The Solitude of Compassion by Jean Giono Page A

and a roasted sausage. He did not want to accept anything from me, not even this old steel lighter, which he wanted, but which I slipped into the pocket of his jacket without his seeing.
    At the canal there is a Russian sentinel. Kossiakoff parleys: there is nothing to be done; he cannot go beyond the bridge. He unbuckles the bag; he helps me on with it. This is it, I balance it with a heave of my back (these moments are still precise inside me), I give him my hand—even to a Frenchman I would not know what to say
at this moment. Kossiakoff seizes me by the shoulders, kisses me lightly on the mouth, then with great strides and without a look back, he turns past the shell depot and disappears.
    Dumbstruck, alone, empty, I try to call Kossiakoff and the name sticks in my throat.
    A hunting plane in the depths of the sky buzzes like a bee.
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    I went to knock on the little door of the windmill.
    â€œA bottle of Banyuls, if you please.”
    And I drank. Then I went to sleep in the straw.
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    It is late. Late for my little village in Provence. The bell has just cast to the wind the ten seeds of the nocturnal hour. On the hearth the kettle still chatters a little with the last embers: I relight my extinguished pipe. The tobacco is very good tonight, unctuous, peppered, strong the way I like it; the peaceful smoke curls around the lamp. My bed awaits me, candid and blossoming purple with amazing, freshly washed linens and a great covering warmly doubled with old silk.
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    Ivan Ivanovitch Kossiakoff was executed at camp Chalons in July 1917.
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    Manosque 1920.

The Hand
    It was morning. When I went out of the town, dawn was hardly a drop of water. All of the fountains could be heard. The first ray of sun, I met it halfway up the hill. And so it is that now, seated on the slope, I hear steps coming down the path. Who is this early riser, who is even earlier than I?
    His step is a heavy step, forceful in its solidity and strength, but slow. The man seems to be testing the position of the stones and leaning on them carefully. I hear a stick searching. It is Fidélin the blind man. There he is at the turn; standing there, in all his height, his eyes reflect the sun like pieces of glass. He rests his spade on his shoulder. I call to him from afar, so as not to surprise him.
    â€œI am coming,” he says to me.
    And, sure enough, he comes, without hurrying, having veered off a little towards the slope.
    â€œHere you are bright and early,” I say to him.
    â€œAbout what time is it?”
    â€œI don’t know, maybe four o’clock.”

    â€œI thought so.” I told him. I told him: “It is now exactly four o’clock my friend,” then I thought, “He knows that better than you do,” that is what makes me return. Four o’clock! I still have time to make three rounds.
    â€œAre you caring for the olive tree?” I say.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWho told you that it was later than four o’clock?”
    He taps the slope with his cane, then with his hand, and as he sits down with a great cracking of his old bones, he says to me:
    â€œAn earthworm.”
    He continues:
    â€œAn earthworm. When they come out it is five o’clock. I need to touch things. Nothing comes into me through my eyes. They are cold. So I touch with my hands.”
    â€œYou touch it with your hands?” I say. “With your hands, Fidélin, like that? Like when I touch a table or the grass or even faces?”
    I look at his large torn hands and the rough man’s skin. Tanned hands from the great tannery, cooked hands, lifeless hands, baked hands in a carapace of dead skin like a glove of mud.
    â€œBetter!” says Fidélin.
    He raises his right hand, he moves it, and then, in a stroke, I see all of the intelligence of his fingers, all the fluctuating disquietude of the palm, all the knowledge of the base of his thumb, all the enormous appetite of this hand that