thrushes barded fashionable d'Auvergne - Jean Bardon A tale of John Bardon
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| Pictured Christmas (child) and "Mama Lescure (Marie Rigal) behind Christmas.
Taking the dog, Leo, my great-uncle, son of Mary Rigal. |
"The barded thrushes fashionable d'Auvergne is the latest installment in a series of romantic tales of hunting on "Hunting, sweet venom."
In the latter tale, John Bardon, the author, portrays happiness , delight and humanity, the lives of these peasants "colorful" Planèze of Cantal.
Some of the characters present in this tale are none other than my direct ancestors: the "Mama de Lescure," my great mother, Leon, his son and my great-uncle and Christmas, my father.
Travel Planèze ...
" This recollection the sweet fragrance of chrysanthemum was never published by anyone. I keep thinking in my heart, secrecy and warm, untouchable as the inviolability of a tomb. There are now, indeed, among those joyous hours distant and the present moment, the soul of a dead woman hanging. And what soul! And what dead! The good soul of a very simple and humble peasant Desmonts the most remote village in Auvergne. This was the dead Mama Lescure. Lescure and Mama was my mother ...
What good would it do me to tell you it was my maternal aunt the nurse and the first six years of my hectic life, the only truly wonderful, because for me it was everything and that his disappearance in a terrible fifth day of March, was for the fifties that I am, the end of a world.
It is now, under the terms of Gounou, sheltered from winds duPlomb in the quiet cemetery of this mountain hamlet that he was born, there are eighty- five years and had never left.
And then, as well as in the last crust of coldness link to winter snowdrops, I can not help but relive the odyssey of these thrushes why the poor Mama had carefully tapered, in advance, appetizing bards of bacon. "
On mail
" all began on a Tuesday morning market Valuéjols. The fair was in full swing under a tentative autumn sunshine that was waiting to be revived. Hawkers and hucksters of the wind covered the noise of their calls by caravanserai to untie budget. I was on the fairgrounds because the fairgrounds, there were animals. And animals have always been the kingdom and the secret garden of my childhood dreams. Since the dawn of the premium time in my life where, with Julien Chastel, my classard, my friend, we rode the chimeras to know which of us would have the largest farm, the best of our dear Planèze Borio. He now has his own. Me in the spring of my seven years, I was forced to take the ugly branch that leads to the big city and its huge arteries that have always seemed obnoxious and inhuman.
On the mall, attached to the long steel bar passed to the minium, large herds of red Salers and Aubrac heifers small, color toast, dozing or languishing in their crib. Between the frames of a park, in the eyes of young calves made more pure by the innocence and candor seemed more amazed to see this except in fear of men swarming crowd.
Further, just under the wall of the schoolyard, a hundred sheep, white or kisses, his forehead marked with pink, blue or green or has ear bitten a wool yarn, waiting, huddled one over the other, a horse dealer's hand palpation and, satisfied with her purchase, took them out of the sea sheep taking away a piece of fleece in a brief snip of the scissors. Prisoner of its chain in a sliding ring seal in the wall, a great bull two years, a large duplication of Laguiole, sniffed the air, falling back on his upper lip and nostril all black martyr ground with his hoof spirited. But the area's busiest and most jarring was that of suckling pigs who, frightened by all this bustle, shrieking interspersed grouin distress. And all these people dressed in silk carnation, was both touching and pretty admirably.
I wandered among the people of colorful colorful peasants, enjoying the charming patois conversations and agreements, beating altogether and simply, in the hand of a sound slap in search of Christmas, my cousin who, fifteen years apart, had, like me, drew his first forces in the slurries that gave him the same Lescure. Livestock dealer, it was currently examining the teeth of a Tarson Montbeliard, opening the jaws of a powerful and expertly handle while trying to reshuffle twenty pistoles on the price asked for Delpirou Maniargues. "
Testas pitados!
"When we descend Road Lescure-High in a swirl of dust, I saw there, the mountado the barn, two minor figures. One dressed in dark and a little vaulted. The other, in light dress, smaller, more frail, but looking aggressively as a fighting cock. The two women I love most: my mother and my wife. They are, both, a hand gesture that looks like a slap in the face, thrown from a distance. A gesture that they have all the evil in the world to go mad and worthy. And then, one after the other, they rush in the door .
We have arrived. I look at my watch. A minimum of five hours! And our return, which was scheduled for half past eleven!
- It's getting hot, old, I said Christmas.
Christmas And smiled. And I understand her smile. As if our Mama could get angry! The Has it been only once during his long life? For my part, I put out my crazy head cut not. When in 1884, was born Marie Rigal, four framed her fairies carved rocking cradle in an old chestnut: that of Love, that of the Sacrifice, that of goodness and that of forgiveness. And his little son knows as well as I, being unmarried and living together, both in an alcove relating to a barn that smells of freshly cut hay.
- Here you are, tests pitados! and I expect that the roast for two hours. For once we have Claire! Ah! no ... no ... no ...
And poor dear wife jumps up and down on the floor.
Christmas puts his hands on the slender shoulders mover and said with that smile which belies a battalion of bailiffs:
- Cridachas not anin, poaura Finno, Abes, inquéro di chonço that abiotic inblidado: (Do not shout, come on, poor woman, you're still lucky that I had forgotten (the meat).
When I saw that, I made the beefteacks. It will go faster.
- Some of bistèques bistèques ... ... mumbles the same in shaky its head and looked up to heaven.
His despair of not being able to receive us as she would be back on me.
- And you Jeantillou at your age, you are much more reasonable than this-without worries. Claire and your waiting for you for so long!
I watch. I find it beautiful! She is beautiful with its painted clogs, her wool socks, his black apron, half hiding her gray blouse studded with tiny white flowers, his silver chain bearing a enamel medal representing the Holy Virgin, his patroness, and the miniature she had painted for his nephew Daniel and she wears as a brooch, and her beautiful white hair pulled back in a bun, and this noble figure furrowed with wrinkles by the miseries of life. The miseries and sorrows of her life who does not fail, but also those of others, all the others, she took for her and she lay on her fragile shoulders.
I go to her. I say nothing, take her in my arms, make him throw sketch waltz and sit on a straw chair, kissing impetuously.
of ti-Tira aqui, who bira mi fas la testa! (Get out of there, you make me turn my head)
And she laughs. A laugh so much, she cries and she sticks her stomach. His face crumpled old is so funny and so pathetic at once, as I melt like snow in sunshine, I'm waiting like a lost little boy who finds his mother and exciting like a wounded bird with a little heart beats.
My Ti Chick approaches her and kisses tenderly.
- Ah! pécairi, my little Claire, both will tee-burned myself too and see what can be done? In all, these are two guys I like best!
A tear of emotion rolled under my eyelashes.
... and the meal, my God, happened as always, tasty and hardy, these four walls that breathe all the honesty of the poor. The same remains standing, pecking, at long intervals, a spoonful of tapioca or rice pudding, the only foods accepts that his stomach again. Restless and busy, she turns around, and flat bottles in hand, fearing that we were leaving her house on our hunger or our thirst, while it is impossible for Claire to help him in anything. And the dishes that I love forever and she knows so well, succeed slowly Pachad fresh eggs, lentils du Velay gourgouillou potato, piece of old pie Fourme and home ...
While Christmas and I swallow a cup of hot coffee and tossed gniole, the dear woman said
- Save yourselves, my children, and put a sweater because it gets dark quickly. Me, I'll look down at Manuel's a piece of bacon tender for tonight, you fry these thrushes on my old wood fire. "
Under a wind malignant
" Leon is already in the Fabrisse when we get to catch Jeantou. The glass of rum, violet cassis, gives us the legs to attack the mountain road by the trail of Pet-Besse.
As strike me as the Shepherd's Cross foams gnawing his stone tricentennial the first heather, gorse and bare their tears dry gentian seeds under a wind from malignant Prat de Bouc, the amphora from the past pours her sweet spices on me like a wave of mead and I'm happy as we do can not be. Glad to have forgotten nothing. Odors rise buried my nose, take body slowly, then become perennial and after the shower railing a scent that a rose gray rain all numb.
On my left, I see our Plono where there are more than forty years, I sought to capture the young quail when my grandfather, leaning on the scythe, was finishing off his last place of buckwheat. Plus, it's Broucade. There, alert as a fawn, black curly hair whose locks were falling on my head as a young Greek shepherd, I kept my four cows, the supervisor of one eye while I was running a small mill in hazel wood on the clear water creek on the banks of red earth.
Now we have exceeded Saillans and my three companions did not, once, broke their terrible rate of mountain hunters. It was not long ago, the blacksmith Jeantou regiments serving in the Alps. Christmas, the bull, wrestling with his chest and his legs of steel seems to walk. The great Leon, who is ten years older than me, his long legs camel'm not half as much as the other two, and without toil, stands up to them. Me, I shoot the tongue. The city pernicious and car were too easy, once the Centaur, a lamentable Percheron who drags his belly. However, I practiced the sport and I know that before coming hard at work, I found my second wind and I measure my efforts.
Large John Roche pastures are empty and closed burons. After six months of transhumance, the volcanic stone masucs have locked their doors, the herds have returned to heat barns and big hairy dogs have to sleep in the straw. More sound of bells, barking more joyful, more calls sound driven by cowbirds over yard back, more deals to be done, more cheese soup, more truffles over gerle to fill good frothy milk Cantal races. The mountain is voiceless and appears asleep in this north wind that envelops insidiously.
Once again, the Lescure Mama was right because the wool will serve us.
Apart from a few crows and three or four that annoying flutter around the tallest trees, there, to Sagnet, a kite that spins the wings, the whole forest is catalepsy. While young people engage in the heather, Leon and I will mail it to the clearing that cuts diagonally, the first plantation of firs. Where there are now nearly forty years, the same Leo waited, huddled in the border of ferns, hares that brought him, after many detours great rant, Miss, of the incomparable Korthals Sardougni.
We have been there for over an hour and I am afraid that our thrushes are not at the rendezvous Neither Fieldfares nor the musicians nor bad, neither large-pia pias. I know their voice at all, and round, all is silence and peace. The heavy oppressive silence and peace of the woods, when, in the air or wind, there's this warning sign is that the birds be silent, petrified squirrels, rodents and lie low crouch stinking beasts.
It really starts to chilly and a slight shiver runs through my spine.
- We had better go to Coustounes or Pignatelli of the Carnation, "said my brother.
- Here, we would have had chances to shoot the pigeons, because it is unchangeable line their path. For tonight, I think it's well done and there's more to come Oustar. "
John Bardon - thrushes barded fashionable Auvergne - Hunting, sweet venom
