A COAST DRIVE.
On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for
us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that
experience was to produce the common result--there was a fine deposit
of discontent in the cup of our pleasure.
Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she
had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to
find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to
understand, with unflattering frankness, that for strangers who made no
bargains for the season, it had little or no civility to squander. For
the Villerville beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. Mere
Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morning till night; even Augustine
was far too hurried to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A
detachment of Parisian costumes and beribboned nursery maids was
crowding out the fish-wives and old hags from their stations on the low
door-steps and the grasses on the cliffs.
Even Fouchet was no longer a familiar figure in the foreground of his
garden; his roses were blooming now for the present owners of his
villa. He and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a hut on the
very outskirts of the village--a miserable little hovel with two rooms
and a bit of pasture land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the
gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, however, would
have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of
habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves
of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in
blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing--on less than
nothing, in this dark pocket of a _chaumière_, while their fine house
yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart
beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold--that is
better than bread to feel in one's hand.
The whole village wore this triumphant expression--now that the season
was beginning. Paris had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its
strength; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket was better, far,
than casting nets into the sea. There was also more contentment in such
fishing--for true Norman wit.
Only once did the village change its look of triumph to one of polite
regret; for though it was Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on
the morning of our departure, that the civility of the farewell costs
nothing, and like bread prodigally scattered on the waters, may
perchance bring back a tenfold recompense.
Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The
low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the
fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half
mourning.
"You will have a perfect day for your drive--there's nothing better
than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our
carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone. And the sea is wonderful.
Pity you're going. Grand day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see
you, I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul; tell him to save me
a bottle of his famous old wine. Good-by, good-by."
There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon us; a great sweep of
the now familiar beret; a sonorous "Hui!" from our driver, with an
accompaniment of vigorous whip-snapping, and we were off.
The grayness of the closely-packed houses was soon exchanged for the
farms lying beneath the elms. With the widening of the distance between
our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon a great expanse of
mouse-colored sky and the breath of a silver sea. The fields and
foliage were softly brilliant; when the light wind stirred the grain,
the poppies and bluets were as vivid as flowers seen in dreams.
It is easy to understand, I think, why French painters are so enamoured
of their gray skies--such a background makes even the commonplace wear
an air of importance. All the tones of the landscape were astonishingly
serious; the features of the coast and the inland country were as
significant as if they were meditating an outbreak into speech. It was
the kind of day that bred reflection; one could put anything one liked
into the picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. We were
putting a certain amount of regret into it; for though Villerville has
seen us depart with civilized indifference or the stolidity of the
barbarian--for they are one, we found our own attainments in the
science of unfeelingness deficient: to look down upon the village from
the next hill top was like facing a lost joy.
Once on the highroad, however, the life along the shore gave us little
time for the futility of regret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing:
like the mule, it is incapable of perpetuating its own mistakes; it
appears to apologize, indeed, for its stupidity by making its exit as
speedily as possible. With the next turn of the road we were in fitting
condition to greet the wildest form of adventure.
Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm wagons were, at first,
our chief companions along the roadway. Here and there a head would
peep forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched out into the air
to see if any rain was falling from the moist sky. The farms were
quieter than usual; there was an air of patient waiting in the
courtyards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as though both man
and beast were there in attendance on the day and the weather, till the
latter could come to the point of a final decision in regard to the
rain.
Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The
grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The
poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the
geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the
downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now--their summer finery
was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave
itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment,
like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines,
only gained in tone and loveliness the closer it fitted the recumbent
figure of mother earth.
Our coachman could never have been mistaken for any other than a good
Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the
country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the
provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment
of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His
vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a French
realist, impassioned in the pursuit of "the word."
"_Hui!--b-r-r-r!_"--This was the most common of his salutations to his
horse. It was the Norman coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible of
imitation; it was also one no Norman horse who respects himself moves
an inch without first hearing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman
ancestry; his Percheron blood was as untainted as his intelligence was
unclouded by having no mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His
owner's "_Hui!_" lifted him with arrowy lightness to the top of a hill.
The deeper "_Bougre_" steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken
trotting. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a cool morning, with a
friend holding the reins who is a gifted monologist; even imprecations,
rightly administered, are only lively punctuations to really talented
speech.
"Come, my beauty, take in thy breath--courage! The hill is before thee!
Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On--up with
thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the
mountain of flesh would be lifted--it was carried as lightly by the
finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois
were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang
their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried
us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the Norman roofed
manoirs buried in their apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now
carefully, dexterously picking their way down the steep hill that leads
directly into the city of the Trouville villas.
Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from sheer amazement. What
was this order, this command the quick Percheron hearing had overheard?
Not to go any farther into this summer city--not to go down to its
sand-beach--not to wander through the labyrinth of its gay little
streets?--Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often! to carry
fools, and the destiny of intelligence to serve those deficient in mind
and sense.
The criticism on our choice of direction was announced by the hoofs
turning resignedly, with the patient assent of the fatigue that is bred
of disgust, into one of the upper Trouville by-streets. Our coachman
contented himself with a commiserating shrug and a prolonged flow of
explanation. Perhaps _ces dames_, being strangers, did not know that
Trouville was now beginning its real season--its season of baths? The
Casino, in truth, was only opened a week since; but we could hear the
band even now playing above the noise of the waves. And behold, the
villas were filling; each day some _grande dame_ came down to take
possession of her house by the sea.
How could we hope to make a Frenchman comprehend an instinctive impulse
to turn our backs on the Trouville world? What, pray, had we just now
to do with fashion--with the purring accents of boudoirs, with all the
life we had run away from? Surely the romance--the charm of our present
experiences would be put to flight once we exchanged salutations with
the _beau monde_--with that world that is so sceptical of any pleasure
save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and so disdainful of all
forms of life save those that are modelled on fashion's types. We had
fled from cities to escape all this; were we, forsooth, to be pushed
into the motley crowd of commonplace pleasure-seekers because of the
scorn of a human creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that was
hired to do the bidding of his betters? The world of fashion was one to
be looked out upon as a part of the general _mise-en-scène_--as a bit
of the universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of the Normandy
beaches.
Chat noir had little reverence for philosophic reflections; he turned a
sharp corner just then; he stopped short, directly in front of the
broad windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he did not appeal in
vain to the strangers with a barbarian's contempt for the great world.
The brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants to appetite to
be respected; it is not every day the palate has so fine an edge.
"_Du thé, mesdames--à l'Anglaise?_" a neatly-corsetted shape, in black,
to set off a pair of dazzling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of
apricot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to one, through the
medium of pink bows, the capacities of coquetry that lay in the depths
of the rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive shape emerged at
once from behind the counter, to set chairs about the little table. We
were bidden to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one that
invested the act with the emphasis of genuine hospitality. Soon a great
clatter arose in the rear of the shop; opinions and counter-opinions
were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, as to whether the water
should or should not come to a boil; also as to whether the leaves of
oolong or of green should be chosen for our beverage. The cap fluttered
in several times to ask, with exquisite politeness--a politeness which
could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety--our own tastes and
preferences. When the cap returned to the battling forces behind the
screen, armed with the authority of our confessed prejudices, a new war
of tongues arose. The fate of nations, trembling on the turn of a
battle, might have been settled before that pot of water, so watched
and guarded over, was brought to a boil. When, finally, the little tea
service was brought in, every detail was perfect in taste and
appointment, except the tea; the action that had held out valiantly,
that the water should not boil, had prevailed, as the half-soaked
tea-leaves floating on top of our full cups triumphantly proclaimed.
We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it _ce boisson
fade et mélancolique_; the novelist's disdain being the better
understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted
by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid,
as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our
merriment deceived the brown eyes and the fluttering cap-ribbons. A
little drama of remorse was soon played for our benefit. It was she,
her very self, the cap protested--as she pointed a tragic finger at the
swelling, rounded line of her firm bodice--it was she who had insisted
that the water should _not_ boil; there had been ladies--_des vraies
anglaises_--here, only last summer, who would not that the water should
boil, when their tea was made. And now, it appears that they were
wrong, "_c'etait probablement une fantaisie de la part de ces dames_."
Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a
little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another,
like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told
her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's view
of the situation.
Another humorist, one accustomed to view the world from heights known
as trapeze elevations, we met a little later on our way out of the
narrow upper streets; he was also looking down over Trouville. It was a
motley figure in a Pierrot garb, with a smaller striped body, both in
the stage pallor of their trade. These were somewhat startling objects
to confront on a Normandy high-road. For clowns, however, taken by
surprise, they were astonishingly civil. They passed their "_bonjour_"
to us and to the coachman as glibly as though accosting us from the
commoner circus distance.
"They have come to taste of the fresh air, they have," laconically
remarked our driver, as his round Norman eyes ran over the muscled
bodies of the two athletes. "I had a brother who was one--I had; he was
a famous one--he was; he broke his neck once, when the net had been
forgotten. They all do it--_ils se cassent le cou tous, tôt ou tard!
Allons toi t'as peur, toi?_" Chat noir's great back was quivering with
fear; he had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spectral and wan
as ghosts, walking about in the sun. He took us as far away as
possible, and as quickly, from these reminders of the thing men call
pleasure.
We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a certain promised chateau, one
famous for its beauty, between Trouville and Cabourg.
"It is here, madame--the château," he said, at last.
Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of noble
trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling. There was a
sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily down the
cliffs toward the sea, a mansard roof that covered a large
mansion--these were the sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees
company. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even
more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our
first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which
would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us
that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions.
We passed between the hedgerows with not even a sigh of regret. We were
presently rewarded by something better than an illusion--by reality,
which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spectral shadow of
itself. Near the château there lived on, the remnant of a hamlet. It
was a hamlet, apparently, that boasted only one farm-house; and the
farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Beneath the sloping roof,
modelled into shape by a pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put
Mansard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat an old couple--a man
and a woman. Both were old, with the rounded backs of the laborer; the
woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, while his free arm was
clasped about her neck with all the tenderness of young love. Both of
the old heads were laid back on the pillow made by the freshly-piled
grasses. They had done a long day's work already, before the sun had
reached its meridian; they were weary and resting here before they went
back to their toil.
This was better than the view; it made life seem finer than nature; how
rich these two poor old things looked, with only their poverty about
them!
Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural _mise-en-scène_; instead
of pink hawthorn hedges we were in the midst of young forest trees. Why
is it that a forest is always a surprise in France? Is it that we have
such a respect for French thrift, that a real forest seems a waste of
timber? There are forests and forests; this one seemed almost a
stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of
Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young
savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony
grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing
to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after a
succession of trills.
In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its wonderful inland
contrasts, there was but one disappointing note. One looked in vain for
the old Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close white cap--this is
all that is left of the wondrous headgear, the short brilliant
petticoats, the embroidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jewels,
abroad in the fields only a decade ago.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a question concerning these
now pre-historic costumes.
"Ah! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, that the peasant who
doesn't despise himself dresses now in the fields as he would in Paris."
As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the fashions, there stepped
forth from an avenue of trees, fringing a near farm-house, a
wedding-party. The bride was in the traditional white of brides; the
little cortege following the trail of her white gown, was dressed in
costumes modelled on Bon Marché styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed
from bonnets more flowery than the fields into which they were passing.
The men seemed choked in their high collars; the agony of new boots was
written on faces not used to concealing such form of torture. Even the
groom was suffering; his bliss was something the gay little bride
hanging on his arm must take entirely for granted. It was enough
greatness for the moment to wear broadcloth and a white vest in the
face of men.
"_Laissez, laissez, Marguerite_, it is clean here; it will look fine on
the green!" cried the bride to an improvised train-bearer, who had been
holding up the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the bridal skirt
trailed across the freshly mown grasses. An irrepressible murmur of
admiration welled up from the wedding guests; even Pierre made part of
the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop his face, and to look forth
proudly, through starting eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions.
"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou knowest. _Faut
l'embrasser, tu sais_."
He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little bride returned the kiss
with unabashed fervor. Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter.
"How silly you look, Jean, with your collar burst open."
The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for his toilet; the noon sun
and the excitements of the marriage service had dealt hardly with his
celluloid fastenings. All the wedding cortege rushed to the rescue.
Pins, shouts of advice, pieces of twine, rubber fastenings, even
knives, were offered to the now exploding bridegroom; everyone was
helping him repair the ravages of his moment of bliss; everyone
excepting the bride. She sat down upon her train and wept from pure
rapture of laughter.
Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped up his steed.
"Jean will repent it; he'll lose worse things than a button, with
Lizette. A woman who laughs like that on the threshold of marriage will
cry before the cradle is rocked, and will make others weep. However,
Jean won't be thinking of that--to-night."
"Where are they going--along the highroad?"
"Only a short distance. They turn in there," and he pointed with his
whip to a near lane; "they go to the farm-house now--for the wedding
dinner. Ah! there'll be some heavy heads to-morrow. For you know, a
Norman peasant only really eats and drinks well twice in his life--when
he marries himself and when his daughter marries. Lizette's father is
rich--the meat and the wines will be good to-night."
Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the excellence of the coming
banquet had disturbed his own digestion.