SOURCE: Browning, Gordon. “Jean Giono's Un de Baumugnes: The Narrator's Inner Cistern.” Modern Language Studies 14 (summer 1984): 63-9.

[In the following essay, Browning examines the metaphorical uses of the images of the well, the cistern, and the fountain in Giono's Un de Baumugnes.]

The well, the cistern, and the fountain recur as emotionally charged objects in many of Jean Giono's early stories and novels. Giono himself recounts that it was the memory of his childhood terror of a 120-foot well inside the presbytery where he went for catechism that provided the initial idea for the short story “Solitude de la Pitié,” in which a man descends into a deep and crumbling well to earn a pittance for his ailing friend above.¹ “Babeau” is the story of a young man who drowns himself in the cistern of an abandoned farm while the unsuspecting shepherdess concentrates on her knitting nearby. In “Jofroi de la Maussan,” Jofroi's suicidal fury is thwarted at the edge of Antoine's 90-foot well.

In “Radeaux perdus,” Giono evokes the isolation of the peasants in the hill country. In their dark houses, visitors must grope warily to locate the stairwells and to avoid the unprotected cistern, “… une bonne menace, un bon remède qui est là tout prêt” (534), a ready solution to intolerable domestic situations. Indeed, we may take this cistern over which the peasants live as a representation of their isolation, since it recalls the unplumbed waters of the title's image of rafts adrift at sea and also cut loose from civilization's constraints. In “Champs,” when the narrator asks for water from a man clearing the fields of an utterly desolate farmstead, he is told. “Mon bon monsieur, je ne puis guère vous donner d'eau; j'en ai à peine un doigt, là-haut, dans la citerne abandonnée que j'ai ouverte, et encore, épaisse, verte et qui ne vous agréerait pas” (458). This shallow cistern prefigures the spiritual insufficiency of the farmer who will soon give up his efforts and disappear.

Throughout the trilogy comprised of Colline, Un de Baumugnes, and Regain, the emotional significance of the well, the cistern, and the fountain continues to be developed. In Regain, Zia Mamèche's young husband is buried alive while digging the village well, and though water rises in it, no one will drink from a well hiding a decaying corpse at its bottom.² Just as the cave-in coincided with the village's decline, the end of that decline is marked when Panturle drops into the well the weighted remains of Mamèche to join her husband and dead child.

But the village fountain in Colline is given little spatial dimension. Moreover, the anguish of the villagers, other than Janet, also has little inner resonance. The inner life of Gondran, the first to succumb to Janet's spell, is depicted when he kills the lizard after his siesta in the olive grove. He awakens in one instant (“d'un bloc”), springs on the lizard totally absorbed (“bloc de force”), then feels an anxiety expressed statically and unreflexively as a stone in the throat (146-47). When Maurras refuses to follow Jaume's lead, Jaume's interior world, though touched by the water element, closes up (173). With the village atmosphere at its worst, and before the release provided by the fire, a wild boar crosses Jaume's path to visit the village square in broad daylight. Yet he is too frightened to reach for his gun. His fear is described as a splinter, then as a nut bound in its shell (188).

In contrast to these turgid and immobile mental states, we have the suggestion of the mountain's inner life and Jaume's conviction that the sulphurous spring with its emetic properties, rising from the depths, is a sign of the mountain's malevolence (152). Likewise, while Gondran and Jaume lack a resonant inner space and only suspect it in the hills, Janet has inner resources, ready to be tapped and flow forth (162). In his privileged state of nascent self-consciousness, brought on by his approaching death, he sees himself as a container, a basin, a cellar, a barrel of wine (178). Though he does not directly claim to have dried up the water pocket he once devined, Janet encourages Gondran and Jaume to believe that he has. The spell he weaves on them, moreover, is, as Claude Bouygues noted, a fountain that flows,³ an image for Janet's inner life which coincides with the spring interpreted by Jaume as a sign of the mountain's purposefulness.

In the fountains, wells, and cisterns of these early stories and novels, the emblematic function and the emotional impact are very close. The development we are sketching here starts with the abyss of “Solitude de la Pitié” and follows the transition of those depths from a literal yet troubling object to a psychological and figurative image; from an exterior object provoking anguish to an inner metaphor for the depths of the anguished consciousness itself. Colline begins the transition, but Un de Baumugnes completes it. In Un de Baumugnes, wells, fountains, and cisterns appear, not only as literal objects, but also as images for the claustrophobic distress of a tormented consciousness.

The most significant metaphor in Un de Baumugnes is built around weight,⁴ but this metaphor lacks the space and resonance needed to depict self-consciousness. In the novel, however, self-awareness plays an important and problematic role. While Amédée's actions, and the telling of his actions, are inveterately self-conscious, Albin undergoes an apprenticeship to reflexivity and a change in his perception of his self. As we shall see, the image of the well, and the suggestion of something drowning, buried, or rotten at the bottom, provides the inner space for a consciousness uneasy with itself.

For Amédée, the novel's narrator, there is a range of sensations within the image of an internal volume to suggest many mental states. When Albin finishes his story, Amédée finds himself unexpectedly intrigued, as his interest bubbles up: “Cette histoire bouillait dans ma tête comme du raisin écrasé” (236). Indeed, Albin will recognize this feeling of inner bubbling as he sees it in Amédée, who is impatient to hear how Angèle's place of sequestration was discovered: “-je vois que tu bous en dedans comme une lessive” (292). Years later, when Amédée passes the Douloire and talks with Albin's little daughter, his quickened memories come to a rolling boil: “Vous pensez si ça faisait la marmite qui bout dans mon dedans” (316).

Having helped Albin spirit away Angèle, Amédée realizes that only half the unhappiness caused by Louis has been undone. This unfinished business preoccupies his nighttime flight, and his indecision is rendered by the image of sloshing water: “C'était au fond de moi comme une eau, ca ballottait à la mesure de mon pas et le bruit m'accompagnait” (310). To appreciate fully this metaphor, we return to Amédée's initial decision to help Albin, an awakening to a certainty which wells up in him: “… et ca creva dans moi comme une eau qui pèse sur une digue de terre puis gagne, renverse et inonde le verger” (238).

The fluctuations of an inner water level also suggest levels of consciousness, including even the suggestion of a subconscious. Amédée is sensitive to these changes, and, on one occasion, speaks of the moment of falling asleep in terms of a plunge into watery depths: “—cela fut comme si je tombais dans un bassin d'eau noire et je me mis à dormir en éperdu” (238).

Volume and liquidity provide the fundamental metaphorical resources for Amédée's perception of his inner being: a hermetic interior space—barrel or cistern—with a level of liquid—water or wine bubbling, welling up, or deep and still, which allows him to register his inner sensations, to situate different states of consciousness, as well as the passage from one state to another, the coming of awareness and the loss of consciousness. This metaphor will also allow him to perceive the reflexive consciousness poised over a subconscious, but still unwilling to bring into the open the secret hidden in its inner recesses—something drowned and putrefying at the bottom of the well.

As the narrator, Amédée is responsible for characterization, not just his own, but also Albin's, if we are to accept the authenticity of Albin's point of view. Amédée first characterizes Albin by his eyes and laugh, which he sees as spilling water and glacial snow. Albin's origin in the mountains, immediately perceived here by Amédée, guarantees throughout the novel Albin's straightforwardness and essential goodness. But Amédée perceives another dimension to Albin's character, when he adds, “ce qui m'avait attiré, je ne vous cache pas, c'est que, dans ces yeux, y avait un quelque chose d'amer; une ombre, comme le reflet d'une viande qui pourrirait au fond d'une fontaine” (222). This image, a cistern with a shadow at the bottom, is the key to Amédée's perception of Albin's inner life.

Albin also presents a point of view. Despite a self-image and a life project that diverge from Amédée's, Albin, too, is attentive to his own consciousness. Amédée has just noted the darkness, the shadow of rotting meat at the bottom of Albin's eyes. Appropriately, Albin's first words are: “Je suis ici à me pourrir” (222). He goes on to elaborate with an inner cistern image of his own: “Ce que j'ai, c'est du sérieux et ca compte; ça m'est entré dedans petit à petit comme un fil d'eau et, maintenant, c'est gros et lourd sur mes jambes et ça m'empêche d'être heureux au soleil” (222).

Though Albin has always seen his self as a container, his inner resources were all Baumugnes, which filled his inside. Albin's description of Baumugnes and of himself ranges from the weightiness of its earth to the sharpness of its air (228). This original state of fullness, however, lacked the inner space needed to accommodate the reflexive consciousness. When Albin's state of consciousness altered, he became sensitive to the distance and texture of his inner being, as he watched it change, and, in his narrative, images of solidity and fullness give way to those of levels and depths of an inner liquid.

When Louis invited him for a Sunday outing, Albin expressed his sense of the irreversible in terms of a bitter liquid being released: “Une poche amère crève au fond de moi et je comprends que le malheur s'est mis en marche” (231). Despite the beautiful morning, this unformed apprehension rose in him: “La vie s'appuyait contre ma bouche avec son bon goût, mais la chose amère était montée jusqu'au ras de ma gorge et j'en étouffais” (231). Still unsure of what he feared, innocence and an unsavory taste conflicted: “Moi, le sommeil entrait dans mes yeux comme une fleur, puis j'étais réveillé par l'amertume de ma bouche” (231). Clearly, Albin was discovering the inner world and the range of sensations it would provide.⁵

Recalling his self-inflicted sunstroke, when, out of despair, he had “filled” his head with sun, Albin noted of his actions during this time: “… elles sont troubles comme si, penché sur un bassin, je les regardais bouger au fond de l'eau” (234). Albin has hit directly upon Amédée's inner cistern imagery to describe his own being, and he continued with an extraordinary register of sensations around this central image:

Il me semblait que j'étais une bouteille pleine de vin rouge et que je voyais le jour au travers de moi. … Je me sentais liquide et aigre, du lait caillé tout en grumeaux séparés qui nageaient chacun de leur côté. … Ca se brouille. Ca devient un verre d'absinthe sur une table ….

(234)

After these perceptions of his inaction, however, which were liquid and reflexive, Albin reverted to his full and aeriform self when he went to meet Angèle. A mysterious force lifted him, but, as he moved, there was a rarefaction of his sensations, until he felt he was being taken along as if by music. First, water revived him, then air, an odor, came to his rescue. Finally the wind carried him off (235), as his elemental range jumped from dark water to pure air.

With this development, we begin to appreciate the complexity of metaphorical elements and qualities that make up Albin's character.⁶ Albin had described the air of Baumugnes as sharp like a sabre (228). Though Amédée has a basic preference for the inner liquid metaphor, he now describes Albin's tone of voice in terms of the wind, this time sharp like a scythe, in an effort to show how appropriate that tone was to Albin's narrative (237). Sharpness thus forms the connecting link between the images of air and liquid, since it is central also to the image of the bleeding knife cut used by Albin to describe his confession (228). The significance of these two descriptions is essentially the same, a guarantee of sincerity, although the difference in level is crucial. By resorting to the liquid metaphor, Albin indicates he is now conscious of a dichotomy between how he thinks of himself and what has happened to him,⁷ but the appeal to the sharpness or cutting image also offers hope for resolving this dichotomy.

Albin's Baumugnes had made him straight and keen like a knife, lacking the inner space needed to practice or even understand deceit. When regretting his inability to forestall Louis' plans, Albin attributed his failure to Baumugnes: “… ca m'a fait comme au printemps, quand toute la neige glisse d'un coup et déshabille la montagne: il n'est plus resté, en face du ciel, que le grand couteau de mes os, tout nus” (233-34). Now, although he has painfully acquired an inner liquid and an awareness of its levels, what he really desires is another sloughing-off and the restoration of his former being. Amédée perceives this project in just the same terms when he tells Albin that Angèle has returned to her parents' farm and notes: “… je vois son mal qui glisse de lui comme un vieux manteau, choit dans l'herbe, et le laisse net, clair comme un bel Albin de l'Albinerie de Baumugnes qu'il était” (272).

To reintegrate his being, Albin must undo the past, not miss his second chance to rescue Angèle, and erase the consequences of his failure to act the first time. To pare off the past which caused the split in consciousness and recover one's ideal self is not an opportunity given to everyone, and is perhaps an impossible project. Albin succeeds by invoking a romantic myth, assuring Angèle, who knows she has changed, that she will always be in his eyes as she looked the first time he saw her.⁸ By marrying Angèle, Albin is not only rescuing her, he is also remarrying himself.

But the coming of self-consciousness has opened an inner space which even Albin may have difficulty filling. In a revealing text from Giono's preface (1931), Albin recognizes the liquid and shadows of Angèle's inner life:

Voilà mon harmonica. … Non, je ne vous le prête pas. J'aime mieux ne pas savoir ce que vous avez dans le coeur, ce que vous cachez sous l'ombre violette de vos veines; comme ça j'imagine, comme ça j'invente ce que je veux, je suis tranquille. Si vous approchiez la “musique” de vos lèvres, un peu, rien qu'un peu, je saurais le vrai de vrai; j'aime mieux inventer, c'est plus sûr.

(973-74)⁹

Amédée's role within the story, except for a few notable moments when he acts decisively, is to get others to talk. His hope of serving as a confessor-healer is embodied in his inner cistern image for the problematic consciousness—the shadow, the secret, the piece of meat putrefying at the bottom of the well, that must be brought up if the person is to be saved from his own inner retribution.

As this image promises, Amédée is sensitive to the hidden darkness in others, and even more sensitive to the moment when they are about to bring it up, but do not. Despite his keen perceptions, Amédée's powers are really quite limited. Saturnin blatantly refuses twice to reveal Angèle's whereabouts. On three occasions, Angèle's mother, Philomène, seems ready to divulge the secret of the crushing weight in her breast, but Amédée can only watch: “Elle reste un moment à me regarder et sa lèvre fait deux ou trois fois le mouvement de parler; elle ne dit rien et puis, enfin, elle se décide, mais ça n'a pas l'air d'être bien exactement le fond de sa pensée” (288). The anguished silence during the last meal at the Douloire is a final sign of his ineffectiveness.

Though Amédée goes to some length to characterize Clarius, a characterization which is necessary if his attitude toward his daughter is to be plausible, Amédée makes no effort to get him to talk out his problem. Confession is impossible, since Clarius has no inner space between his consciousness and his hurt pride. He does not conform to Amédée's inner spatial metaphor for the self, but is rather a solid mass, consumed by his own obstinacy.¹⁰

Amédée's inner cistern image also has literal correlatives throughout the story. The most striking is the situation of water rising in the cellar where Angèle has been sequestered. Indeed, when he does glimpse Angèle being evacuated, his first thought is that no doubt she has deteriorated: “Quand une pomme tombe du pommier, que voulez-vous, les vers s'y mettent” (268), an ungracious anticipation which echoes his metaphor of rotten meat at the bottom of the well. In another instance, which exemplifies Amédée's efforts to find Angèle, Amédée hears through a closed door a sound which suggests an infant nursing. When he later enters the storeroom, he finds not Angèle but a rat which has drowned in a large jar of oil. In contrast, two of Amédée's critical decisions prevent his metaphor from becoming a literal event: He diverts the torrent in the wash away from the house where everyone within would have been drowned, and he forces the return of the escape party to the Douloire to keep Clarius from drowning himself. Had Clarius succeeded, he would have become an objective, exterior representation corresponding to Amédée's metaphor, literally a piece of meat rotting at the bottom of the river.

Thus, Amédée functions both figuratively and literally as a lifeguard,¹¹ as the narrator's inner cistern moves into the literal world, going from a metaphorical presentation of mental states, to a prefigurement and interpretive guide to crucial events of the narrative, and finally to being a part of those events themselves.

Notes

1. Oeuvres romanesques complètes, I, édition établie par Robert Ricatte avec la collaboration de Pierre Citron, Lucien et Janine Miallet et Luce Ricatte (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 1045. Hereafter page numbers cited will refer to this volume. Pierre Citron notes: “Les puits semblent en effet exercer sur Giono une fascination qui est celle du maléfique” (1045).

2. In “Jofroi de la Maussan,” the would-be suicide's solitude is underscored by Antoine's comment, which betrays also the fear of having a corpse at the bottom of the well: “Quand même, s'il l'avait fait, où j'aurais pris l'eau après?” (500).

3. Claude Bouygues, “Colline: Structure et Signification,” The French Review, 47, No. 1, October 1973, 25-34.

4. Weight pervades Amédée's and Albin's appreciation of the natural world. Farmsteads, meadows, grains and fruits, water, and even Albin's harmonica are heavy. Sunlight has weight for Albin, while Amédée sees the wind of the storm that descends from the plateau as “des centaines de kilos de feuilles.” Moreover, even many intangibles like unhappiness, hope, happiness, friendship, memories, and old age are given weight. In contrast, Louis, who weighs less than ninety pounds, is hollow like a bad radish, the skeleton of a skinny cricket, and for whom, when he works, “la gerbe tremblait au bout de sa fourche” (223). Weight, then, is not only a property of natural substances and of full, whole feelings, but is also a measure of their value.

5. Amédée's first meal with the Barbaroux, surrounded by their pain, is also a battle with a bad taste rising: “… je jetais des cuillers de soupe sur une chose amère qui était au fond de ma gorge” (248).

6. This metaphorical development, which distinguishes Amédée and Albin, is carried into their objective representations, where the terrestrial Amédée eats and tells us what he eats, while Albin merely smokes.

7. Images of air, wind, and breath move in the opposite direction toward oneness, culminating in making music, an experience of total coincidence with oneself. “Jouer de l'harmonica c'est changer sa respiration, c'est devenir musique depuis le fond du ventre jusqu'au ras des lèvres” (973).

8. Giono parodies this situation in the story “Sylvie” (Solitude de la Pitié), where the devoted love of a country idiot cannot redeem Sylvie, who, though returned home, still yearns for her city lover.

9. The completeness of Albin's restored self, however, is affirmed in “Présentation de Pan,” where Giono wrote: “… il faudra que je parle aussi de cette bonté qui emplissait l'homme de Baumugnes comme la menthe fleurie emplit un sac” (777). As an odor that fills a sack, “goodness” is metaphorically air, whose fullness is absolute, rather than a liquid, whose depths can be measured and treacherous.

10. “Se ronger les sangs,” “ronger par une gale,” “manger vif par des rats,” “se gâter comme un dent” are the verbal expressions applied to Clarius' inner pain.

11. Indeed, death by drowning seems nearly obsessive with Amédée. It takes him two paragraphs of painstaking precautions to ford the Durance (242). In contrast, because he knows how to swim, Louis is doubly excluded from Giono's human community, unredeemed by weight and unthreatened by water's depth.