The Jug of Clay

by Jean Aicard

When his father died, Jean inherited a little field close to the sea. Roses and strawberries grew in this field. The pretty girls of the neighbourhood came to Jean's home to buy the fruit and flowers, so similar to their own lips and cheeks. The roses, the lips and the berries all had the same youth, all had the same beauty.

Jean lived happily next to the sea at the bottom of the hills under a tree near his door. Near the tree was a well; the water from it was so cold and clean that the girls, with their cheeks like roses and their lips like berries, came night and morning with their jugs. They carried their jugs, round and slim like themselves, on their heads, holding them with their brown arms.

Jean saw all these things and loved them and was happy with his life. As he was only twenty years old, he fell in love with one of the lovely girls who took water from his well, who ate his strawberries and breathed the perfume of his roses. He told this girl that she was as clean and fresh as the water, as delicious as the strawberries and as sweet as the roses.

Then the young girl smiled. He told her again and she made a face at him. Then, she married a sailor who took her far away across the sea. Jean cried terribly, but he still loved beautiful things and was still happy with his life. Sometimes he thought about how easily beautiful things were broken and good things were lost, but he decided that this only made them more valuable.

One day he learnt by chance that the red earth of his field made excellent clay. He took a little of it in his hand, wet it with water from his well, and made a simple jug as round and slim as the girls who came to his well.

He decided to produce little pots for strawberries. He became skilful at this work and all the gardeners came to him to buy these light pots of a beautiful red colour, round and slim, where they could keep strawberries under a green leaf.

The leaf, the pot, the strawberries, everybody enjoyed their shape and colour; and the buyers in the city market took no berries except those which were sold in Jean's round and slim pots.

Now more than ever, the beautiful girls visited Jean's field. Now they brought baskets to fill with the empty pots, red and fresh. But Jean looked at them differently. His heart was always far away across the sea.

Still, as the hole in his field where he got the clay got bigger, he saw that his pots were differently coloured, sometimes with rose, sometimes with blue or violet, sometimes with black or green. These shades of the clay reminded him of the loveliest things which pleased his eyes: plants, flowers, ocean, sky.

Then he decided to choose different shades of clay. And these colours, produced by centuries of changing lights and shadows, changed in a moment just as he wanted. Each day he made hundreds of these strawberry pots. The creative potter loved the clay.

As he still dreamed of the things which he had most loved, his memories moved his fingers, where they gave to the clay the beauties of life. Jean's simplest works were beautiful. In every line, in every shade, he put some memory of youth or of an opening flower or the colour of the weather and of happiness or sadness.

In the hours when he relaxed, he walked with his eyes on the ground, studying the differences in the colour of the earth on the hills. And he began to want to make a unique jug, a marvellous jug, where all the passing beauties which his eyes saw should live forever; something of the short happiness which his heart had known, and even a little of his hope and love.

He was then a strong man. However, so he could concentrate on his jug he stopped doing all the well-paid work. He no longer worked from morning until night. He let other potters produce strawberry pots by the thousand. The buyers forgot the way to Jean's field.

The young girls still came there because of the cold water, the roses, and the strawberries; but the strawberries eventually died, the roses ran wild, climbed to the tops of the high walls and offered their dirty flowers to travellers on the road. Only the water in the well stayed the same and that was enough for youth and happiness to visit him.

But youth now made jokes about Jean:

"Ah, Mr. Jean! Don't you work anymore? When will we see your amazing jug, which will be as beautiful as the most beautiful things in the world, flowering like the rose, shining like the strawberries and speaking like our lips?"

Now Jean is old. He sits on his seat beside the well in front of his empty field and the good clay which no longer produces strawberries or roses.

Jean used to say: "There are three things: roses, strawberries, lips."

All three have left him.

The lips of the young girls, and even of the children, make jokes about him:

"Ah, Father Jean! Nobody ever sees you eat, Father Jean! Father Jean lives on cold water. The man who grows old becomes a child again! What will you put into your beautiful jug, if you ever make it, old man? It will not even hold any water from your well!"

Jean silently shakes his head and only replies with a kind smile. He is good to animals and he gives his bread to the poor. It is true that he eats almost nothing but he does not get ill. He is very thin but his skin is healthy.

One bright morning, Jean decides to make his jug, the jug which he has long seen in his mind. The potter's wheel turns like the sun. The clay jug rises, falls and is born again under Jean's hand. At last, it comes to life like an unexpected flower. The old man carries it in shaking hands to the oven where fire must add wonderful colour to its beauty.

All night Jean has stayed up and carefully controlled the fire. At dawn the work must be finished. And the potter, old and dying in his empty field, lifts towards the light of the sun the jug in which he finds the dream of his long life. The miracle is complete. The sun lights the round and slim shape, the colours which bring back to the old man the sweetest happiness of his youth and the skies at dawn.

The simple artist lifts his life's work to the sun, the flower of his heart, in his shaking hands. But his hands, too weak, let it fall, just at the moment his body lets his soul escape – and the potter's dream, fallen with him to the ground, breaks into tiny pieces.

Where is that jug now, seen only by the sun and the simple artist? Surely, it must be somewhere, that happy dream, made real for a moment!