I was on my way back from Nîmes, one crushingly hot afternoon in July.
As far as the eye could see, the white, blistering road, was turning to
clouds of dust between olive groves and small oaks, under a great,
silver, hazy sun which filled the whole sky. Not a trace of shade, not
a whisper of wind. Nothing except the shimmering of the hot air and the
strident cry of the cicadas' incessant din, deafening, hurried, and
seeming to harmonise with the immense luminous shimmering.... I had
walked for two hours in this desert in the middle of nowhere, when
suddenly a group of white houses emerged from the dust cloud in the
road in front of me. They were known as the Saint-Vincent coaching
inns: five or six farms with long red roofed barns; and a dried up
watering hole in a would-be oasis of spindly fig trees. At the end of
the village, two large inns faced each other across the road.
There was something striking about these inns and their strange
setting. On one side, there was a large, new building, full of life and
buzzing with activity. All the doors were ajar; a coach was in front,
from which the steaming horses were being unhitched. The disembarked
passengers were hurriedly drinking in the partial shade by the walls.
There was a courtyard strewn with mules and wagons, and the wagoners
were lying down under the outhouses waiting to feel cool. Inside there
was the jumbled sound of shouting, swearing, fists banging on the
tables, glasses clinking, billiard balls rattling, lemonade corks
popping, and above all that racket, a joyful voice, bursting with song
loud enough to shake the windows:
The lovely Margoton,
Just as soon as night was day,
Took her little silver can,
To the river made her away....
... The inn on the other side was silent and looked completely
abandoned. There was grass under the gate, broken blinds, and a branch
of dead holly on the door; all that was left of an old decoration. The
entrance steps were supported by stones from the road.... It was so
poor and pitiful, that it was a real act of charity to stop there at
all, even for a drink.
* * * * *
As I went in, I saw a long gloomy, deserted room, with daylight,
bursting in through three large, curtainless, windows, which just made
it look even more deserted and gloomy. There were some unsteady tables,
with dust-covered glasses long abandoned on them. There was also a
broken billiard table which held out its six pockets like begging
bowls, a yellow couch, and an old bar, all slumbering on in the heavy,
unhealthy heat.
And the flies! Oh, God, the flies! I have never seen so many. They were
on the ceiling, stuck to the windows, in the glasses, in clusters
everywhere.... When I opened the door, there was a buzzing as if I had
just entered a bee hive. At the back of the room, in a window, there
was a woman standing, her face pressed against the glass and totally
absorbed in looking through it. I called to her twice:
--Hello, landlady!
She turned round slowly and revealed a pitiful peasant's face,
wrinkled, cracked, earth coloured, and framed in long strands of
brownish lace, like old women wear hereabouts. And yet, she wasn't an
old woman, perhaps the tears had wilted her.
--What can I do for you? She asked me, drying her eyes.
--Just a sit down and a drink....
She looked at me, utterly astonished, and didn't move as if she hadn't
understood.
--This is an inn, isn't it?
The woman sighed:
--Yes ... it's an inn, in a manner of speaking.... But why aren't you
over the road like everybody else? It's a much livelier place....
--It's a bit too lively for my liking.... I'd rather stay here.
And without waiting for her reply, I sat down at a table. Once she had
satisfied herself that I was genuine, she began to flit to and fro
busily, opening drawers, moving bottles, wiping glasses, and flicking
the flies away.... You could see that a customer was quite an event for
her. Now and then the unfortunate woman would hold her head as if she
was despairing of getting to the end of it.
Then she disappeared into a back room; I heard her take up some keys,
fiddle with the locks, rummage in the bread bin, huff and puff, do some
dusting, wash some plates. And from time to time ... a muffled sob....
After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of dried
raisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and a
bottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.
--There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to her
place at the window.
* * * * *