"We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished
a study which appeared to me to display genius and power; as it must
have, since it was sold for ten thousand francs, fifteen years later.
It was as simple, however, as that two and two make four, and had
nothing to do with academic rules. The whole of the right side of my
canvas represented a rock, an enormous rock, covered with sea-wrack,
brown, yellow, and red, across which the sun poured like a stream of
oil. The light, without which one could see the stars concealed in the
background, fell upon the stone, and gilded it as if with fire. That
was all. A first stupid attempt at dealing with light, with burning
rays, with the sublime.
"On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-colored sea, but
a sea of jade, as greenish, milky, and thick as the overcast sky.
"I was so pleased with my work that I danced from sheer delight as I
carried it back to the inn. I wished that the whole world could have
seen it at one and the same moment. I can remember that I showed it to
a cow, which was browsing by the wayside, exclaiming, at the same time:
'Look at that, my old beauty; you will not often see its like again.'
"When I had reached the front of the house, I immediately called out to
Mother Lecacheur, shouting with all my might:
"'Ohe! Ohe! my mistress, come here and look at this.'
"The rustic advanced and looked at my work with stupid eyes, which
distinguished nothing, and did not even recognize whether the picture
was the representation of an ox or a house.
"Miss Harriet came into the house, and passed in rear of me just at the
moment when, holding out my canvas at arm's length, I was exhibiting it
to the female innkeeper. The 'demoniac' could not help but see it, for
I took care to exhibit the thing in such a way that it could not escape
her notice. She stopped abruptly and stood motionless, stupefied. It
was her rock which was depicted, the one which she usually climbed to
dream away her time undisturbed.
"She uttered a British 'Oh,' which was at once so accentuated and so
flattering, that I turned round to her, smiling, and said:
"This is my last work, Mademoiselle.'
"She murmured ecstatically, comically, and tenderly:
"'Oh! Monsieur, you must understand what it is to have a palpitation.'
"I colored up, of course, and was more excited by that compliment than
if it had come from a queen. I was seduced, conquered, vanquished. I
could have embraced her--upon my honor.
"I took my seat at the table beside her, as I had always done. For the
first time, she spoke, drawling out in a loud voice:
"'Oh! I love nature so much.'
"I offered her some bread, some water, some wine. She now accepted
these with the vacant smile of a mummy. I then began to converse with
her about the scenery.
"After the meal, we rose from the table together and walked leisurely
across the court; then, attracted by the fiery glow which the setting
sun cast over the surface of the sea, I opened the outside gate which
faced in the direction of the Falaise, and we walked on side by side,
as satisfied as any two persons could be who have just learned to
understand and penetrate each other's motives and feelings.
"It was a misty, relaxing evening, one of those enjoyable evenings
which impart happiness to mind and body alike. All is joy, all is
charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfumes of herbs,
with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odor of the wild flowers,
caresses the soul with a penetrating sweetness. We were going to the
brink of the abyss which overlooked the vast sea and rolled past us at
the distance of less than a hundred meters.
"We drank with open mouth and expanded chest, that fresh breeze from
the ocean which glides slowly over the skin, salted as it is by long
contact with the waves.
"Wrapped up in her square shawl, inspired by the balmy air and with
teeth firmly set, the English-woman gazed fixedly at the great
sun-ball, as it descended toward the sea. Soon its rim touched the
waters, just in rear of a ship which had appeared on the horizon,
until, by degrees, it was swallowed up by the ocean. We watched it
plunge, diminish, and finally disappear.
"Miss Harriet contemplated with passionate regard the last glimmer of
the flaming orb of day.
"She muttered: 'Oh! I love--I love--' I saw a tear start in her eye.
She continued: 'I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up
into the firmament.'
"She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on the
river bank, her face as red as her flaming shawl. I should have liked
to have sketched her in my album. It would have been an ecstatic
caricature. I turned my face away from her so as to be able to laugh.
"I then spoke to her of painting, as I would have done to a
fellow-artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of
the profession. She listened attentively to me, eagerly seeking to
divine the sense of the obscure words, so as to penetrate my thoughts.
From time to time, she would exclaim: 'Oh! I understand, I understand.
This is very interesting.' We returned home.
"The next day, on seeing me, she approached me eagerly, holding out her
hand; and we became firm friends immediately.
"She was a brave creature, with an elastic sort of a soul, which became
enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all women who are
spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be pickled in vinegary
innocence, though her heart still retained something of youth and of
girlish effervescence. She loved both nature and animals with a fervent
ardor, a love like old wine, mellow through age, with a sensual love
that she had never bestowed on men.
"One thing is certain: a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its
side, a bird's nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open
mouths and enormous heads, made her quiver with the most violent
emotion.
"Poor solitary beings! Sad wanderers from table d'hote to table d'hote,
poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable, I love you ever since I became
acquainted with Miss Harriet!
"I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me,
but dared not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in
the morning with my box on my back, she would accompany me as far as
the end of the village, silent, but evidently struggling inwardly to
find words with which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me
abruptly, and, with jaunty step, walk away quickly.
"One day, however, she plucked up courage:
"'I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you show me? I have
been very curious.'
"And she colored up as though she had given utterance to words
extremely audacious.
"I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had commenced
a large picture.
"She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with
concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was
disturbing me, she said to me: 'Thank you,' and walked away.
"But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every
day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She carried her
folding stool under her arm; would not consent to my carrying it, and
she sat always by my side. She would remain there for hours immovable
and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush in its every
movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of color spread on
with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of
herself, give vent to a half-suppressed 'Oh!' of astonishment, of joy,
of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an
almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of
nature's work divine. My studies appeared to her to be pictures of
sanctity, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of
converting me.
"Oh! He was a queer good-natured being, this God of hers. He was a sort
of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great
power; for she always figured him to herself as a being quivering over
injustices committed under his eyes, and helpless to prevent them.
"She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be
the confidant of his secrets and of his whims. She said:
"'God wills, or God does not will,' just like a sergeant announcing to
a recruit: 'The colonel has commanded.'
"At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions
of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself compelled, to
impart to me.
"Almost every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it
from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes, standing in
the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which
she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.
"I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality.
But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner; but,
for a while, I paid little attention to it.
"When I walked about, whether to the bottom of the valley, or through
some country lanes, I would see her suddenly appear, as though she were
returning from a rapid walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of
breath, as though she had been running or overcome by some profound
emotion. Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the
people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would grow
pale, become the color of the ground, and seem ready to faint away.
Gradually, however, I would see her regain her ordinary color,
whereupon she would begin to speak.
"Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a
sentence, spring up from her seat, and march off so rapidly and so
strangely, that it would, sometimes, put me to my wits' end to try and
discover whether I had done or said anything to displease or offend her.
"I finally came to the conclusion that this arose from her early habits
and training, somewhat modified, no doubt, in honor of me, since the
first days of our acquaintanceship.
"When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the
wind-beaten coast, her long curled hair would be shaken out and hanging
loose, as though it had broken away from its bearings. It was seldom
that this gave her any concern; though sometimes she looked as though
she had been dining sans ceremonie; her locks having become disheveled
by the breezes.
"She would then go up to her room in order to adjust what I called her
glass lamps. When I would say to her, in familiar gallantry, which,
however, always offended her:
"'You are as beautiful as a planet to-day, Miss Harriet,' a little
blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood of a young
maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.
"Then she would become abruptly savage and cease coming to watch me
paint. But I always thought:
"'This is only a fit of temper she is passing through.'
"But it did not always pass away. When I spoke to her sometimes, she
would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference, or in
sullen anger; and she became by turns rude, impatient, and nervous. For
a time I never saw her except at meals, and we spoke but little. I
concluded, at length, that I must have offended her in something: and,
accordingly, I said to her one evening:
"'Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act toward me as formerly?
What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!'
"She responded, in an angry tone, in a manner altogether sui generis:
"'I am always with you the same as formerly. It is not true, not true,'
and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.
"At times she would look upon me with strange eyes. Since that time I
have often said to myself that those condemned to death must look thus
when informed that their last day has come. In her eye there lurked a
species of folly, a folly at once mysterious and violent--even more, a
fever, an exasperated desire, impatient, at once incapable of being
realized and unrealizable!
"Nay, it seemed to me that there was also going on within her a combat,
in which her heart struggled against an unknown force that she wished
to overcome--perhaps, even, something else. But what could I know? What
could I know?"