"At that time I was twenty-five years old, and was making daubs along
the coast of Normandy. I call 'making daubs' that wandering about, with
a bag on one's back, from mountain to mountain, under the pretext of
studying and of sketching nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than
that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free;
without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation,
without thought even of to-morrow. You go in any direction you please,
without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save your
eyes. You pull up, because a running brook seduces you, or because you
are attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of potatoes frying.
Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your
choice, or the naive glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise me
for my affection for these rustics. These girls have soul as well as
feeling, not to mention firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty
and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its
price, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your
appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so
rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.
"I have had rendezvous in ditches in which cattle repose, and in barns
among the straw, still steaming from the heat of the day. I have
recollections of canvas spread on rude and creaky benches, and of
hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, free from affectation, and
sincere than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.
"But what you love most amid all these varied adventures are the
country, the woods, the risings of the sun, the twilight, the light of
the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You
are alone with her in that long and tranquil rendezvous. You go to bed
in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide
open, you watch the going down of the sun, and descry in the distance
the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour
of midnight.
"You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of
an oak, amid a covering of fragile herbs, growing and redolent of life.
You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and
pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a
physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip.
Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these
tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from
head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and
gentle quivering of the current.
"You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted
when the sun is crowned in an ocean of blood-red shadows, and when it
casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon,
as it passes across the vault of heaven, you think of things, singular
things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the
brilliant light of day.
"So, in wandering through the same country we are in this year, I came
to the little village of Benouville, on the Falaise, between Yport and
Etretat. I came from Fecamp, following the coast, a high coast,
perpendicular as a wall, with projecting and rugged rocks falling sheer
down into the sea. I had walked since the morning on the close clipped
grass, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet. Singing lustily, I walked
with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and lazy flight of a
gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens,
sometimes at the green sea, or at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In
short, I had passed a happy day, a day of listlessness and of liberty.
"I was shown a little farmhouse, where travelers were put up, a kind of
inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the center of a Norman court,
surrounded by a double row of beeches.
"Quitting the Falaise. I gained the hamlet, which was hemmed in by
great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
"She was an old, wrinkled, and austere rustic, who always seemed to
yield to the pressure of new customs with a kind of contempt.
"It was the month of May: the spreading apple-trees covered the court
with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon
people and upon the grass.
"I said:
"'Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?'
"Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
"'That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no
harm in looking.'
"In five minutes we were in perfect accord, and I deposited my bag upon
the bare floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a
table, and a washstand. The room opened into the large and smoky
kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm
and with the farmer himself, who was a widower.
"I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was
fricasseeing a chicken for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung
the stew-pot, black with smoke.
"'You have travelers, then, at the present time?' said I to her.
"She answered in an offended tone of voice:
"'I have a lady, an English lady, who has attained to years of
maturity. She is occupying my other room.'
"By means of an extra five sous a day, I obtained the privilege of
dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
"My cover was then placed in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw
with hunger the lean members of the Normandy chicken, to drink the
clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which, though four
days old, was excellent.
"Suddenly, the wooden barrier which opened on to the highway was
opened, and a strange person directed her steps toward the house. She
was very slender, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red
borders. You would have believed that she had no arms, if you had not
seen a long hand appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist
umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited
gray hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know
not why, of a sour herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her
eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.
"This singular apparition made me curious. She undoubtedly was my
neighbor, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.
"I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to
paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which you know extends as
far as Etretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something
singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked
like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she
suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house at midday for lunch, and
took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of
this old and original creature. But she did not respond to my polite
advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water
out for her with great alacrity, I passed her the dishes with great
eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an
English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her
only acknowledgments.
"I ceased occupying myself with her, although she had disturbed my
thoughts. At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did
Madame Lecacheur herself.
"She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which
to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Benouville, some six
months before, and did not seem disposed to quit it. She never spoke at
table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book, treating of
some Protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The
cure himself had received no less than four copies, at the hands of an
urchin to whom she had paid two sous' commission. She said sometimes to
our hostess, abruptly, without preparing herin the least for the
declaration:
"'I love the Saviour more than all; I worship him in all creation; I
adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.'
"And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her
brochures which were destined to convert the universe.
"In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had
declared that she was an atheist, and that a sort of reproach attached
to her. The cure, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:
"'She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and
I believe her to be a person of pure morals.'
"These words, 'atheist,' 'heretic,' words which no one can precisely
define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that
this English-woman was rich, and that she had passed her life in
traveling through every country in the world, because her family had
thrown her off. Why had her family thrown her off? Because of her
natural impiety?
"She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles, one of
those opinionated puritans of whom England produces so many, one of
those good and insupportable old women who haunt the tables d'hote of
every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the
charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere
their fantastic manias, their petrified vestal manners, their
indescribable toilettes, and a certain odor of india-rubber, which
makes one believe that at night they slip themselves into a case of
that material. When I meet one of these people in a hotel, I act like
birds which see a manikin in a field.
"This woman, however, appeared so singular that she did not displease
me.
"Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not
rustic, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic
extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to
describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous,
which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and
mysterious travail of soul. She said: 'That woman is a demoniac.' This
phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to
me irresistibly comic. I, myself, never called her now anything else
but 'the demoniac.' feeling a singular pleasure in pronouncing this
word on seeing her.
"I would ask Mother Lecacheur: 'Well, what is our demoniac about
to-day?' To which my rustic friend would respond, with an air of having
been scandalized:
"'What do you think, sir? She has picked up a toad which has had its
leg battered, and carried it to her room, and has put it in her
washstand, and dressed it up like a man. If that is not profanation, I
should like to know what is!'
"On another occasion, when walking along the Falaise, she had bought a
large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the
sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought it, though paid
handsomely, was greatly provoked at this act--more exasperated, indeed,
than if she had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For a
whole month he could not speak of the circumstance without getting into
a fury and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a
demoniac, this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an
inspiration of genius in thus christening her.
"The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa
in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a roguish air:
'She is an old hag who has lived her days.' If the poor woman had but
known!
"Little kind-hearted Celeste did not wait upon her willingly, but I was
never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she was
a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue, and of another
religion. She was in good truth a demoniac!
"She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and searching
for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of
bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed
aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused
at having been found thus, looking at me with eyes as terrible as those
of a wild cat surprised in open day.
"Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the banks of the Falaise standing like a semaphore signal. She
gazed passionately at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the
boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at
the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with her elastic English step;
and I would go toward her, attracted by I know not what, simply to see
her illuminated visage, her dried-up features, which seemed to glow
with an ineffable, inward, and profound happiness.
"Often I would encounter her in the corner of a field sitting on the
grass, under the shadow of an apple-tree, with her little Bible lying
open on her knee, while she looked meditatively into the distance.
"I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country
neighborhood, bound to it as I was by a thousand links of love for its
soft and sweeping landscapes. At this farm I was out of the world, far
removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good,
healthy, beautiful green soil. And, must I avow it, there was something
besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother
Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange
Miss Harriet, and to learn what passes in the solitary souls of those
wandering old, English dames."