Translation:
The Goat of Mister Seguin
(Alphonse Daudet)
To my dearest Frederik,
Where have they gone, those hands that drew arches, curls and
lines on this sheet of paper?
From the old-fashioned, handwritten letters, they rise again.
Recognisable, one by one, they live on in our hearts, and in
yours and in that of a grandfather.
Charles Verellen
25.12.1995
The Goat of Mister Seguin
To Monsieur Pierre Gringoire, lyric poet in Paris.
You will never change, my poor Gringoire!
You have been offered a job as a chronicler in a notorious Paris
newspaper, and you have the audacity to refuse... But look at you,
my wretched boy! Look at the holes in your blouse, your shabby
shoes, your gaunt features screaming hunger. And this is where
your passion for pretty rhyming will bring you to, this is what
ten years’ faithful service to Sire Apollo are worth... Have you no
shame?
Start writing columns, you fool! Start writing columns! You
will earn beautiful gold crowns and have your table at the Café
Brébant, and you will be able to show up at premières with a new
pen in your hat...
You will not? ... You will preserve your freedom at any cost...
Listen then to the story of Mister Seguin’s goat. And you will see
what is gained by trying to be free.
Mister Seguin never had any luck with his goats.
He lost them all the same way: one fine morning, they broke
their chains, fled to the mountain and got eaten by the wolf.
Nothing could stop them – not their master’s caresses or the fear
of the wolf. These, you will observe, were independent goats who
were desperate for fresh air and wanted freedom at any price.
Good Mister Seguin, who understood nothing about the
nature of his animals, was dismayed. He said to himself, “It is no
use. They all get tired of me. I will never be able to keep any.”
However, he would not be disheartened. After losing six goats
in the same way, he bought a seventh. Only this time, he made
sure to choose a very young goat, one that could be more easily
accustomed to staying with him.
Ah, Gringoire, what a pretty little goat Mister Seguin kept!
So lovely with her soft eyes, her handsome military beard,
glossy black hooves, striped horns, and long white hair that she
wore like a tabard! She was almost as delightful as Esmeralda’s
kid – you remember, Gringoire? And then so docile, obedient,
affectionate, allowing herself to be milked without budging,
without even putting her foot in the pail. What a lovely little
goat!
Behind Mister Seguin’s house was a space enclosed by a
hawthorn hedge. Here he brought his new lodger, taking care to
give her plenty of rope and from time to time checking if all was
well. The goat was very happy and browsed with such good will
that Mister Seguin was delighted. “At last,” said the poor man to
himself, “I have a goat who will not grow bored with me.”
Mister Seguin was mistaken. The goat did grow bored.
One day she looked up at the top of the mountain and said to
herself:
“How nice it must be to be up there and play in the heather,
free from that cursed rope that chaffs into one’s neck! ... It is all
very well for the ox or the ass to browse in an enclosure, but goats
should roam at large.”
And from that moment on, her grass became insipid. Boredom
set in. The goat lost weight and gave little milk. It was heartwrenching
watching her pulling on her rope all day, head turned
to the mountain, nostrils dilated, bleating a melancholy “baa!”
Mister Seguin saw that something was amiss with his goat but
was quite at a loss to guess the cause of it. One morning, as he had
finished milking her, she turned and said to him in her patois:
“I’m languishing here, Mister Seguin, let me go to the
mountain.”
“Ah! Mon Dieu! ... This one too!” exclaimed the stupefied
Mister Seguin, dropping his pail as he did so. Then, sitting down
on the grass beside his goat, he said:
“What, Blanquette, do you want to leave me?”
“Yes, Mister Seguin,” answered Blanquette.
“Is there not plenty of grass here?”
“Oh yes, Mister Seguin.”
“Perhaps you are tied too short. Shall I lengthen your rope?”
“There’s no need, Mister Seguin.”
“Then what is it you want?”
“I want to go to the mountain, Mister Seguin.”
“But, my poor girl, don’t you know that there are wolves in the
mountains? What will you do when one of them finds you?”
“I will fight him with my horns, Mister Seguin.”
“The wolf would laugh at your horns. He has devoured
goats with far bigger horns than yours... Do you remember old
Renaude who was here last year? She was a bossy one, strong and
vicious as a billy goat. She fought with the wolf all night... and in
the morning, he ate her.”
“Oh dear! Poor Renaude! ... But let me go to the mountain,
Mister Seguin.”
“Good heavens!” said poor Mister Seguin. “What have they
done to my goats? But no! I will save you in spite of yourself, you
naughty girl! And lest you break your rope, I will lock you in the
stable, and you shall stay there forever.”
With these words, Mister Seguin led the goat into the pitchblack
stable and double-locked the door. But he had forgotten to
lock the window, and as soon as he had turned his back, the little
goat was gone...
You are smiling, Gringoire? By Jove! I believe you are taking
the goat’s side against good Mister Seguin... We shall see if you
smile later.
As soon as the white goat reached the mountain, she was
overjoyed. Never had the old pine trees seen anything so pretty.
They all welcomed her like a little queen. The chestnuts bowed
to the ground to caress her with the tips of their branches. The
golden broom opened up to let her pass and sent out its sweetest
perfume. The entire mountain celebrated her coming.
You can imagine how happy our goat was, Gringoire! No more
rope, no more stake... She could frolic, browse and graze to her
heart’s content... That’s where the grass lay! All the way up to her
horns, my dear! ... And what grass! Delicious, fine, dentate, made
of a thousand herbs... very different indeed from the turf of the
enclosure. And the flowers! Big blue bellflowers, long-calyxed
purple foxgloves, a whole forest of wildflowers bursting with
intoxicating juices!
Intoxicated, the white goat capered here and there, jumping
about with her limbs spread out, rolling along the mountainsides,
finally ending up lying in a heap of fallen leaves and chestnuts...
Then, with a sudden bound, she leaped to her feet and off she
was head first, now on a peak, then tumbling down to the
bottom of a ravine, up and down, everywhere... It was as though
there were ten of Mister Seguin’s goats in the mountains.
All of this is to say that Blanquette was afraid of nothing.
In a single bound, she crossed the broad, rushing streams,
getting splashed with mud and foam. Then, dripping with water,
she stretched out on a flat rock and let the sun dry her coat...
Once, as she came to the edge of a plateau with some laburnum
in her mouth, she saw down below, away down below in the
plain, the house of Mister Seguin, with the enclosure in the rear.
She laughed herself to tears.
“What a little place!” she said. “How did it ever hold me?”
Poor thing! Seeing herself perched so high, she thought herself
at least as big as the world...
Overall, it was a fine day for Mister Seguin’s goat. Around
the middle of the day, as she was scampering, running back and
forth, she came across a flock of chamois chomping down on
a wild vine. Our young racer in her white dress caused quite a
stir. The chamois invited her to the best place at the vine, and
the gentlemen were most gallant in their attention to her... It
even seems that a certain young chamois had the good fortune
to please Blanquette – and this should remain strictly between
us, Gringoire. For an hour or two, these two strolled together
through the woods. If you want to know exactly what they said,
ask the babbling brooks that flow unseen through the moss.
Suddenly, the wind turned chilly. The mountain turned purple.
It was dusk...
“Already?” said the little goat, stopping still in surprise.
Below, the fields were flooded with mist. Mister Seguin’s
enclosure was lost to view behind the fog; nothing was to be seen
but the roof and a whisp of smoke. She listened to the bells of a
flock that was being driven home. A falcon grazed her with its
wings and made her flinch. Then a long shrill was heard from the
mountain.
“Howl! Howl!”
She remembered the wolf. In her mad joy, the silly creature
hadn’t thought of this all day. At the same moment, a horn
sounded far away in the valley. Good Mister Seguin was
making a desperate last appeal.
“Howl! Howl!” cried the wolf.
“Come home! Come home!” called the trumpet.
For a brief moment, Blanquette wanted to go back. But,
remembering the stake, the rope and the hedge, she decided
she could never again endure such a life and concluded that
it was better to stay.
The horn stopped blowing...
Then the goat heard leaves rustling behind her. Turning
around, she saw two short upright ears in the shadows, with
two large glowing eyes staring at her...
It was the wolf.
There he was, immense, motionless, seated on his hind
legs, staring at the little white goat and smacking his lips
in advance. The wolf was in no hurry, for he knew that he
would eat her. When she turned around to face him, he
laughed wickedly to himself. “Ha, ha! Mister Seguin’s little
goat!” And he licked his lips with his big red tongue.
Blanquette felt herself lost. For a moment, she
remembered the story of old Renaude, who fought all
night and was eaten in the morning. She told herself that it
might be better to be eaten at once. But she thought better
of it and struck a defensive attitude, head down and horns
forward, like the brave Mister Seguin’s goat that she was.
Not that she had any hope of killing the wolf – goats do
not kill wolves – but to see if she could hold out as long as
Renaude...
And so the monster moved towards her, and Blanquette’s
little horns opened the dance.
Ah, the brave little goat, she was so determined! More
than ten times – Gringoire, I tell you the truth – she pushed
the wolf back. He was forced to draw back and catch his
breath. During these brief truces, the little gourmet goat
hastily plucked a blade or two of the grass she loved so much
before returning to the fight with her mouth full. This lasted
all night. From time to time, Mister Seguin’s goat would
gaze up at the stars dancing in the clear sky and say to herself:
“If only I can hold out until morning!”
One by one, the stars disappeared. Blanquette redoubled the
thrusts with her horns, and the wolf bit increasingly harder.
A pale light appeared on the horizon... A hoarse cock crowed
from a farmhouse.
“At last!” said the poor creature, who was only waiting for
daybreak in order to die. She lay down on the ground, her
beautiful white fur stained with red blood.
Then the wolf pounced on the little goat and… devoured her.
Farewell, Gringoire!
I did not contrive this story for you. Should you ever come
to Provence, our farmers will often recount the tale of Mister
Seguin’s goat, who fought all night against the wolf and was
finally eaten in the morning.
Listen carefully, Gringoire: E piei lou matin lou loup la mangé.
“And in the morning the wolf ate her.”