The Maids of Paradise Part 31

"Thank you, my child."

I turned my horse across the shady square to a stone house banked up with bed on bed of scarlet geraniums. The windows were open; a fat man with very small eyes sat inside eating an omelet.

He watched me dismount without apparent curiosity, and when I had tied my horse and walked in at the open door he looked at me over the rim of a gla.s.s of cider, and slowly finished his draught without blinking.

Then he said, "Bonjour."

I told him that I wanted a license for the circus to camp for one night; that I also desired permission to pitch camp somewhere in the vicinity. He made out the license, stamped it, handed it to me, and I paid him the usual fee.

"I've heard of circuses," he said; "they're like those shows at country fairs, I suppose."

"Yes--in a way. We have animals."

"What kind?"

"Lions, tigers--"

"I've seen them."

"--a camel, an elephant--"

"Alive?"

"Certainly."

"Ma doue!" he said, with slow emotion, "have you a live elephant?"

I admitted that fact.

Presently I said, "I hope the people of Paradise will come to the circus when we get to Lorient."

"Eh? Not they," said the mayor, wagging his head. "Do you think we have any money here in Paradise? And then," he added, cunningly, "we can all see your elephant when your company arrives. Why should we pay to see him again? War does not make millionaires out of the poor."

I looked miserably around. It was quite true that people like these had no money to spend on strolling players. But we had to live somehow, and our animals could not exist on air, even well-salted air.

"How much will it cost to have your town-crier announce the coming of the circus?" I inquired.

"That will cost ten sous if he drums and reads the announcement from here to the chateau."

I gave the mayor ten copper pennies.

"What chateau?" I asked.

"Dame, the chateau, monsieur."

"Oh," said I, "where the Countess lives?"

"The Countess? Yes, of course. Who else?"

"Is the Countess there?"

"Oui, dame, and others not to my taste."

I asked no more questions, but the mayor did, and when he found it might take some time to pump me, he invited me to share his omelet and cider and afterwards to sit in the sun among his geraniums and satisfy his curiosity concerning the life of a strolling player.

I was glad of something to eat. After I had unsaddled my horse and led him to the mayor's stable and had paid for hay and grain, I returned to sit in the mayor's garden and sniff longingly at his tobacco smoke and answer his impertinent questions as good-naturedly as they were intended.

But even the mayor of Paradise grew tired of asking questions in time; the bees droned among the flowers, the low murmur of the sea stole in on our ears, the river softly lapped the quay. The mayor slept.

He was fat, very fat; his short, velvet jacket hung heavy with six rows of enormous silver b.u.t.tons, his little, round hat was tilted over his nose. A silver buckle decorated it in front; behind, two little velvet ribbons fluttered in futile conflict with the rising sea-breeze.

Men in embroidered knee-breeches, with bare feet thrust into straw-filled sabots, sat sunning on the quay under the purple fig-trees; one ragged fellow in soiled velvet bolero and embossed leggings lay in the sun, chin on fists, wooden shoes crossed behind him, watching the water with the eyes of a poacher.

This mild, balmy November weather, this afterglow of summer which in my own country we call Indian summer, had started new blossoms among the climbing tea-roses, lovely orange-tinted blossoms, and some of a clear lemon color, and their fragrance filled the air. Nowhere do roses blow as they blow near the sea, nowhere have I breathed such perfume as I breathed that drowsy afternoon in Paradise, where in every door-yard thickets of clove-scented pinks carpeted the ground and tall spikes of snowy phlox glimmered silver-white in the demi-light.

Where on earth could a more peaceful scene be found than in this sea-lulled land, here in the subdued light under aged, spreading oaks, where moss crept over the pavements and covered the little fountain as though it had been the stony brink of a limpid forest spring?

The mayor woke up toward five o'clock and stared at me with owlish gravity as though daring me to say that he had been asleep.

"Um--ah--ma fois oui!" he muttered, blowing his nose loudly in a purple silk bandanna. Then he shrugged his shoulders and added: "C'est la vie, monsieur. Que voulez-vous?"

And it was one kind of life after all--a blessed release from the fever of that fierce farandole which we of the outer world call "life."

The mayor scratched his ear, yawned, stretched one leg, then the other, and glanced at me.

"Paris still holds out?" he asked, with another yawn.

"Oh yes," I replied.

"And the war--is it still going badly for us?"

"There is always hope," I answered.

"Hope," he grumbled; "oh yes, we know what hope is--we of the coast live on it when there's no bread; but hope never yet filled my belly for me."

"Has the war touched you here in Paradise?" I asked.

"Touched us? Ho! Say it has crushed us and I'll strike palms with you. Why, not a keel has pa.s.sed out of the port since August. Where is the fishing-fleet? Where are the sardine sloops that ought to have sailed from Algiers? Where are the Icelanders?"

"Well, where are they?" I suggested.

"Where? Ask the semaph.o.r.e yonder. Where are our salt schooners for the Welsh coast? I don't know. They have not sailed, that's all I know. You do well to come with your circus and your elephant! You can peddle diamonds in the poor-house, too, if it suits your taste."

"Have the German cruisers frightened all your craft from the sea?" I asked, astonished.

"Yes, partly. Then there's an ugly French cruiser lying off Groix, yonder, and her black stacks are dribbling smoke all day and all night. We have orders to keep off and use Lorient when we want a port."

"Do you know why the cruiser warns your fishing-boats from this coast?" I inquired.