AURAY
When we arrived in Auray it was market-day, and chatter filled the
streets. There were avenues of women ranged along the pavement, their
round wicker baskets full of lettuce, cabbages, carrots, turnips,
chestnuts, pears, and what not--women in white flimsy caps, coloured
cross-over shawls, and sombre black dresses. Their aprons were of many
colours--reds, mauves, blues, maroons, and greens--and the wares also
were of various hues. All the women knit between the intervals of
selling, and even during the discussion of a bargain, for a purchase
in Brittany is no small matter in the opinion of housewives, and
engenders a great deal of conversation. All the feminine world of
Auray seemed to have sallied forth that morning. Processions of them
passed down the avenue of market women, most of them peasants in the
cap of Auray, with snuff-coloured, large-bibbed aprons, carrying bulky
black baskets with double handles.
Now and then one saw a Frenchwoman walking through the avenue of
vegetables, just as good at bargaining, just as keen-eyed and
sharp-tongued, as her humbler sisters. Sometimes she was pretty,
walking with an easy swinging gait, her baby on one arm, her basket on
the other, in a short trim skirt and altogether neatly dressed. More
often she was dressed in unbecoming colours, her hair untidily
arranged, her skirt trailing in the mud--a striking contrast to the
well-to-do young Breton matron, with neatly braided black hair and
clean rosy face, her white-winged lawn cap floating in the breeze, her
red shawl neatly crossed over her lace-trimmed corsage. In her black
velvet-braided skirt and wooden sabots the Breton is a dainty little
figure, her only lapse into frivolity consisting of a gold chain at
her neck and gold earrings.
Vegetables do not engender much conversation in a Breton market: they
are served out and paid for very calmly. It is over the skeins of
coloured wool, silks, and laces, that there is much bargaining. Round
these stalls you will see girls and old hags face to face, and almost
nose to nose, their arms crossed, speaking rapidly in shrill voices.
[Illustration: MID-DAY]
Just after walking past rows of very ordinary houses, suddenly you
will come across a really fine old mansion, dating from the
seventeenth century, white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables,
and diamond panes. Then, just as you think that you have exhausted the
resources of the town, and turn down a moss-grown alley homewards, you
find yourself face to face with another town, typically Breton,
white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering round a church and surrounded
by old moss-grown walls. This little town is situated far down in a
valley, into which you descend by a sloping green path. We sat on a
stone bench above, and watched the people as they passed before us.
There were bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores and
red berés, hurrying home to _déjeuner_, swinging their satchels; and
beggars, ragged and dirty, holding towards us tin cups and greasy
caps, with many groans and whines. One man held a baby on his arm, and
in the other hand a loaf of bread. The baby's face was dirty and
covered with sores; but its hair was golden and curly, and the sight
of that fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder as they
went down the hill made one's heart ache. It was terrible to think
that an innocent child could be so put out of touch with decent
humanity.
To reach this little town one had to cross a sluggish river by a
pretty gray stone bridge. Some of the houses were quaint and
picturesque, mostly with two stories, one projecting over the other,
and low windows with broad sills, bricked down to the ground, on which
were arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white geraniums, and
red-brown begonias. Nearly every house had its broad stone stoop, or
settle, on which the various families sat in the warm afternoon
drinking bowls of soup and eating _tartines de beurre_.
It is a notably provincial little town, full of flowers and green
trees, and dark, narrow streets, across which hang audaciously strings
of drying linen. All the children of the community appeared to be out
and about--some skipping, others playing at peg-tops, and others
merely sucking their fingers and their pinafores in the way that
children have. One sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair plaited
into four little tails tied with red ribbon, clasped a slice of
bread-and-butter (butter side inwards, of course) to her chest, and
was carelessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the same time, in
such a way as to make my heart leap.
A happy wedding-party were swinging gaily along the quay arm in arm,
singing some rollicking Breton chanson, and all rather affected by
their visits to the various _débits de boissons_. There were two men
and two women--the men fair and bearded, wearing peaked caps; the
women in their best lace coifs and smartest aprons. As they passed
everyone turned and pointed and laughed. It was probably a three days'
wedding.
A mite of a girl walking gingerly along the street carried a bottle of
ink ever so carefully, biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it
steadily. Round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a gorgeous silver
cross, testifying to good behaviour during the week. Alack! a tragedy
was in store. The steps leading to the doorway of her home were steep,
and the small person's legs were short and fat. She tripped and fell,
and the ink was spilled--a large, indelible, angry black spot on the
clean white step. Fearfully and pale-faced, the little maid looked
anxiously about her, and strove to put the ink back again by means of
a dry stick, staining fingers and pinafore the more. It was of no
avail. Her mother had seen her. Out she rushed, a pleasant-faced woman
in a white lace cap, now wearing a ferocious expression.
'Monster that thou art!' she cried, lifting the tearful,
ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and throwing her roughly
indoors, whence piteous sounds of sobbing and wailing ensued.
The child's heart was broken; the silver cross had lost its charm; and
the sun had left the heavens. The mother, busily bending over her
sewing-machine, looked up at us through the window, and smiled
understandingly.
[Illustration: A LITTLE MOTHER]