(Abridged from L'homme qui plantait des arbres by Jean Giono.

MIXED TENSES + WORD FORMATION

About forty years ago I ________________ (1 TAKE) a long trip on foot over mountain ________________ (2 HIGH) quite unknown to tourists in the south of France. It was barren and ________________ (3 COLOUR) land. Nothing grew there but wild lavender. After three days' walking I found myself in the midst of _________________ (4 DESOLATE) with roofless houses in ruins where all life ________________ (5 VANISH). After five days' of walking I ______________________ (6 STILL NOT FIND) water. All about me was the same ________________ (7 DRY) and some coarse grasses. I glimpsed in the ________________ (8 DISTANT) a small black silhouette and started toward it. It was a shepherd. Thirty sheep ________________ (9 LIE) abot him on the baking earth. He shared his soup with me and I _______________ (10 SPEND) the night there; the nearest village was more than a day and a half away. The shepherd went to fetch a small sack and poured a heap of acorns on the table. He ______________ (11 BEGIN) to inspect them, _________________ (12 SEPARATE) the good from the bad. When he _________________ (13 SET) apart a large enough pile of good acorns and selected one hundred perfect ones he stopped and went to bed. There was peace in ______________ (14 BE) with this man. The next day I asked if I might rest here for a day. He found it quite ________________ (15 NATURE). Before leaving he plunged the selected acorns into a pail of water. I noticed that he carried for a stick an iron rod as thick as my thumb and about a yard and a half long. He left his flock with the dog and climbed to the top of the ridge. There he began thrusting his rod into the earth, making a hole in which he planted an acorn. He _______________ (16 PLANT) oak trees. I asked him if the land belonged to him. He answered no... He planted his hundred acorns with the greatest care. After the midday meal he resumed his planting. I suppose I must ________________ (17 BE) fairly insistent, for he answered me. For three years he _________________ (18 PLANT) trees in this ________________ (19 WILD). He ________________ (20 PLANT) one hundred thousand, twenty thousand expected to lose half .... There remained ten thousand oak trees ________________ (21 GROW) where nothing _________________ (22 GROW) before. I began to wonder about the age of this man. Fifty-five he told me. His name was Elzeard Bouffier. He ___________________ (23 ONCE HAVE) a farm. He __________________ (24 LOSE) his only son, then his wife. He __________________ (25 WITHDRAW) into this ___________________ (26 SOLITARY) where his __________________ (27 PLEASE) was to live leisurely with his lambs and his dog. I told him that in thirty years his ten thousand oaks _________________ (28 BE) magnificent. He answered quite __________________ (28 SIMPLE) that if God granted him life, in thirty years he ___________________ (29 PLANT) so many more that these ten thousand would be like a drop of water in the ocean. The next day we parted.
(After World War One the author returns to the south to see the old man.)

I had seen too many men die during those five years not to imagine easily that Elzeard Bouffier was dead, _________________ (30 SPECIAL) since, at twenty, one regards men of fifty as old men with nothing left to do but die. He was not dead. Now he had only four sheep but, instead, a hundred beehives. He had got rid of the sheep because they threatened his young trees. For, he told me, the war __________________ (31 DISTURB) him not at all. He _______________________________________ (32 IMPERTURBABLY CONTINUE) to plant. The oaks of 1910 were ten years old and taller than either of us. It was an _________________ (33 IMPRESS) spectacle. I was literally ________________ (34 SPEECH) and, as he did not talk, we spent the whole day walking in __________________ (54 SILENT) through his forest. It measured 11km in ______________ (36 LONG) and 3km in its greatest ________________ (37 WIDE). When you remembered that all this had sprung from the hands and the soul of this one man, you understand that men could be as effectual as God in other realms than that of ________________ (38 DESTROY).

(Life had slowly floated into the abandoned village, once dried brook reappeared, . there were meadows, gardens, flowers, After World War Two, in June 1945, the author saw Elzeard Bouffier, who was then eighty-seven, for the last time.)

The bus put me down at Vergons. In 1913 this hamlet had three _________________ (39 INHABIT). All about them nettles were feeding upon the __________________ (40 REMAIN) of abandoned houses. Everything was changed. ..a gentle breeze ________________ (41 BLOW), laden with scents. A sound like water came from the mountains: it was the wind in the forest. Most amazing of all, I heard the actual sound of water A fountain _________________ (42 BUILD) and someone had planted a linden beside it. Hope had returned. It was now a village where one would like to live. When I reflect that one man was able to cause this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland, I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is _________________ (43 ADMIRE). Elzeard Bouffier died ______________ (44 PEACE) in 1947.

JuFa

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