Letters From My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet, Frederick Davies Page B
Authors: Alphonse Daudet, Frederick Davies
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Girardin's
cartoons. Rumour has it that there are some awful things in it…. I
was soon to discover the truth of it. The old over-stuffed wallet had
burst open as it fell and the papers inside fell onto the carpet; I had
to collect them one by one….
There was a package of letters written on decorated paper, all
beginning, My dear Daddy, and signed, Céline Bixiou at the Children
of Mary hospital .
There were old prescriptions for childhood ailments: croup,
convulsions, scarlet fever and measles…. (the poor little girl hadn't
missed out on a single one of them!)
Finally, there was a hidden envelope from which came a two or three
curly, blond hairs, which might have come from the girl's bonnet. There
was some writing on it in a large, unsteady hand; the handwriting of a
blind man:
Céline's hair, cut the 13th May, the day she went to that hell .
That's all there was in Bixiou's wallet.
Let's face it, Parisians, you're all the same; disgust, irony, evil
laughter at vicious jokes. And what does it all amount to?…
Céline's hair, cut on the 13th May .
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN BRAIN
To the Lady who wants pleasant stories.
I took your letter, madame, as an invitation to change my ways. I have
been tempted to shade my little tales a touch too darkly, and I
promised myself to give you something joyful, wildly joyful, today.
After all, what have I got to be sad about? Here I am living hundreds
of kilometres from the fogs of Paris, on a radiantly beautiful
hillside, in the land of the tambourine and Muscat wine. Around my
windmill, everything is sunshine and music; I have wind orchestras of
wheatears, bands of blue-tits, and choirs of curlews from morning to
midday. And the cicadas, and the shepherds playing their fifes, and the
dark haired young beauties laughing amongst the vines…. To tell the
truth, this is no place for brooding; I'd rather rush rose-coloured
poems and basketsful of spicy stories to you ladies.
And yet—I can't. I am still too near to Paris. Every day, even here
amongst my precious pines, it finds me with its ink-stained fingers of
misery…. Even as I write, I have just heard the lamentable news of
the death of poor Charles Barbara, and my windmill is plunged into
grief.
Farewell, curlews and cicadas! I haven't the heart for jollity right
now… For that reason, madam, instead of the pretty little tale which
I had promised, you will only have yet another melancholy story today.
* * * * *
Once, there was a man with a golden brain; yes, madame, a brain made
entirely from gold. At birth, the doctors thought he wouldn't survive
long, so heavy was his head and so oversized his skull. However, he did
live and he thrived in the sunshine like a lovely olive tree. Except
that his huge head went everywhere with him and it was pitiful to see
him bumping into all the furniture as he walked about the house….
All too often, he would fall down. One day, he fell from the top flight
of some marble steps and just happened to catch his head on one. His
head rang like an ingot. It could have killed him, but when he got up,
there was nothing wrong except there was a small wound with two or
three traces of congealed gold in his blond locks. That was how his
parents learned that their child had a brain of pure gold.
* * * * *
It was kept a close secret, and the poor little thing himself suspected
nothing. Sometimes he would ask why he wasn't allowed to go outside to
play with the other boys in the street.
"Someone would steal from you, my treasure!" his mother told him….
Then the little lad, being terrified of being robbed, made no complaint
as he went back to playing alone and dragging himself sadly from room
to room….It wasn't until he was eighteen years old that his parents
told him of this monstrous gift from fate. Since they had nurtured him
and fed him all his life, they told him that it was about time he paid
them back with some of his gold. The child didn't hesitate; he would do
it that right
cartoons. Rumour has it that there are some awful things in it…. I
was soon to discover the truth of it. The old over-stuffed wallet had
burst open as it fell and the papers inside fell onto the carpet; I had
to collect them one by one….
There was a package of letters written on decorated paper, all
beginning, My dear Daddy, and signed, Céline Bixiou at the Children
of Mary hospital .
There were old prescriptions for childhood ailments: croup,
convulsions, scarlet fever and measles…. (the poor little girl hadn't
missed out on a single one of them!)
Finally, there was a hidden envelope from which came a two or three
curly, blond hairs, which might have come from the girl's bonnet. There
was some writing on it in a large, unsteady hand; the handwriting of a
blind man:
Céline's hair, cut the 13th May, the day she went to that hell .
That's all there was in Bixiou's wallet.
Let's face it, Parisians, you're all the same; disgust, irony, evil
laughter at vicious jokes. And what does it all amount to?…
Céline's hair, cut on the 13th May .
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN BRAIN
To the Lady who wants pleasant stories.
I took your letter, madame, as an invitation to change my ways. I have
been tempted to shade my little tales a touch too darkly, and I
promised myself to give you something joyful, wildly joyful, today.
After all, what have I got to be sad about? Here I am living hundreds
of kilometres from the fogs of Paris, on a radiantly beautiful
hillside, in the land of the tambourine and Muscat wine. Around my
windmill, everything is sunshine and music; I have wind orchestras of
wheatears, bands of blue-tits, and choirs of curlews from morning to
midday. And the cicadas, and the shepherds playing their fifes, and the
dark haired young beauties laughing amongst the vines…. To tell the
truth, this is no place for brooding; I'd rather rush rose-coloured
poems and basketsful of spicy stories to you ladies.
And yet—I can't. I am still too near to Paris. Every day, even here
amongst my precious pines, it finds me with its ink-stained fingers of
misery…. Even as I write, I have just heard the lamentable news of
the death of poor Charles Barbara, and my windmill is plunged into
grief.
Farewell, curlews and cicadas! I haven't the heart for jollity right
now… For that reason, madam, instead of the pretty little tale which
I had promised, you will only have yet another melancholy story today.
* * * * *
Once, there was a man with a golden brain; yes, madame, a brain made
entirely from gold. At birth, the doctors thought he wouldn't survive
long, so heavy was his head and so oversized his skull. However, he did
live and he thrived in the sunshine like a lovely olive tree. Except
that his huge head went everywhere with him and it was pitiful to see
him bumping into all the furniture as he walked about the house….
All too often, he would fall down. One day, he fell from the top flight
of some marble steps and just happened to catch his head on one. His
head rang like an ingot. It could have killed him, but when he got up,
there was nothing wrong except there was a small wound with two or
three traces of congealed gold in his blond locks. That was how his
parents learned that their child had a brain of pure gold.
* * * * *
It was kept a close secret, and the poor little thing himself suspected
nothing. Sometimes he would ask why he wasn't allowed to go outside to
play with the other boys in the street.
"Someone would steal from you, my treasure!" his mother told him….
Then the little lad, being terrified of being robbed, made no complaint
as he went back to playing alone and dragging himself sadly from room
to room….It wasn't until he was eighteen years old that his parents
told him of this monstrous gift from fate. Since they had nurtured him
and fed him all his life, they told him that it was about time he paid
them back with some of his gold. The child didn't hesitate; he would do
it that right