The Solitude of Compassion
Jean Giono
Language: English
Pages: 174
ISBN: 1583225242
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Solitude of Compassion, a collection of short stories never before available in English, won popular acclaim when it was originally published in France in 1932. It tells of small-town life in Provence, drawing on a whole village of fictional characters, often warm and decent, at times immoral and coarse. Giono writes of a friendship forged in a battlefield trench in the midst of World War I; an old man’s discovery of the song of the world; and, in the title story, the not-unrelated feelings of compassion and pity. In these twenty stories, Giono reveals his marvelous storytelling through his vivid images and lyrical prose, whether he is conveying the delicate scents of lavender and pine trees or the smells of damp earth and fresh blood.
prairie was suddenly all wet, then that spring mouth which opened up under the grasses, and you heard the black water splashing, then this retching which took hold of it on the mountain and in the valley which wailed under the heavy load of cold water. Those two things made people talk; they were entranced by them. More than one person got up in the middle of the night and went barefoot over to the window to listen, in the depths of the darkness, to the mountain quaking like a sick child.
piece of dirty fog; in the back, barely sketched, the phantoms of trees, the canal. I do not know where to hang my lantern. With his finger Kossiakoff indicates a tree branch stuck in the ground before me. “The marking.” By chance I send a long ray of light in that direction… Miracle. They respond. A little red glow under the trees. A silent dialogue begins: “Artillery?” “Yes. Connection at seven o’clock in the morning; in the evening, ordinary code.” “Understood… Nothing to signal.”
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.
which I write to you, the sun just set in a striking splashing of blood. The original myth of the death of the sun, I have never read it in books. I read it in the great book, the one around us. I was slightly annoyed yesterday morning because I had three extra pigeons in my pigeonhouse. Three ring pigeons all proud and cooing who came to submit themselves to the seeds in my hand. I have here under my window the fountain of a water that I went looking for with a pickaxe. That is the goal, that
your own conscience. Put the best of yourself into increasing the emancipation of your spirit from the illusions of the flesh and into love of your neighbor, which is one and the same thing. As soon as you begin to live this way you will experience the joyous feeling of liberty and well-being. You will be surprised to find that the same exterior objectives which preoccupied you and which were far from realization, will no longer stand in the way of your greatest possible happiness. And if you are