The only task required of me during my vacation was that I should read
from Fenelon's Telemaque (my education, you see, was a little out
of date). My copy of the work was composed of several small volumes.
Strangely enough, it was not irksome to me. I could image to myself
distinctly the land of Greece with its white marble temples and its
bright sky, and I had a conception of pagan antiquity that was almost as
vivid (if not so correct) as Fenelon's: Calypso and her nymphs enchanted
me.
Every day, in order to read, I hid myself from the Peyrals, either in
my uncle's garden or in the garret of his house, my two favorite
hiding-places.
This garret, under the high Louis XIII roof, extended the full length of
the house. The shutters of the place were seldom opened, and there
was here, in consequence, almost perpetual twilight. The old things,
belonging to a bygone century, lying there under the dust and cobwebs
attracted me from the first day; and, little by little, the habit of
slipping up there with my Telemaque had grown upon me. I usually stole
up after the noon dinner, secure in the thought that no one would dream
of looking for me there. At this noon hour of hot and radiant sunshine,
the garret, by contrast, was almost as dark as night. Noiselessly I
would throw open a shutter of one of the dormer windows and a flood
of sunshine poured in; then I climbed out on the roof, and with elbows
resting upon the sun-warmed old slate tiles overgrown with golden
mosses, I would read my book.
Around me, on this same roof, thousands of Agen plums were drying. This
fruit, intended for winter use, was spread out on mats made of reeds;
warmed through and through by the sun and thoroughly dried they were
delicious; their fragrance, too, was exquisite and it impregnated the
whole garret. The bees and the wasps who, like me, ate them at their
pleasure, tumbled on their backs and extended their legs in the air,
overcome seemingly by the cloying sweetness of the fruit and the heat
of the day. And on the neighboring roofs, between the old gothic gables,
there were similar reed mats covered with these same plums, all visited
by myriads of buzzing wasps and bees.
One could also see from here the two streets that came together in front
of my uncle's house; they were lined with mediaeval dwellings, and each
terminated at an arched door that was cut in the high red stone wall
that had formerly served as a fortification. The village was hot and
drowsy and silent, the heat of the mid-summer sun made it torpid; but
one could hear innumerable chickens and ducks scratching and pecking
at the sun-baked dirt in the streets. And far away in the distance the
mountains pierced the cloudless blue of the heavens with their sunny
heights.
I read Telemaque in very small doses; two or three pages a day was
generally enough to satisfy my curiosity and to ease my conscience
for the day; that task over, I went down hurriedly to find my little
friends, and we would set out on a trip to the woods and vineyards.
My uncle's garden, my other place of retreat, was not attached to the
house, but was situated, as were all the other ones in the village,
beyond the ramparts of the town. It was surrounded by very high walls,
and one had entrance to it through an old arched gate that was unlocked
with an enormous key. Upon certain days, armed with my Telemaque and my
butterfly-net, I isolated myself there.
In the garden there were several plum trees, and from them there fell,
onto the warm earth, over-ripe plums of the same variety as those drying
on the ancient roofs. The old arbor was trellised with grape vines, and
legions of flies and bees feasted upon the musky, fragrant grapes. The
extreme end of the garden, for it was a very large one, was overgrown
like an ordinary field with alfalfa.
The charm of this old orchard lay in the feeling it gave one of being
greatly secluded, of being absolutely alone in a wilderness of space and
silence.
I must not forget to speak of the old arbor that two summers later was
the scene of the most momentous act of my childhood. It backed against
the surrounding wall, and its lattice-work was overspread with muscadine
vines that the sun scorched and withered.
In this garden, for some inexplicable reason, I had the impression of
being in the tropics, in the colonies of my fancy. And in truth the
tropical gardens that I saw later were filled with the same heavy
fragrance and had much the same appearance. From time to time rare
butterflies, such as are not often seen elsewhere, flitted through
the garden. From a front view they looked like common yellow and black
butterflies, but a side view showed them to be as glistening and as
beautiful a blue as the exotic ones from Guinea that I had seen under
glass in my uncle's museum. They were very wary and difficult to
ensnare, for they rested only for a second at a time upon the fragrant
muscadel grapes before fluttering away over the wall. Sometimes I would
place my foot in a crevice of the stone wall, and scramble up to the top
to look after them as they flew across the hot and silent fields; and
often I remained there on the coping for a long time, propped upon my
elbows, and contemplated the distant landscape. Every where upon the
horizon there were wooded mountains surrounded here and there by the
ruins of feudal castles. Before me, in the midst of fields of corn and
buckwheat, was the Bories estate. Its old arched porch, the only one
in the neighborhood that was whitewashed, looked like one of those
entry-ways that are so common in African villages. This estate, I had
been told, belonged to the St. Hermangarde children, who were destined
to become my future comrades. They were expected almost daily, but I
dreaded to have them come, for my little band composed of the Peyrals
seemed all sufficient and extremely well chosen.