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Title: Letters from my Windmill

Author: Alphonse Daudet

Translator: Mireille Harmelin and Keith Adams

Release Date: November 10, 2009 [EBook #30442]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM MY WINDMILL ***

Produced by Mireille Harmelin and Keith Adams

LETTERS FROM MY WINDMILL

BY

ALPHONSE DAUDET

Translated for Project Gutenberg by Mireille Harmelin & Keith Adams ©2009

CONTENTS

1. Foreword.

2. First Impressions.

3. The Coach from Beaucaire.

4. Master-Miller Cornille's Secret.

5. Monsieur Seguin's Last Kid Goat.

6. The Stars.

7. The Arlesienne.

8. The Pope's Mule.

9. The Lighthouse on the Sanguinaires.

10. The Wreck of the Sémillante

11. The Customs' Men.

12. The Cucugnanian Priest.

13. The Old Folks.

14. Prose Ballads I—Death of the Dauphin. II—The Sub-Prefect Takes A Day Off.

15. Bixiou's Wallet.

16. The Man with the Golden Brain.

17. The Poet, Frédéric Mistral.

18. The Three Low Masses.

19. The Oranges.

20. The Two Inns.

21. At Milianah.

22. The Locusts.

23. Father Gaucher's Elixir.

24. In the Camargue.

25. Nostalgia for the Barracks and Paris.

FOREWORD

As witnessed by Master Honorat Grapazi, lawyer at the residence of
Pampérigouste.

"As summoned

"Mr Gaspard Mitifio, husband of Vivette Cornille, tenant at the place called Les Cigalières and resident there.

"Who herewith has sold and transferred under guarantee by law and deed and free of all debts, privileges and mortgages,

"To Mr Alphonse Daudet, poet, living in Paris, here present and accepting it.

"A windmill and flourmill, located in the Rhône valley, in the heart of Provence, on a wooded hillside of pines and green oaks; being the said windmill, abandoned for over twenty years, and not viable for grinding, as it appears that wild vines, moss, rosemary, and other parasitic greenery are climbing up to the sails;

"Notwithstanding the condition it is in and performs, with its grinding wheel broken, its platform brickwork grown through with grass, this affirms that the Mr Daudet finds the said windmill to his liking and able to serve as a workplace for his poetry, and accepts it whatever the risk and danger, and without any recourse to the vendor for any repairs needing to be made thereto.

"This sale has taken place outright for the agreed price, that the Mr Daudet, poet, has put and deposed as a type of payment, which price has been redeemed and received by the Mr Mitifio, all the foregoing having been seen by the lawyers and the undersigned witnesses, whose bills are to be confirmed.

"Deed made at Pampérigouste, in Honorat's office, in the presence of Francet Mamaï, fife player, and of Louiset, known as Quique, crucifix carrier for the white penitents;

"Who have signed, together with the parties above and the lawyer after reading it."

LETTERS FROM MY WINDMILL

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I am not sure who was the more surprised when I arrived—me or the rabbits…. The door had been bolted and barred for a long time, and the walls and platform were overgrown with weeds; so, understandably, the rabbits had come to the conclusion that millers were a dying breed. They had found the place much to their liking, and felt fully entitled to made the windmill their general and strategic headquarters. The night I moved in, I tell you, there were over twenty of them, sprawled around the apron, basking in the moonlight. When I opened a window, the whole encampment scampered off, their white scuts bobbing up and down until they had completely disappeared into the brush. I do hope they come back, though.

Another much surprised resident was also not best comforted by my arrival. It was the old, thoughtful, sinister-looking owl, a sitting tenant for some twenty years. I found him stiff and motionless on his roost of fallen plaster and tiles. He ran his large round eyes over me briefly and then, probably much put out by the presence of a stranger, he hooted, and painfully and carefully shook his dusty, grey wings;—they ponder too much these owlish, thinking types and never keep themselves clean … it didn't matter! even with his blinking eyes and his sullen expression, this particular occupant would suit me better than most, and I immediately decided he was only too welcome to stay. He stayed right there, just where he'd always been, at the very top of the mill near his own personal roof entrance. Me—I settled down below in a little, whitewashed, vaulted, and low-ceilinged room, much like a nun's refectory.

* * * * *

I am writing to you from my windmill, with the door wide open to the brilliant sunshine.

In front of me, a lovely, sparklingly lit, pine wood plunges down to the bottom of the hill. The nearest mountains, the Alpilles, are far away, their grand silhouettes pressing against the sky…. There was hardly a sound to be heard; a fading fife, a curlew calling amongst the lavender, and a tinkle of mules' bells from somewhere along the track. The Provencal light really brings this beautiful landscape to life.

Don't you wonder, right now, if I am missing your black and bustling Paris? Actually, I'm very contented in my windmill; it is just the sort of warm, sweet-smelling spot I was looking for, a long, long way from newspapers, hansom cabs, and all that fog!… Also, I am surrounded by so many lovely things. My head is bursting with vivid memories and wonderful impressions, after only eight days here. For instance, yesterday evening, I saw the flocks of animals returning from the hills to the farm (the mas), and I swear that I wouldn't swap this one hillside wonder for a whole week's worth of Premieres in Paris. Well, I'll let you be the judge.

Here in Provence, it's normal practice to send the sheep into the mountains when it's warm enough in the spring, and, for five or six months, man and beast live together with nothing but the sky for a roof and grass for a bed. When the first autumn chill is felt in the air, they are brought back down to the mas, and they can graze comfortably on the nearby rosemary-scented hills…. This annual delight, the return of the flock, was accomplished last night. The double barn doors had