We glided swiftly into the forest as into a tunnel. But after a while
could be seen a silvered lane of stars overhead, a ceiling to the
invisible double wall of trees. There were these stars, the rush of
tonic wind in our faces, and the glare of the low-hung lanterns on the
road that raced to meet us. The car swerved twice in its flight, the
second time violently. We understood that there had been danger. As the
engine stopped, a great cross loomed up above us, intercepting certain
rays; it stood in the middle of the road, which, dividing, enveloped
its base, as the current of a river strokes an island. The doctor leaned
over from the driving-seat and peered behind. In avoiding the cross he
had mistaken for part of the macadam an expanse of dust which rain and
wind had caked; and on this treachery the wheels had skidded. “Ça aurait
pu être une sale histoire!” he said briefly and drily. In the pause we
pictured ourselves flung against the cross, dead or dying. I noticed
that other roads joined ours at the cross, and that a large grassy
space, circular, separated us from the trees. As soon as we had
recovered a little from the disconcerting glimpse of the next world,
the doctor got down and restarted the engine, and our road began to race
forward to us again, under the narrow ceiling of stars. After monotonous
miles, during which I pondered upon eternity, nature, the meaning of
life, the precariousness of my earthly situation, and the incipient
hole in my boot-sole--all the common night-thoughts--we passed by a
high obelisk (the primitive phallic symbol succeeding to the other),
and turning to the right, followed an obscure gas-lit street of
walls relieved by sculptured porticoes. Then came the vast and sombre
courtyard of a vague palace, screened from us by a grille; we overtook
a tram-car, a long, glazed box of electric light; and then we were
suddenly in a bright and living town. We descended upon the terrace of
a calm _café_, in front of which were ranged twin red-blossomed trees in
green tubs, and a waiter in a large white apron and a tiny black jacket.
[Illustration: 0279]
*****
The lights of the town lit the earth to an elevation of about fifteen
feet; above that was the primeval and mysterious darkness, hiding even
the housetops. Within the planes of radiance people moved to and fro,
appearing and disappearing on their secret errands; and glittering
tramcars continually threaded the Square, attended by blue sparks. A
monumental bull occupied a pedestal in the centre of the Square; parts
of its body were lustrous, others intensely black, according to the
incidence of the lights. My friends said it was the bull of Rosa
Bonheur, the Amazon. Pointing to a dark void beyond the flanks of the
bull, they said, too, that the palace was there, and spoke of the
Council-Chamber of Napoleon, the cradle of the King of Rome, the boudoir
of Marie Antoinette. I had to summon my faith in order to realise that I
was in Fontainebleau, which hitherto had been to me chiefly a romantic
name. In the deep and half-fearful pleasure of realisation---“This also
has happened to me!”--I was aware of the thrill which has shaken me on
many similar occasions, each however unique: as when I first stepped on
a foreign shore; when I first saw the Alps, the Pyrenees; when I first
strolled on the grand boulevards; when I first staked a coin at Monte
Carlo; when I walked over the French frontier and read on a thing like a
mile-post the sacred name “Italia”; and, most marvellous, when I stood
alone in the Sahara and saw the vermilions and ochres of the Aurès
Mountains. This thrill, ever returning, is the reward of a perfect
ingenuousness.
[Illustration: 0287]
*****
I was shown a map, and as I studied it, the strangeness of the town’s
situation seduced me more than the thought of its history. For the town,
with its lights, cars, cafés, shops, halls, palaces, theatres, hotels,
and sponging-houses, was lost in the midst of the great forest.
Impossible to enter it, or to leave it, without winding through those
dark woods! On the map I could trace all the roads, a dozen like ours,
converging on the town. I had a vision of them, palely stretching
through the interminable and sinister labyrinth of unquiet trees, and
gradually reaching the humanity of the town. And I had a vision of the
recesses of the forest, where the deer wandered or couched. All around,
on the rim of the forest, were significant names: the Moret and the
Grez and the Franchard of Stevenson; Barbizon; the Nemours of Balzac;
Larchant. Nor did I forget the forest scene of George Moore’s “Mildred
Lawson.”
After we had sat half an hour in front of glasses, we rushed back
through the forest to the house on its confines whence we had come. The
fascination of the town did not cease to draw me until, years later, I
yielded and went definitely to live in it.