"The wheat," one said, "they always say that is the main thing. No, it isn't the main thing. Ah, no, indeed! That is just the point. Of course it is necessary. Of course it is exactly like the air you breathe. If you stop breathing, you can't keep it up a long time or you'll die. If you have nothing more to breathe, you die; we know that. We know the beautiful, great, powerful value of wheat. Who says any different? Nobody. We least of all, because we are the ones who know it best. But it must be exactly like the air we breathe. We ought to use wheat as we use air. We ought to use it without thinking about it, mechanically, involuntarily, like something without value. That is just the way to put it. Exactly that, like something without value, like the air. Like something inexhaustible that you take and swallow and there it is, with no value, absolutely like air. Because you would not need to devote so much time to this food that you swallowed, and that was an end to it. I don't say it is not agreeable; certainly I know it is pleasant to eat. It is a joy. That is what makes blood. That counts. But what I mean is that it doesn't count for everything.
"I mean that when one has only one single joy, it is like when one has only one lamp or an only child. Suddenly all might go out, or even, I mean, that a single lamp, although it is lit, sometimes isn't enough if it is all alone in a big room. For the fact is we have many needs and not only the need of wheat. If you consider, look how many things we want which seem important to us, and if someone said to us: 'Give up eating to get them,' we would willingly give up eating. But it is as necessary for us as it is to breathe. And so, let's make it so it doesn't weigh us down, so it isn't hard for us, but very easy, and then we'll have time for all our other needs. When all is said and done, things are simple if you go about them with a good will."
"Yes," said Carle...
"Joy and peace," thought Bobi. "Joy must be tranquil. Joy must be a habit and quite peaceful and calm, and not belligerent and passionate. For I do not say that joy is when one laughs or sings, or even when our pleasure is more than bodily. I say that one is joyful when all the habitual gestures are gestures of joy; when it is a joy to work for one's food; when one is in an atmosphere that one appreciates and loves; when each day, at every moment, at each instant, all is easy and peaceful. When everything that one desires is there." And unfortunately, there was Josephine; and the sound of the loom and all the voices could be a roar fit to burst one's ears like the roar of the torrent, yet what he heard plainest was the sound of Josephine's breathing. And the dull blows of the loom could be repeated by the echoes beneath the earth and the foundations of the house, and make the soles of his feet vibrate; what really made him shudder from head to foot was that warm little shock of Josephine's breath as it struck against his right cheek. And he knew that she was beside him, that she was looking at him with her green eyes. He knew that her mouth was full and hot. He knew that her breasts were just the size of his hollowed hands, that for him she was full of joy, which, when he felt it, was more than a bodily joy. He was aware that henceforth for him joy would not be peaceful. And he stood there fighting and struggling because joy is nothing and is not worth the trouble if it is not abiding.
"We might first...." said Bobi.
"Listen."
"Be quiet, Barbe."
"What?" shouted Barbe.
"Stop a minute, we can't hear ourselves talk."
Barbe stopped working.
"This is what we might do," said Bobi. "This year, since it is too late, we will start, if you like, by having a common harvest. We'll cut each field, but we'll tread all the wheat on one threshing floor, on the floor of all and every one of us together. We'll put the grain in a single barn. It will belong to neither one nor to another; like the stag. It will belong to all. As much to Randoulet as to us. And next year we'll choose a field where we'll all sow our wheat together. We'll have a little more time," he said with a grey little smile, "to spend on what we want to do."
Prose: Jean Giono, from his novel, "Joy of Man's Desiring." 1935.
Photo: J.G.
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