THE FÊTE AT KER-ELIANE
It was shortly after Eliane's christening, and to celebrate my
mother's recovery, that my father gave a great entertainment at
Ker-Eliane, near Loch-ar-Brugg.
Loch-ar-Brugg, which means Place of Heather, was an old manor and
property that my father had bought and at that time used as a
hunting-lodge, and Ker-Eliane was a wild, beautiful piece of country
adjoining it, a pleasure resort, called after my mother's name.
To reach Loch-ar-Brugg we all went by the traveling carriage to my
father's native town of Landerneau. I dreaded these journeys, since
inside the carriage I always became sick; but on this occasion I sat
outside near an old servant of my grandmother's called Soisick, the
diminutive of François, and was very happy, since in the open air I
did not suffer at all. Soisick was an old Breton from Brest. He wore
the costume of that part of the country, a tightly fitting, long,
black jacket opening over a waistcoat adorned with white-bone buttons,
full knee-breeches of coarse, white linen girded over the waistcoat
with a red woolen sash, with white woolen stockings, and black shoes.
One still sees very old Bretons wearing this costume, but nowadays the
peasants prefer the vulgar, commonplace dress of modern work-people.
My father was waiting for us on the quay of Landerneau. What joy I
felt when I saw him! When he climbed up beside me and Soisick my
happiness was complete.
[Illustration: "The Château de Ker-Azel near by, where we were to
stay"]
Loch-ar-Brugg at that time was not suitably arranged for our
habitation, and we drove on to the Château de Ker-Azel near by, where
we were to stay with my _tante_ de Laisieu. This elder sister of my
mother's was a fat, untidy, shiftless woman who had once been a
beauty, but whose abundant fair hair was now faded, and who went about
her house and gardens in the mornings _en camisole_. When dressed
for the day her appearance was hardly more decorous, for she wore no
stays, and fastened the slender bodices of her old dresses across her
portly person in a very haphazard fashion, so that intervals of white
underclothing showed between the straining hooks. She was a singular
contrast to my mother, always so freshly perfect in every detail of
her toilet. The château was partly old and partly new and very ugly,
though the park that sloped down to it was fine. Near the château
stood a very old and beautifully carved font that must have belonged
to a church long since destroyed. Later on, in the days of her
descendants, it was kept filled with growing flowers and was a
beautiful object, but my aunt merely used it as a sort of waste-paper
basket for any scraps she picked up in the park. We children used to
conceal ourselves in it in our games of hide-and-seek. I enjoyed
myself among my many cousins, for I was at this time so young and so
naughty that they tended to give way to me in everything. One of them,
however, a singularly selfless and devout boy called France, was fond
of me for myself, and though I never paid much attention to him,
victim rather than play-mate as he usually was in the games of the
others, I was always aware of his gentle, protecting presence, and
happy when his peaceful gaze rested upon me. After long years of
separation and in our great old age we discovered, France and I, that
we had always been dear friends, and in the few years that remained to
us before his recent death we saw each other constantly. But I must
return to the fête.
My mother and my aunt were absorbed in preparations. It was a general
hurly-burly, every one running north, south, east, and west--to
Landerneau, to Morlaix, to Brest, to every place, in short, that could
boast some special delicacy. And at last the great day came, and we
children were up with the lark. There was first to be a luncheon for
the huntsmen, friends of papa's, and the ladies were to follow in
carriages and to enter Ker-Eliane from the highroad. But we preferred
the shorter way, by the deep paths overgrown with hawthorn and
blackberry. The boys rushed along on the tops of the _talus_, the
sort of steep bank that in Brittany takes the place of hedges, and
even with Jeannie to restrain me I was nearly as torn and tattered as
they when we arrived at Ker-Eliane. What a fairy-land it was! Rocks
and streams, heathery hills, and woods full of bracken. An old ruin,
strange and melancholy, with only a few crumbling walls and a portion
of ivy-clothed tower left standing, rose among trees on a little hill
near the entrance, and farther on, surrounded by woods of beech or
pine, were three lakes, lying in a chain one after the other.
Water-lilies grew upon them, and at their brinks a pinkish-purple
flower the name of which I never knew. The third lake was so somber
and mysterious that my father had called it the Styx. An ancient
laurel-tree--in Brittany the laurels become immense trees--had been
uprooted in a thunderstorm and had fallen across the Styx, making a
natural rustic bridge. We children were forbidden to cross on it, but
on this day I remember my adventurous cousin Jules rushing to and fro
from one bank to the other in defiance of authority. At the foot of
the hill, below the ruin, a clear, delicious stream sprang forth from
a stony cleft and wound through a valley and out into the lower
meadows, and at the entrance to the valley, among heather and enormous
mossy rocks, rose a cross of gray stone without Christ or ornaments.
The peasants made pilgrimages to it on Good Friday, but I never
learned its history.
It was among the lower meadows, in a charming, smiling spot planted
with chestnuts, poplars, and copper beeches, that the table for the
thirty huntsmen was laid in the shade of a little avenue. Already
the _crêpe_-makers from Quimper, renowned through all the country,
were laying their fires upon the ground under the trees, and I must
pause here to describe this Breton dish. A carefully compounded
batter, flavored either with vanilla or malaga, was ladled upon a
large flat pan and spread thinly out to its edge with a wooden
implement rather like a paper-cutter. By means of this knife the
_crêpes_, when browned on one side, were turned to the other with a
marvelous dexterity, then lifted from the pan and folded at once into
a square, like a pocket-handkerchief, for, if allowed to cool, they
cracked. They were as fine as paper--six would have made the thickness
of an ordinary pancake, and were served very hot with melted butter
and fresh cream, of which a crystal jar stood before each guest, and
was replenished by the servants as it was emptied.
The _crêpes_ were eaten at the end of the luncheon as a sweet, and
among the other dishes that I remember was the cold salmon,--invariable
on such occasions, salmon abounding in our Breton rivers,--with a
highly spiced local sauce, _filet de boeuf en aspic_, York ham, fowls,
Russian salad, and the usual cakes and fruits. The huntsmen seated at
this feast did not wear the pink coats and top-hats of more formal
occasions, but dark jackets and knee-breeches and the small, round
Breton cap with upturned brim that admitted of a pipe being tucked
into it at one side. And so they carried their pipes, as the peasants
did, and the legitimists among them had a golden fleur-de-lis fixed in
front. The ladies of the party, in summer dresses and wide-brimmed hats,
arrived when the more substantial part of the repast was over, and
their carriages filled the highroad outside the precincts of Ker-Eliane.
A feast was spread at a little distance for the peasants, and wine
flowed all day. After the feasting two famous _biniou_-players took up
their places on the high _talus_ that separated Ker-Eliane from
Loch-ar-Brugg and played the _farandol_, the _jabadao_, and other
country-dances for the peasants to dance to. The _biniou_ is rather
like a small bagpipe and produces a wild, shrill sound. The players
wore a special costume: their caps and their stockings were bright
red; their jackets and waistcoats bright blue, beautifully
embroidered; their full white breeches of coarse linen. Like all the
peasants at that time, they wore their hair long, falling over the
shoulders. It was a charming sight to see the peasants dancing, all in
their local costumes. The women's skirts were of black or red stuff,
with three bands of velvet, their bodices of embroidered velvet, and
they all wore a gold or silver Breton cross, hung on a black velvet
ribbon, round their necks, and a _Saint Esprit_ embroidered in gold on
the front of their bodices. Among the coifs I remember several
beautiful tall hennins. What a day it was! Landerneau talked of it for
years, and I have never forgotten it. We children had our luncheon
sitting on the grass near the big table, and afterward there were
endless games among the heather and bracken. My little sister Eliane
appeared, carried in her pink basket, and seemed to look about her
with great approval.
[Illustration: "A feast was spread at a little distance from the
peasants, and wine flowed all day"]
Later on in the day, when the dancing had begun, we went to look on at
that, and I wanted very much to dance, too; but nobody asked me, for I
was too little. I must by that time have begun to get very tired and
troublesome, for I remember that _maman_ promised me a little
wheelbarrow if I would be good and allowed Jeannie to take me back to
Ker-Azel. I was already sleepy, as I had drunk a quantity of
champagne, with which the servants had replenished my little
liqueur-glass, and I allowed myself at last to be carried away by
Jeannie, and fell asleep in her arms.