Jean Giono, French, born into a family of Italian origin in Provence, Manosque 30 here in March 1895 and died there October 9, 1970. He lived most of his life always in his homeland. This
his short story is a small modern fairy tale written in 1953. The story says, in one breath, in one evening. With tones of a watercolor expressionist, has the power of a great adventure epic. A great little business done by a little big man, simple and illiterate, which makes it green and fertile land before a barren and desolate. This story helps us to regain confidence and the courage it takes to face the difficulties of daily life. It turns out the knowledge that ... if you like, you can do.
Just a little, just a gesture which contains all the love for nature, the earth and the world.
With the simplicity of a small gesture.
Sow a seed.
Forty some years ago, I was taking a long walk, including tops absolutely unknown to tourists in that ancient region of Provence-Alpes penetrating. This region is bounded on the south-east and south by the middle course of the Durance, between Sisteron and Mirabeau; north from the upper reaches of the Drôme, from the spring to Die, to the west from the plains of Comtat Venaissin and the foothills of Mount Ventoux. It includes all the northern part of the department of Basse Alps, south of Drome and a small enclave of Vaucluse.
It was when I undertook the long walk in the desert of bare and monotonous lands, including milledue and thirteen hundred feet high. The only vegetation that grew there was the wild lavender.
through the region to its maximum width, and after three days of walking, I found myself in the midst of unparalleled desolation. I accampai next to the skeleton of an abandoned village. I had no more water the day before and I need to find. Quell'agglomerato of houses, although in ruins, like an old hive, made me think that there must have been, once a source or a well. There was indeed a spring, but dry. The five or six houses, roofless, eroded by wind and rain, and the small chapel with a bell tower collapsed were arranged as the houses and chapels in the villages inhabited, but life was gone.
was a beautiful June day very sunny, but on those lands without shelter high in the sky, the wind blew with unendurable brutality. His roars in the carcasses of the houses were those of a beast molested during the meal.
had to resume the march. Five hours later I had not found water, and nothing gave me hope to find. Everywhere the same dryness, the same woody weeds. I seemed to see in the distance a small black silhouette, standing. I took her to the trunk of a solitary tree. Anyway I went. He was a pastor. Thirty sheep lying on the ground burning rested beside him.
made me drink from his water bottle and a little later, took me into his fold, in a ripple of the plateau. Pulled up the water, excellent, from a natural hole, very deep, over which he had installed a rudimentary windlass.
The man spoke little, as is the nature of the lonely, but I felt self-assured and confident in the security. It was an unusual presence in the region stripped of everything. Not lived in a hut but in a real house of stone, and it was clear as his own work had patched the ruin he had found on his arrival. The roof was solid and tin. The wind was pounding on the roof the sound of the sea on the beach.
The house was in order, the dishes washed, the wooden floor swept, his rifle greased, the soup was boiling on the fire. I noticed that the man was clean-shaven, that all his buttons were solidly sewn, that his clothes were mended with the meticulous care that makes the mending invisible.
shared with me the soup, and when I offered him his tobacco pouch, he replied that he did not smoke. His dog, as silent as he was affectionate without meanness.
He had been immediately understood that I would spend the night with him, the closest village was more than a day and a half walk. And, moreover, knew perfectly the nature of the rare villages of that region. There are four or five scattered far from each other on the slopes of those peaks, forests of oak trees at the bottom end of driveways.
are inhabited by woodcutters who produce charcoal. They are places where people live poorly. Families, tight against each other in this climate of excessive roughness, summer and winter, exacerbate their own selfishness in a vacuum. The ambition is developed without unreasonable extent, the desire to escape those places.
The men carry the coal into the city by truck, then come back. The strongest quality creak under this perpetual Scottish shower. Women smoldering resentments. There is competition over everything, for the sale of coal as the pew, to the virtues that are fighting each other, for the vices fight amongst themselves and for the mixture of vices and virtues without respite. S more, as the wind constantly irritates the nerves. There are epidemics of suicides and numerous cases of insanity, almost always murderous.
The pastor who did not smoke got a lot on the table and poured a pile of acorns. He began to examine them one after the other with great care, separating the good from the faulty. I used to smoke his pipe. I proposed to him to help him. He replied that it was his business. Indeed, given the care he put into that job, did not insist. It was our whole conversation. When he stood on the side of good is a pretty big pile of acorns, the uniforms in piles of ten. In so doing eliminate even the small fruits or those slightly cracked, as li esaminava molto da vicino. Quando infine ebbe davanti a sé cento ghiande perfette, si fermò e andammo a dormire.
La società di quell’uomo dava pace. Gli domandai l’indomani il permesso di riposarmi per l’intera giornata da lui. Lo trovò del tutto naturale o, più esattamente, mi diede l’impressione che nulla potesse disturbarlo. Quel riposo non mi era affatto necessario, ma ero intrigato e ne volevo sapere di più. Il pastore fece uscire il suo gregge e lo portò al pascolo. Prima di uscire, bagnò in un secchio d’acqua il sacco in cui aveva messo le ghiande meticolosamente scelte e contate.
Notai che in guisa di bastone portava un’asta di ferro della grossezza of an inch long and one meter and a half. I did want to show off for a walk and followed a road parallel to his. The grazing of cattle was an endorsement. He left the small dog guarding the flock and climbed toward me. I was afraid it came to reproach me for my indiscretion, but not at all, that was the way he had to do em'invitò to accompany him if I had not better. He went two hundred yards from there, further upstream. Arrived where he wanted, he began to pitch his iron rod into the ground. It was so deposited as a hole in an acorn, whereupon turava the hole again. Planted oaks. I asked him if that land belonged to him. I said no. He knew who he was? He did not know. Supposed it was a communal land, or perhaps owned by people who did not care? He did not care to know the owners. So he planted a hundred acorns with great care.
After the midday meal began to choose the acorns. I put, I believe, enough insistence into my questions, because he answered. For three years they planted trees in the solitude. He had planted one hundred thousand. A hundred thousand, it had erupted twenty thousand. Of those twenty thousand, had yet to lose a half, because of rodents or all that is unpredictable in the designs of Providence. That left ten thousand oaks that would grow in this place where before there was nothing.
It was at that moment that I age became interested in the man. He was clearly more than fifty years. Fifty-five, he told me. His name Elzéard Bouffier. He owned a farm on the plains. He had lived his life.
He had lost his only son, then his wife. He had withdrawn into solitude, where he found pleasure in living slowly, with the sheep and dog. He had thought that the country would die for lack of trees. He added that by failing to engage in any occupation more important, he had resolved to remedy this state of affairs.
Since I was leading at that time, despite his young age, a solitary life, I knew I gently touch the soul of the lonely. However, I committed an error. My young age, in fact, led me to imagine the future in terms of myself and what a certain search for happiness. I said that within thirty years than ten thousand oaks would be magnificent. He replied with great simplicity that if God had lent her life, within thirty years that would have planted many more than ten thousand would be like a drop in the ocean.
were studying, on the other hand, the reproduction of beech trees near the house and had a nursery generated from beechnuts. The subjects, who had protected from the sheep with a barrier of wire mesh, were of great beauty. He also thought the birch trees on land where I said, some moisture was sleeping a few feet from the soil surface.
We parted the next day.
The following year there was the war of '14, I engaged for five years. An infantryman could not think of the trees. Actually, the thing I was not impressed either, I had regarded as a hobby, a stamp collection, and forgotten.
After the war I found myself with an allowance of leave tiny but with a great desire to breathe a little fresh air. Without preconceived notions, then, except that, taken the road of those lands deserted.
The country had changed. However, beyond the village left, I saw in the distance a sort of gray fog that covered the mountains like a carpet. I had recovered from the eve to think that the shepherd who planted trees. Ten thousand oaks, I thought, really occupy a large space.
I had seen too many people die in five years not to imagine easily the death of Elzéard Bouffier, the more so when he was twenty, fifty people are considered as of old in which there is only so much. He was not dead. The were only four sheep but, in return, had a hundred hives. He had got rid of the beasts which endangered his trees. Why, I said (and constatai), had not cared at all the war. He continued to plant unabashedly.
The oaks of 1910 were now ten years old and were taller than me and him. The show was impressive. I was literally speechless and, because he could not speak, we spent the whole day walking in silence to his forest. Measured in three sections, eleven kilometers at its maximum length. If you kept in mind that it was all sprung from the hands and soul of that man, without technical means, you understand how men could be as effective as God in other fields as well as destruction.
He followed his idea, and the beeches that reached me at the back, around the eye, they were the test. The oaks were thick and had passed the age where they could be at the mercy of rodents; as to the designs of Providence itself to destroy the work created, should have been used to cyclones. Bouffier showed me the wonderful groves of birch trees going back five years earlier, ie 1915, the time when I was fighting at Verdun. He had planted in all areas where suspected, rightly, that there was moisture almost at ground level. Keep them as teenagers and were very determined.
The process seemed, on the other hand, working in the chain. He did not care; doggedly pursued its task very simple. But, back down to the village, I saw water flowing in streams that, within living memory, had always been dry. It was the most exciting form of reaction I ever got to see. Those streams of water had already led, in ancient times. Some of the villages
sad that I mentioned at the beginning of my story was built on sites of ancient Gallo-Roman villages, of which there were still vestiges in which archaeologists had dug in places where finding love in the twentieth century were forced to resort to tanks to get a bit 'of water.
The wind scattered some seeds. With water were also reappeared willows, rushes, meadows, gardens, flowers and some reason to live.
But the transformation took place so slowly entering into the habit without causing surprise. The hunters who climbed in those solitudes following the hares or wild boars had noticed the vigor of trees, but they had reckoned the earth's natural malice. Therefore, no one disturbed the work of man. If they had suspected, would have prevented. It was unexpected. Who could have imagined, in the villages and government, such an obstinacy in the most magnificent generosity?
Since 1920 I have never spent more than a year without going to find Elzéard Bouffier. I've never seen nor give doubt. Yet, God only knows it put to the test! I did not do account for its disappointments. It 'easy to imagine, however, that such a success, it was necessary to overcome adversity, to ensure the victory of passion, it was necessary to combat the discomfort. Bouffier had planted a year, more than ten thousand maples. All died. The year after he left the maples that were able to resume the beeches still better than the oaks.
To get a better idea of \u200b\u200bthat exceptional character, one must not forget that worked in total solitude, to the point that towards the end of their lives, had entirely lost the habit of talking. Or, perhaps, did not see the need.
In 1933 he received the visit of an astonished forest ranger. The officer ordered him orders not to light fires outdoors, not to impair the growth of the natural forest. It was the first time, naive man told him that he saw a forest growing out of its own. At that time Bouffier was going to plant beeches at twelve miles from home. To prevent the outward journey and return, as had been seventy-five, was considering the possibility of building a stone hut on the spot where they planted. What did the following year.
In 1935 a real government delegation was to examine the natural forest. There was a big piece of Waters and Forests, a deputy, technicians. It was decided to do something and, fortunately, nothing was done except the only useful thing: bringing the forest under the protection of state and forbid that people should come to make charcoal. Because it was impossible not to be enthralled by the beauty of those young trees in full health. He exercised his powers of seduction even the deputy. A captain
forest my friend was part of the delegation. I explained the mystery. One day the following week we went together to seek Elzéard Bouffier. We found him hard at work, twenty kilometers from where the inspection had taken place. That captain
forest My friend was not at all. He knew the value of things. He was able to remain silent. I offered the eggs I had brought a gift. We shared our meal in three and stayed a few hours in silent contemplation of the landscape.
The coast that we had covered was covered with trees ranging from six to eight feet tall. I remembered the look of the land in 1913, the desert ... The work calm and smooth, the air live on the high seas, frugality, and above all the soul's serenity had given the old man a health almost solemn. He was an athlete of God I wonder how many more hectares of trees would have covered.
Before leaving my friend ventured only a few suggestions about certain species to which the ground seemed to fit. He did not insist. "For the simple reason," he explained later, "that the gentleman knows more than me." After an hour of walking, after the idea had progressed in him, he added: "He knows more than anyone. He found a nice way to be happy. "
E 'with the captain that not only the forest but also the happiness of man, were protected. He appointed three forest guards for the protection and terrified to the point that remained impervious to bribes offered by loggers.
The work runs a serious risk only during the War of 1939. Why cars then went with the pellet, there was never enough wood. They began to cut the oaks of 1910, but the area was so far away from all the road networks, the company revealed in terms of financial bankruptcy. Was abandoned. The shepherd had seen nothing. He was thirty kilometers away, peacefully continuing his work, ignoring the war of '39 as he had ignored that of '14.
I saw Elzéard Bouffier for the last time in June 1945. He eighty-seven years. I took the road of the desert but now, despite the ruin that the war had left the country, there was a bus that was on duty between the valley of the Durance and the mountain. I put in the account that relatively rapid means of transport that did not recognize the places most of my first outings. I also thought that the route would make me go to new places. I need the name of a village to conclude that instead I was just in that area once in ruins and desolate. The bus took me to Vergons.
In 1913 the population of a dozen houses had three inhabitants. They were wild, hated, lived on fishing, trapping, more or less were in the physical and moral state of prehistoric man. The nettles devoured the abandoned houses around them.
Their condition was hopeless. They had nothing to do but wait for death: situation that has no virtue.
Now everything had changed. The air itself. Instead of the dry and brutal storms that I had taken a time, blowing a gentle breeze full of smells. A noise similar to that of water came from the top of the mountains: it was the wind in the forest. Finally, and most surprisingly, I heard the true sound of water pouring into a tub. I saw that they had built a fountain, the water was plentiful there, and what particularly moved me, I saw that next to it had planted a linden tree of perhaps four years, already full, incontestable symbol of resurrection. In general
Vergons bore the marks of a work for which the company was required hope. The hope was back then. They had cleared the ruins, knocked down the walls collapsed and rebuilt five houses. The village now had eighteen people, including four young families. The new houses, freshly plastered, were surrounded by gardens where they grow, but mixed aligned, vegetables and flowers, cabbages and roses, leeks and snapdragons, celery and anemones. It was now a place where you wanted to live.
From there I went on foot. The war from which we had just left had not enabled the full bloom of life, but Lazarus was risen from the grave now. On the lower slopes of the mountain, I saw small fields of barley and rye grass in the bottom of narrow valleys, some verdant meadow.
It took eight years that separate us from that time because the whole area of \u200b\u200bhealth and happiness shine. Where in 1913 I saw only ruins now stand farms clean, well-rendered, which show a happy and comfortable life. The old sources, fed by rains and snows that the forest view, have begun to flow. The waters were channeled. Beside each farm, amid groves of maples, the pools of fountains allow overflow water on a carpet of mint. The villages are rebuilt gradually. Population coming from the plains, where land is expensive, it was established here, bringing youth, motion, spirit of adventure. They meet on the streets men and women well-fed boys and girls who know how to laugh and have taken the taste for field parties.
If you count the former population, unrecognizable from when it lives in harmony, and the newcomers, more than ten thousand people owe their happiness to Elzéard Bouffier.
When I think that one man, reduced to their simple physical and moral resources, was enough to make out of this desert land of Canaan, I find that, despite everything, the human condition is admirable. But if I put in as it took into account the constancy in the greatness of soul ed'accanimento generosity to achieve this, the soul of me is filled with enormous respect for the old contadino senza cultura che ha saputo portare a buon fine un’opera degna di Dio.
Elzéard Bouffier è morto serenamente nel 1947, all’ospizio di Banon.
IL FILM D'ANIMAZIONE PREMIO OSCAR NEL 1988
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