Translation:The High Mountains/63
Suddenly Kaloyannis cried out:
“Boys! It's Lambros!”
They turned and saw on the hillside down below the black herd that was grazing while moving forward. Lambros had stayed at the back and was leading them by whistling.
He whistled so well! You would have thought you'd heard a joyful skylark.
The goats listened to his whistling and, as they understood that he said to go ahead, they went on satisfied.
—They're old Athanase's, the children told the Chief Engineer.
—How many are there? Perhaps you know? asked the Chief Engineer.
—Lambros, who herds them, says there are about two hundred.
—What? Old Athanase with his thousands of sheep only has two hundred goats? Doesn't that seem strange to you? He has his reasons, old Athanase! He's heard about the villager's dream.
—What's this villager's dream? asked the children.
“There was a villager, began the Engineer, who had a goat. He took it to the forest and it grazed. One day as he was milking it, what did he see? Instead of milk, it was giving water. The water filled the bowl, flooded the place and flowed headlong down into the fields.
“Oh in the name of God, said the villager when he was drowning.
“Why did he see all that in a dream!
“When he woke up, he went to see two centenarian villagers to have his dream explained.
“One of the old men told him that the water should have been milk. The other told him that he would have to go to court.
The old men have really aged, he said to himself, I'm going to go to see the cantor, he's more widely read.
He went to the cantor on the left and recounted his dream to him. The cantor put on his glasses, took a big book off the shelf, and after having shaken off the dust, he opened it and read out loud:
“GOAT. If, in a dream it is a goat that is seen, and if it should perchance be of a black colour, with coiled horns, then this could well signify that the person who has been visited by this dream might soon be in receipt of a letter, registered no less, from close family members residing in a far-off land, namely, America.
“Such was the goat, however the villager had no family in America.
—WATER. If the water that appears is flowing freely from a fountain and this afore-mentioned water brings forth a sonorous sound in the pitcher, then surely the dreamer will be involved in a altercation. In the case where this water runs from a groove...
—From a goat! cried the villager. What does the book say when the water runs from a goat?
—The worthy book appears to reveal nothing at all upon this particular dream apparition, replied the cantor, although it is the compendium of a thousand years of dreams, written by the wise men of this world.
“When he saw that even the book failed to explain his dream, it seemed to the villager that a great misfortune was going to come his way.
“Friend! another villager said to him, why are you trying to confuse matters. The thing is clear. The goat eats vegetation? Vegetation holds the ground and the stones on the hillside. If the greenery is eaten, the rains carry away the soil and the stones up to the torrent. The torrent swells, rushes down into the plain and devastates it. If the vegetation is at its place, nothing of the sort will happen. That's why your goat causes a flood. Your dream was right.
—It was exactly right this poor man's dream! After fire and the axe, the goat is the greatest enemy of the forest.
—Really? asked the children.
—You like the goats, said the Engineer. And who wouldn't like such a charming animal! However he's so active that he destroys the plants.
“He goes around the branches and always chooses the tip. He lowers the branches to eat the bud. When that isn't enough, he climbs up the trees.
“His way of looking for the tender tips leads to catastrophe for the trees. Because it's the point where the bud is, the bud that will give the seed. When the goat cuts it, the branch can't grow higher.
“If a herd of goats had grazed here at the time when these trees were small, we wouldn't now have anywhere to sit. The forest would be just brush.
—And if the sheep came? asked Costakis.
—The sheep also cause damage. Because when passing through the forest they trample the young trees which have hardly grown.
“That's why one should never bring the herds near the forest, but let them graze in the plains, like old Athanase who really loves the forests. Never has one of his goats eaten a branch.
—Lambros watches over them, thought the children.
—All these years, and he has never been in court. If all the breeders could be like him! How he protects the trees, old Athanase! If you see a goat in a dream which gives water, you know that it's not one of his. His only give milk.