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How was I ever able to live in there ?
based on 'Monsieur Seguin's Goat' by Alphonse Daudet
A fable by Stephane Blanquet and Jean Lambert-wild
Suitable for all audiences aged 7 and over
Extracts
Monsieur Seguin's little kid was such a pretty thing!
Such a pretty thing,
with her soft eyes,
her subaltern's beard,
her gleaming black hoofs,
her striped horns,
and her long white hair,
which formed a sort of greatcoat!
She was almost as lovely as Esmerelda's goat,
do you remember?
And then,
so docile, too,
and affectionate,
allowing herself be milked without moving.
A perfect little love of a kid!
Monsieur Seguin had behind his house,
an enclosure, surrounded by hawthorn.
There he placed his new boarder.
He fastened her to a stake,
in the place where the grass was the richest,
taking care to give her a long rope,
and from time to time,
he went to see if she was all right.
The kid was very happy,
and browsed with such zest that Monsieur Seguin
was overjoyed.
Monsieur Seguin was mistaken;
his kid was bored.
One day,
she said to herself looking up at the mountain:
How happy they must be up there!
What pleasure to gambol about in the heather,
without this infernal cord that galls one's neck!
It is all right for the donkey or for the ox,
to graze in an enclosed space,
but goats need plenty of room.
From that moment, the grass in the enclosure
seemed distasteful.
Ennui assailed the kid.
She grew thin, her milk became scanty.
It was painful to see her pulling at her cord
all day long,
her head turned towards the mountain,
her nostrils dilated, and bleating
... sadly.
Monsieur Seguin noticed something was the matter with the kid,
but he did not know what it was...
One morning,
as he finished milking her,
the kid turned her head and said:
"Listen, Monsieur Seguin,
"I am dying in your enclosure,
"let me go to the mountain."
"What, Blanquette, do you want to leave me?
"Haven't you enough grass here?
"Perhaps you are tied too short;
"do you want me to lengthen the rope?
"What is it that you need, then?
"What do you want?
"Why, you wretched creature,
"don't you know that there is a wolf in the mountain?
"What will you do when he comes?"
The white kid, half tipsy,
played about there,
with her legs in the air,
and rolled down the slopes,
with the falling leaves and the chestnuts.
Then, all of a sudden,
she sprang to her feet with one leap.
Away she went,
with her head thrust forward,
through the underbrush and the thickets,
sometimes on a peak,
sometimes in the bottom of a ravine,
up,
and down,
and everywhere.
She crossed with one bound broad torrents
which spattered her as she passed with misty spray and foam.
Then, dripping wet,
she stretched herself out on a flat rock,
and allowed the sun to dry her.
Thereupon the monster came forward,
and the little horns began to play.
How courageously she went at it!
More than ten times I am not lying, she compelled the wolf
to retreat in order to take breath.
During these momentary respites,
the little glutton hastily plucked another blade of her dear grass.
This lasted all night.
From time to time,
Monsieur Seguin's kid
glanced at the stars dancing in the clear sky and said to herself:
"Oh, if only I can hold out until dawn!"
One after another,
the stars went out.
Blanquette fought with redoubled fury with her horns,
the wolf with his teeth.
Adaptation: Sophie Duchenne, Andrew G. White
from George Burnham Ives' translation
Subtitles: Seconda Voce / Quidam production