The Car That Went Abroad Part 12

FOOTNOTES:

[13] "_La Diligence de Baucoire_" in _Lettre de Mon Moulin_, Alphonse Daudet.

Chapter VIII

THE ROAD TO PONT DU GARD

It is a wide, white road, bordered by the rich fields of May and the unbelievable poppies of France. Oh, especially the poppies! I have not spoken of them before, I think. They had begun to show about as soon as we started south--a few here and there at first, splashes of blood amid the green, and sometimes mingling a little with the deep tones of the crimson clover, with curious color effect. They became presently more plentiful. There were fields where the scarlet and the vivid green of May were fighting for the mastery, and then came fields where the scarlet conquered, was supreme, and stretched away, a glowing, radiant sheen of such splendid color as one can hardly believe, even for the moment that he turns away. It was scarlet silk unrolled in the sun. It was a tide of blood. It was as if all the world at war had made this their battlefield. And it did not grow old to us. When we had seen a hundred of those fields they still fascinated us; we still exclaimed over them and could not tear our eyes away.

We pa.s.sed wagonloads of cherries now. In fact, we did not pa.s.s loads of anything else. Cherry harvest was at its height. Everybody was carrying baskets, or picking, or hauling to market. We stopped and asked an old man drowsing on a load to sell us some. He gave us about a half a peck for eight cents and kept piling on until I had to stop him. Then he picked up a specially tied bunch of selected ones, very handsome, and laid them on top and pointed at Narcissa--"For the demoiselle." We thanked him and waved back to him, but he had settled down into his seat and was probably asleep again. All drivers sleep in the Provence. They are children of the south and the sun soothes them. They give their horses the rein and only waken to turn out when you blow or shout very loudly. You need an especially strong Klaxonette in the Provence.

Baedeker says: "The Pont du Gard is one of the grandest Roman structures in existence." I am glad Baedeker said that, for with my limited knowledge I should have been afraid to do it, but I should always have thought so. A long time ago I visited the Natural Bridge of Virginia. I had been disappointed in natural wonders, and I expected no great things of the Natural Bridge. I scaled my imagination down by degrees as I followed a path to the viewpoint, until I was prepared to face a reality not so many times bigger than the picture which my school geography had made familiar. Then all at once I turned a corner and stood speechless and stupefied. Far up against the blue a majestic span of stone stretched between two mighty cliffs. I have seen the Grand Canon since, and Niagara Falls, but nothing ever quite overwhelmed me as did that stupendous Virginia stone arch--nothing until we rounded a bend in the road and stopped facing the Pont du Gard. Those two are of the same cla.s.s--bridges supreme--the one of nature, the other of art. Neither, I think, was intended as a bridge originally. The Romans intended these three colossal tiers of columns, one above the other, merely as supports for the aqueduct at the top, which conducted water to Nimes. I do not know what the Almighty intended his for--possibly for decoration. To-day both are used as bridges--both are very beautiful, and about equally eternal, I should think, for the Roman builders came nearer to the enduring methods of the Original Builder than any other architects save, possibly, the Egyptians. They did not build walls of odds and ends of stone with mortar plastered between; they did not face their building stones to look pretty outside and fill in behind with chips and mortar, mostly mortar. They took the biggest blocks of stone they could find, squared them, faced them perfectly on all sides, and laid them one on top of the other in such height and in such thickness as they deemed necessary for a lasting job. Work like that does not take an account of time. The mortar did not crumble from between them with the centuries.

There was none to crumble. The perfectly level, perfectly matched stones required no cementing or plaster patching. You cannot to-day insert a thin knife blade between these matched stones.

The Pont du Gard is yellow in tone and the long span against the blue sky is startlingly effective. A fine clear stream flows under it, the banks are wild with rock and shrub, the lower arches frame landscape bits near or more distant. I don't know why I am trying to describe it-- I feel that I am dwarfing it, somehow--making it commonplace. It is so immense--so overwhelming to gaze upon. Henry James discovered in it a "certain stupidity, a vague brutality." I judge it seemed too positive, too absolute, too literal and everlasting for the author of the _Golden Bowl_. He adds, however, that "it would be a great injustice not to insist upon its beauty." One must be careful not to do injustice to the Pont du Gard.

We made our luncheon camp a little way from the clear stream, and brought water from it and cooked eggs and made coffee (but we carry bottled water for that), and loafed in the May sun and shade, and looked at that unique world-wonder for an hour or more. The Joy discovered a fine school of fish in the stream--trout, maybe.

A hundred years ago and more the lower arches of the Pont du Gard were widened to make a bridge, and when at last we were packed and loaded again we drove across this bridge for the nearer view. It was quite impossible to believe in the age of the structure--its preservation was so perfect. We drove to the other end and, turning, drove slowly back.

Then lingeringly we left that supreme relic in the loneliness where, somehow, it seemed to belong, and followed the broad white road to Nimes. There is a Roman arena at Nimes, and a temple and baths--the Romans built many such things; but I think they could have built only one Pont du Gard.

Chapter IX

THE LUXURY OF NiMES

When the Romans captured a place and established themselves in it they generally built, first an Arch of Triumph in celebration of their victory; then an arena and a theater for pleasure; finally a temple for worship. Sometimes, when they really favored the place and made it a resort, they constructed baths. I do not find that they built an Arch of Triumph at Nimes, but they built an arena, baths, and a temple, for they still stand. The temple is the smallest. It is called the "Maison Carree," and it is much like the temple we saw at Vienne that day in the rain, but in a finer state of preservation. Indeed, it is said to be one of the best preserved Roman temples in existence. It is graceful and exquisite, and must have suited Henry James, who did not care for Roman arenas because they are not graceful and exquisite, as if anything built for arena purposes would be likely to be anything less than solid and everlasting. We did not go into the Maison Carree. It is a museum now, and the fact that it has also been used as a warehouse and stable somehow discouraged us. It would be too much done over. But the outside was fascinating.

We thought the garden of the Roman baths and fountain would be well to see in the evening. We drove along the quay by the side of the walled river which flows down the middle of the street, and came to the gates of the garden and, leaving the car, entered.

At first it seemed quite impossible to believe that a modern city of no great size or importance should have anything so beautiful as this garden, or, having it, should preserve it in such serene beauty and harmony. But then one remembered that this was France, and of France it was the Provence and not really a part of the sordid, scrambling world at all.

It is a garden of terraces and of waterways and of dim, lucent pools to which stairways descend, and of cypresses, graying statuary, and marble bridges and fluted bal.u.s.trades; and the water is green and mysterious, and there is a background of dark, wooded hills, with deep recesses and lost paths. We climbed part way up the hillside and found a place where we could look out on the scene below. In the fading light it seemed a place of enchantment.

It is not easy to tell what part of this garden the Romans built and what was added from time to time during the centuries. It seems to have been liberally reconstructed a hundred or so years ago, and the statuary is none of it of the Roman period. But if there was ever any incongruity the blurring hand of time has left it invisible to our unpracticed eyes.

We lingered in this magic garden, and spoke softly of the generations that for nineteen centuries have found their recreation there, and we turned often for a last look, reluctant to leave something that seemed likely to vanish the moment one turned away.

Our hotel was on the square in which stands the arena, so that it was but a step away at any time. We paid it one thorough visit, and sat in the seats, and scaled the upper heights, and looked down on the spot where tragedy and horror had been employed as means of pleasure for a good portion of the world's history. I am sorry the Provence is still rather cruel minded, though I believe they do not always kill the bull now in the Sunday-afternoon fights. It is only a few times in each season that they have a fight to the death. They had one the Sunday before our arrival, according to the bills still posted at the entrance.

In the regular Sunday games anyone has the privilege of s.n.a.t.c.hing a bow of red ribbon from the bull's forehead. I had a fever to try it, but, this being only Tuesday, it did not seem worth while to wait.

On the whole I think we did not find the arena at Nimes as interesting as the one at Arles, perhaps because we had seen Arles first. It is somewhat smaller than the Arles circus, and possibly not so well preserved, but it is of majestic proportions, and the huge layers of stone, laid without cement in the Roman fashion, have never moved except where Vandal and Saracen and the building bishops have laid despoiling hands.

Not all the interest of Nimes is ancient; Alphonse Daudet was born in Nimes, and the city has set up a statue and named a street in his honor.

Daudet's birthplace is not on the street that bears his name, but on the Boulevard Gambetta, one of the wide thoroughfares. Daudet's house is a part of the Bourse du Commerce now, and I do not think it was ever the "_habitation commode, tout ombragee de plantanes_" of which he writes so fondly in Le Pet.i.t Chose--the book which we have been told is, in part, at least, his own history. There is nothing now to indicate that it was ever the birthplace of anyone, except the plaque at the door, and as we sat reading this we realized that by a coincidence we had come at a fortunate time. The plaque said, "Born May 13, 1840." Now, seventy-four years later, the date was the same. It was the poet's birthday!

Chapter X

THROUGH THE CeVENNES

The drowsy Provence, with its vineyard slopes and poppied fields, warm lighted and still, is akin to Paradise. But the same Provence, on a windy day, with the chalk dust of its white roads enveloping one in opaque blinding clouds, suggests Sherman's definition of war. We got a taste of this aspect leaving Nimes on our way north. The roads were about perfect, hard and smooth, but they were white with dust, and the wind did blow. I have forgotten whether it was the mistral or the tramontane, and I do not think it matters. It was just wind--such wind as I used to meet a long time ago in Kansas.

Our first town was Alais, but when we inquired about Alai, according to the French rule of p.r.o.nunciation, they corrected us and said Alais--sounding the s. That is Provencal, I take it, or an exception to the rule. Alais itself was of no importance, but along the way there were villages perched on hilltops, with castles crowning the high central points, all as picturesque and mediaeval as anything well could be. We were always tempted to go up to them, but the climb was likely to be steep; then those villages seen from the inside might not be as poetry-picturelike as when viewed from below, looking up an orchard slope to their weathered balconies and vine-hung walls.

We were in the Cevennes about as soon as we had pa.s.sed Alais. The Cevennes are mountains--not mere hills, but towering heights, with roads that wind and writhe up them in a multiplicity of convolutions, though always on perfect grade, always beautiful, bringing to view deep vistas and wide expanses at every turn.

There was little wind now--the hills took care of that--and we were warm and comfortable and happy in this fair, lonely land. There were few habitations of any kind; no automobiles; seldom even a cart. Water was scarce, too; it was hard to find a place to replenish our bottles. But we came at last to a cabin in the woods--a sort of wayside cafe it proved--where a woman sold us half a liter of red wine for about five cents, and supplied us with spring water free. A little farther along, where the road widened a bit, we halted for luncheon. On one side a steep ascent, wooded, on the other a rather abrupt slope, gra.s.s-covered and shady with inters.p.a.ced trees. By and by we noticed that all the trees were of one variety--chestnut. It was, in fact, a chestnut orchard, and proclaimed the industry of this remote land. We saw many such during the afternoon; probably the district is populous enough during the chestnut harvest.

Through the long afternoon we went winding upward among those unpeopled hills, meeting almost nothing in the way of human life, pa.s.sing through but one village, Grenolhac, too small even to be set down in the road book. In fact, the first place mentioned beyond Alais was Villefort, with a small population and one inn, a hostelry indicated in the book merely by a little winegla.s.s, and not by one of the tiny houses which, in their varied sizes, picture the recommended hotels and the relative importance thereof. There was no mention of rooms in connection with the Cafe Marius Balme; the outlook for accommodation overnight was not very cheerful.

It was chilly, too, for evening was closing in and we were well up in the air. The prospect of camping by the roadside, or even of sitting up in a cafe until morning, did not attract a person of my years, though Narcissa and the Joy declared that to build a camp fire and roll up in the steamer rugs would be "lovely." As there were only three rugs, I could see that somebody was going to be overlooked in the arrangement; besides, a night in the mountains in May, let it begin ever so gayly, is pretty sure to develop doubtful features before morning. I have done some camping in my time, and I have never been able to get together enough steamer rugs to produce a really satisfactory warmth at, say, three or four o'clock in the morning, when the frost is embroidering the bushes and the stars have a glitter that drills into your very marrow.

Langogne, the first town marked with a hotel, was at least thirty-five miles farther along, and I could tell by the crinkly look of the road as it appeared on our map that it was no night excursion. Presently we descended into a sort of gorge, and there was Villefort, an isolated, ancient little hamlet forgotten among the Cevennes hilltops. We came to an open s.p.a.ce and there, sure enough, was the Cafe Balme, and by the side of it, happy vision, another little building with the sign "Hotel Balme."

It was balm indeed. To my faithful inquiry, "_Vous avez des chambres?_"

Yes, they had chambers--they were across the open square, over the garage--that is to say, the stable--if the monsieur and his party would accept them.

"_Oui, certainement!_"

They were not luxurious--they were just bare boxes, but they were clean, with comfortable beds, and, dear me! how inviting on this particularly chilly evening, when one has put in most of the day climbing narrow, circuitous mountain roads--one-sided--that is to say, one side a wall, the other falling off into unknown s.p.a.ce.

They were very quiet rooms, for we had the place to ourselves. The car would sleep just under us, and we had a feeling of being nomads, the kind that put up in barns and empty buildings. A better place could hardly have made us happier, and a better dinner than we had could not be produced anywhere. There was soup--French soup; hot fried trout, taken that day from the mountain streams; then there was omelet of the freshest eggs, served so hot that one must wait for it to cool; also a dish of veal of the same temperature and of such tenderness that you could cut it with a fork; and there was steak which we scarcely touched, and a salad, and fruit and cakes and camembert cheese, with unlimited wine throughout. How could they give a dinner like that, and a good bed, and coffee and rolls with jam next morning, all for four francs--that is, eighty cents, each? I will tell you: they did their own cooking, and were lost so far in the mountains that they had not yet heard of the "high cost of living." And if I have not mentioned it before, I wish to say here that all the red road-book hotels are good, however small or humble they appear. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that _all French_ hotels are good--at least that they have good food and beds. With the French, to have good beds and good food is a religion.

You notice I do not mention the coffee. That is because it is not real coffee. It is-- I don't quite know what it is. In the large hotels it merely looks like coffee. In these small inns it looks like a dark, ominous soup and tastes like that as much as anything. Also, it is not served in cups, but bowls, porridge bowls, with spoons to match, and the natives break chunks of bread in it and thus entirely carry out the soup idea. This is the French conception of coffee in the remoter districts, but the bread and jam or honey that go with it are generally good and plentiful, and I suppose the fearful drink itself must be wholesome. One hears a good deal in America of delicious French coffee, but the only place to get it is in America, in New Orleans, say, or New York. I have never found any really good coffee even in Paris.

I think not many travelers visit the Cevennes. The road across the mountains from Nimes toward Paris seemed totally untraversed, at least so far as tourists are concerned. No English is spoken anywhere--not a word. This was France--not the France that is Paris, which is not France at all any more than New York City is America, but the France which is a blending of race and environment--of soil and sky and human struggle into a unified whole that is not much concerned with the world at large, and from generation to generation does not greatly change.

One may suppose, for instance, that the market at Villefort, which we saw next morning, was very much what it was a hundred years ago--that the same st.u.r.dy women in black dresses and curious hats had carried the same little bleating kids, one under each arm--that trout and strawberries and cheese and cherries and all the products of that mountain district were offered there, around the old stone fountain, in the same baskets under the shadow of the same walls, with so little difference in the general aspect that a photograph, if one could have been taken then, might be placed beside the ones we made and show no difference in the fashion of things at all.

We bought some of the strawberries, great delicious dewy ones, and Narcissa and the Joy wanted to buy one or even a dozen of the poor little kids, offering to hold them in their laps constantly. But I knew that presently I should be holding one or more of those kids in my own lap and I was afraid I could not do that and drive with safety. I said that some day when we had time we would build a wooden cage on wheels to put behind the car and gradually collect a menagerie, but that I was afraid we didn't have time just now. We must be getting on.

Our landlady was a good soul. She invited us into the kitchen, neat, trim, and shining, and showed us some trout caught that morning, and offered to give us a mess to take along. The entire force of the hotel a.s.sembled to see us go. It consisted of herself and her daughter, our waitress of the night before. Our bill was sixteen francs. The old life--the simple life--of France had not yet departed from Villefort.

Chapter XI

INTO THE AUVERGNE