In order for the character of a human being to reveal truly
exceptional qualities, we must have the good fortune to observe its action over
a long period of years. If this action is devoid of all selfishness, if the
idea that directs it is one of unqualified generosity, if it is absolutely
certain that it has not sought recompense anywhere, and if moreover it has left
visible marks on the world, then we are unquestionably dealing with an
unforgettable character.
About forty years ago I went on a long hike, through hills
absolutely unknown to tourists, in that very old region where the Alps
penetrate into Provence.
This region is bounded to the south-east and south by the
middle course of the Durance, between Sisteron and Mirabeau; to the north by the
upper course of the Drôme, from its source down to Die; to the west by the
plains of Comtat Venaissin and the outskirts of Mont Ventoux. It includes all
the northern part of the Département of Basses-Alpes, the south of Drôme and a
little enclave of Vaucluse.
At the time I undertook my long walk through this deserted
region, it consisted of barren and monotonous lands, at about 1200 to 1300
meters above sea level. Nothing grew there except wild lavender.
I was crossing this country at its widest part, and after
walking for three days, I found myself in the most complete desolation. I was
camped next to the skeleton of an abandoned village. I had used the last of my
water the day before and I needed to find more. Even though they were in ruins,
these houses all huddled together and looking like an old wasps' nest made me think
that there must at one time have been a spring or a well there. There was
indeed a spring, but it was dry. The five or six roofless houses, ravaged by
sun and wind, and the small chapel with its tumble-down belfry, were arrayed
like the houses and chapels of living villages, but all life had disappeared. It
was a beautiful June day with plenty of sun, but on these shelterless lands,
high up in the sky, the wind whistled with an unendurable brutality. Its
growling in the carcasses of the houses was like that of a wild beast disturbed
during its meal.
I had to move my camp. After five hours of walking I still hadn't found water, and nothing gave me hope of finding any. Everywhere there was the same dryness, the same stiff, woody plants. I thought I saw in the distance a small black silhouette. On a chance I headed towards it. It was a shepherd. Thirty lambs or so were resting near him on the scorching ground.
He gave me a drink from his gourd and a little later he led me to his shepherd's cottage, tucked down in an undulation of the plateau. He drew his water - excellent - from a natural hole, very deep, above which he had installed a rudimentary windlass.
This man spoke little. This is common among those who live alone, but he seemed sure of himself, and confident in this assurance, which seemed remarkable in this land shorn of everything. He lived not in a cabin but in a real house of stone, from the looks of which it was clear that his own labor had restored the ruins he had found on his arrival. His roof was solid and water-tight. The wind struck against the roof tiles with the sound of the sea crashing on the beach.
His household was in order, his dishes washed, his floor swept, his rifle greased; his soup boiled over the fire. I noticed then that he was also freshly shaven, that all his buttons were solidly sewn, and that his clothes were mended with such care as to make the patches invisible.
He shared his soup with me, and when afterwards I offered him my tobacco pouch, he told me that he didn't smoke. His dog, as silent as he, was friendly without being fawning.
It had been agreed immediately that I would pass the night there, the closest village being still more than a day and a half farther on. Furthermore, I understood perfectly well the character of the rare villages of that region. There are four or five of them dispersed far from one another on the flanks of the hills, in groves of white oaks at the very ends of roads passable by carriage. They are inhabited by woodcutters who make charcoal. They are places where the living is poor. The families, pressed together in close quarters by a climate that is exceedingly harsh, in summer as well as in winter, struggle ever more selfishly against each other. Irrational contention grows beyond all bounds, fueled by a continuous struggle to escape from that place. The men carry their charcoal to the cities in their trucks, and then return. The most solid qualities crack under this perpetual Scottish shower. The women stir up bitterness. There is competition over everything, from the sale of charcoal to the benches at church. The virtues fight amongst themselves, the vices fight amongst themselves, and there is a ceaseless general combat between the vices and the virtues. On top of all that, the equally ceaseless wind irritates the nerves. There are epidemics of suicides and numerous cases of insanity, almost always murderous.
The shepherd, who did not smoke, took out a bag and poured a
pile of acorns out onto the table. He began to examine them one after another
with a great deal of attention, separating the good ones from the bad. I smoked
my pipe. I offered to help him, but he told me it was his own business. Indeed,
seeing the care that he devoted to this job, I did not insist. This was our
whole conversation. When he had in the good pile a fair number of acorns, he
counted them out into packets of ten. In doing this he eliminated some more of
the acorns, discarding the smaller ones and those that showed even the
slightest crack, for he examined them very closely. When he had before him one
hundred perfect acorns he stopped, and we went to bed.
The company of this man brought me a feeling of peace. I asked him the next morning if I might stay and rest the whole day with him. He found that perfectly natural. Or more exactly, he gave me the impression that nothing could disturb him. This rest was not absolutely necessary to me, but I was intrigued and I wanted to find out more about this man. He let out his flock and took them to the pasture. Before leaving, he soaked in a bucket of water the little sack containing the acorns that he had so carefully chosen and counted.
I noted that he carried as a sort of walking stick an iron rod as thick as his thumb and about one and a half meters long. I set off like someone out for a stroll, following a route parallel to his. His sheep pasture lay at the bottom of a small valley. He left his flock in the charge of his dog and climbed up towards the spot where I was standing. I was afraid that he was coming to reproach me for my indiscretion, but not at all. It was his own route and he invited me to come along with him, if I had nothing better to do. He continued on another two hundred meters up the hill.
Having arrived at the place he had been heading for, he began to pound his iron rod into the ground. This made a hole in which he placed an acorn, whereupon he covered over the hole again. He was planting oak trees. I asked him if the land belonged to him. He answered no. Did he know whose land it was? He did not know. He supposed that it was communal land, or perhaps it belonged to someone who did not care about it. He himself did not care to know who the owners were. In this way he planted his one hundred acorns with great care.
After the noon meal, he began once more to pick over his acorns. I must have put enough insistence into my questions, because he answered them. For three years now he had been planting trees in this solitary way. He had planted one hundred thousand. Of these one hundred thousand, twenty thousand had come up. He counted on losing another half of them to rodents and to everything else that is unpredictable in the designs of Providence. That left ten thousand oaks’ that would grow in this place where before there was nothing.
It was at this moment that I began to wonder about his age. He was clearly more than fifty. Fifty-five, he told me. His name was Elzéard Bouffier. He had owned a farm in the plains, where he lived most of his life. He had lost his only son, and then his wife. He had retired into this solitude, where he took pleasure in living slowly, with his flock of sheep and his dog. He had concluded that this country was dying for lack of trees. He added that, having nothing more important to do, he had resolved to remedy the situation.
Leading as I did at the time a solitary life, despite my youth, I knew how to treat the souls of solitary people with delicacy. Still, I made a mistake. It was precisely my youth that forced me to imagine the future in my own terms, including a certain search for happiness. I told him that in thirty years these ten thousand trees would be magnificent. He replied very simply that, if God gave him life, in thirty years he would have planted so many other trees that these ten thousand would be like a drop of water in the ocean.
He had also begun to study the propagation of beeches and he had near his house a nursery filled with seedlings grown from beechnuts. His little wards, which he had protected from his sheep by a screen fence, were growing beautifully. He was also considering birches for the valley bottoms where, he told me, moisture lay slumbering just a few meters beneath the surface of the soil.
We parted the next day.
Phần kế tiếp: The Man Who Planted Tree - Part II