Why is plus-que-parfait used in this sentence: Après avoir été témoin de la naissance de son poulain, j'avais refusé de les quitter et la fermière m'avait laissé dormir dans l'écurie avec eux.
Doesn't plus-que-parfait suggest that the actions had occurred before something else? Because we're talking about something that happened after the birth, shouldn't it just be passe compose?
Bonjour Ash,
In this exercise, the main character, Jean-Luc, reflects on a key moment of his past, a key moment that occurred a long time ago / during quite a distant past / earlier stage in his life. Therefore Le Plus-que-Parfait is used correctly here. Whilst Le Passé Composé doesn’t reflect on such a distant past. It is much closer to your present timeline.
Knowing this, Le Plus-que-Parfait shows a distant past action that was preceded immediately by another distant past action.
Distant past actions [= "refusé de les quitter" + "laissé dormir"] is preceded immediately by another distant past action [= "témoin de la naissance"]
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée!
I think the PQP has to be anterior to some other action in the simple past, but maybe it's in a previous sentence. I haven't done this exercise myself, so I can't tell, but perhaps "the day that sealed my vocation for good"? The English version also uses the pluperfect just after this: "when I'd helped". It would sound odd in English to continue using the pluperfect, but French is stricter about the sequence of tenses.
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