaced by the rising sun. I watched her sleeping, a little troubled in mind, but holily protected by that clear night that gave me nothing but beautiful thoughts.
Around us the stars continued their silent march, gentle like a great flock; and sometimes I imagined one of the stars, the finest and the most brilliant, having lost her way, and lying on my shoulder to sleep...