Letters From My Windmill Read Free Page A

door was double locked, but he had left his
ladder outside. The children immediately went in through the window to
see what was inside this famous windmill….
    "Amazingly, the milling room was empty. Not a single sack; not one
grain of wheat. Not the least trace of flour on the walls or in the
cobwebs. There wasn't even the good warm scent of crushed wheat which
permeates windmills. The grinding machinery was covered in dust, and
the starving cat was asleep on it.
    "The room below had just the same air of misery and neglect: a pitiful
bed, a few rags, a piece of bread on a step of the stairs, and notably,
in one corner, three or four burst sacks with rubble and chalk spilling
out.
    "So—that was Cornille's secret! It was this plaster that was being
moved by road in the evenings. All this, just to save the reputation of
the windmill, to make people believe that flour was still being milled
there. Poor windmill. Poor Cornille! The millers had finished the last
real work a long time ago. The sails turned on, but the millstone
didn't.
    "The children returned tearfully and told me what they had seen. It
broke my heart to hear them. I ran round to the neighbours straight
away, explaining things very briefly, and we all agreed at once on what
to do, which was to carry all the wheat we could lay our hands on up to
Cornille's windmill. No sooner said than done. The whole village met up
on the way and we arrived with a procession of donkeys loaded up with
wheat, but this time the real thing.
    "The windmill was open to the world…. In front of the door, crying,
head in hands, sat Cornille on a sack of plaster. He had only just come
back and noticed, that while he was away, his home had been invaded and
his pathetic secret exposed.
    —Poor, poor me, he said. I might as well be dead … the windmill has
been shamed.
    "Then sobbing bitter tears, he tried to say all sorts of consoling
words to his windmill, as if it could hear him. Just then, the mules
arrived on the apron and we all began to shout loudly as in the good
old days of the millers:
    —What ho there, in the windmill! What ho there, Monsieur Cornille!!
    "And there they were, stacked together, sack upon sack of lovely golden
grain, some spilling over onto the ground all around….
    "Cornille, his eyes wide open, took some of the wheat into the palms of
his old hands, crying and laughing at the same time:
    —It's wheat! Dear Lord. Real wheat. Leave me to feast my eyes.
    "Then, turning towards us, he said:
    —I know why you've come back to me…. The mill factory owners are all
thieves.
    "We wanted to lift him shoulder high and take him triumphantly to the
village:
    —No, no my children, I must give my windmill something to go at first.
Think about it, for so long, it's had nothing to grind!
    "We all had tears in our eyes as we saw the old man scampering from
sack to sack, and emptying them into the millstone and watching as the
fine flour was ground out onto the floor.
    "It's fair to say that from then on, we never let the old miller run
short of work. Then, one morning Master-Miller Cornille died, and the
sails of our last working windmill turned for the very last time. Once
he had gone, no one took his place. What could we do, monsieur?
Everything comes to an end in this world, and we have to accept that
the time for windmills has gone, along with the days of the horse-drawn
barges on the Rhone, local parliaments, and floral jackets."

MONSIEUR SEGUIN'S LAST KID GOAT
    To Pierre Gringoire, lyrical poet, Paris.
    You'll never get anywhere, Gringoire!
    I can't believe it! A good newspaper in Paris offers you a job as a
critic and you have the brass neck to turn it down. Look at yourself,
old friend. Look at the holes in your doublet, your worn-out stockings,
and your pinched face which betrays your hunger. Look where your
passion for poetry has got you! See how much you have been valued for
your ten years writing for the gods. What price pride, after all?
    Take the job, you