The Serpent of Stars Read Free

at her naked daughter, then at Césaire and the shepherd, and I saw her white mouth, which was attempting silent words. The shepherd, a man of about fifty, big of bone but not heavy with flesh, without anything more than dry leather skin over leather muscles, a man of the hills, made of sun, dust, and dead leaves, the shepherd, sitting on the hard ground, facing the night, played around on a big nine-pipe flute with his fingers; he tapped out a little tune, scratching the sensitive pipes with the ends of his fingernails.
    All this was difficult, as much for Césaire as for the shepherd as for the wise little girl. You could feel it, they were like big balloons full of a thick wine. And the mother only removed the cork after looking hard at me. Here I was, simpler and more fragile than fleabane. All the winds battered me, and I had just heard the thick gravel of the sky rolling in this silence when she said, “And you, mister, you know how to sleep on a grass bed in our earthen home?”
    â€œYes,” I said, completely overcome, and then, “yes, this won’t be the first time. I often do it. And I love the coolness of caves and that warmth
you get, come morning, and then, Césaire, shepherd, let’s not put on airs, this is our true home, in fact, beneath it all.”
    Little by little, equilibrium and ease returned to me. I had only to show my heart to these men, to these women, and I was sure of being loved, and I was sure of understanding all their thoughts, of being at the source of their reflections, of being their very selves, neither more fat, nor less fat, of being with them and emerging from the grass no more than they did, healthy beasts among the grasses and the beasts.
    â€œYes,” said the wife, “but, Césaire, don’t put him near the root.”
    â€œWhat root?” I said. “What do you mean a root?”
    â€œThe root of a tree,” said the woman, “a white root. It’s there bulging from the ground like running milk, but it’s hard and full of ill will, you can’t imagine. And it’s sly and impossibly strong, and once it tried to wrap itself around my foot and it was going to draw me down to the bottom of the earth.”
    â€œThere you go again with your root,” said Césaire, his voice slow and true as he turned his head, and then he drifted off into the night once more on the beautiful wings of his gaze.
    The young witch had wrapped her soft dress around her waist. The shepherd hummed quietly like a spring. The children were asleep, you could hear them sleeping, and there was the moon, over the hilly heap of naked children.
    â€œLet me, Césaire, let me talk. On the other side of the wall, when we were at the inn in Lincel, you remember, Césaire, a house above ground. There were two charcoal burners, a man and a woman who was his wife. We heard them living. On the other side of the wall, there was a block of day or a block of night and human life. We heard him, the man,
when he slapped her like a mill with arms, slapped all that was only skin and bones and rang like an empty barrel. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ she said, ‘this savage is going to kill me!’ A little later, she was laughing and they began fooling around so noisily that I said to that one... (she pointed to the young redhead), ‘Sleep, close your eyes, it’s none of your business what they’re up to.’
    â€œAnd then they were snoring, which wasn’t hard to imagine and was no cause for fear. There you have it. In the morning, the man would walk out, ho hum, swinging his carbide lantern, whistling that song of the Piémont, and with the first notes I said to you, ‘Césaire, wake up, he’s whistling, listen, isn’t it beautiful.’ And the woman, that was easy to imagine, too. She would come down the stairs about the time I would be sitting by the fountain combing my hair. She would come down the stairs,