The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono Page A

by train and stop at Avignon; the latter must be at Avignon now, staying with their aunt, the Baroness de Montanari-Revest, without the slightest chance of reaching Aubignosc, since all the roads were blocked. She knew for a fact that the cholera was extremely violent around Venaissin, and that no one was allowed through. She had first thought she could keep the children safe at Aubignosc, which is a tiny village. But it had suddenly been swept by the epidemic, which, in a two days’ fury, had not left ten persons alive. So she had set out with the children in the hope of getting to Avignon by way of Aix-en-Provence, where, it was said, things were not yet very bad. She had had the idea, since transport was lacking—“we came by the diligence and it isn’t running any more”—to get to Château-Arnoux, only a league away through the woods, and there hire a cabriolet to take them down the valley of the Durance. But yesterday evening, around six, when they reached Château-Arnoux, they had been stopped at the barriers and turned back into the woods, along with about twenty other people from various places who were also trying to get to Aix. A gentleman from Lyon who happened to be there, fresh from Sisteron, where he had been supplying the hardware shops with tin saucepans, had been kind to her, and given her two slabs of chocolate and a small bottle of peppermint alcohol. He was a witty little man, very enterprising and with excellent judgment. With this gentleman and two other ladies they had tried to skirt round Château-Arnoux. On the hillside the saucepan dealer had fallen ill, the other two ladies had fled like lunatics, but she had had the luck, since the little boy was a good woodsman, to find the road once more. They had all three sat down by the roadside to wait for day. When they heard the horse coming, they had thought it must be a patrol of those Château-Arnoux people who had threatened to shut them up in quarantine, and when Angelo came abreast of them, they were withdrawing into the pine woods to hide.
    Angelo asked a lot of questions, where the barriers were placed and what they were barring. He was indignant at the inhumanity of these people turning back women and children into the woods. The reference to quarantine had made him prick up his ears. “Here’s another complication I don’t like at all,” he thought; “I’m in no hurry to be locked up in some stable full of dung. Fear can do anything; it makes people merciless killers: watch out! You won’t get out of this as easily as you did with the convict and his barricade of barrels. What a pity I’ve only two rounds left, and that I have no saber; I’d show them that generosity can be more redoubtable than cholera.” He was deeply moved by the faces of these three lost people as seen by the light of his tinderbox.
    He questioned the little boy, who seemed quite sure he knew the way to get round the barriers.
    â€œVery well, then,” said Angelo, “we’ll go through the wood, which you say is not very deep. Once through it, we’ll put the two young ladies on my horse; he’s very gentle, and I’ll lead him by the bridle. We’ll go the way you say. I am heading for Aix myself, and I’ll help you until you’re out of trouble. Don’t worry,” he added, “I’m a colonel of Hussars, and we’ll do all right.” He felt they needed to be given self-confidence and reassured about the vulgar and base appearance he believed he had: to which end he judiciously fancied the declaration of his rank might serve. He forgot that the night was covering him and that they could only hear his very kindly voice.
    They left the road and cut through the wood. On emerging from the wood, Angelo set the young woman and the little girl on the horse and they began to pick their way over rocky hills where there was a little more light than at the bottom of the