I had very quickly attached myself to my grown cousins, and I felt as
well acquainted with them as if I had always known them. I believe it
is necessary that there should be the bond of blood for the creation
of those intimate relations between people, who but the day before were
almost ignorant of each other's existence. I also loved my uncle and
aunt; my aunt especially, who spoiled me a little, and who was so good
and still so beautiful in spite of her sixty years, her gray hair and
her grandmotherly way of dressing herself. In these levelling days,
wherein one person is so like another, people of my aunt's type no
longer exist. Born in the neighborhood, of a very ancient family, she
had never been away from this province of France, and her manners, her
hospitality, and her exquisite courtesy had a local stamp, every detail
of which pleased me greatly.
In direct contrast to my sheltered home life, here I lived almost
entirely out of doors. I roamed about in the streets and highways, and
often I went beyond the gates of the town. The narrow streets paved
with black pebbles like those in the Orient, and bordered with gothic
dwellings of the time of Louis XIII, had a singular charm for me. I
already knew all the nooks and corners, public highways and the byways
of the village, and I was well acquainted with many of the kind country
people who lived about us.
The women, peasant women with goitres, who passed my uncle's house on
their way to and from the surrounding fields and vineyards, carried
baskets of fruit on their heads, and they always paused to offer me
luscious grapes and delicious peaches. I was delighted with the southern
dialect, and with the songs of the mountaineers; and, best of all,
my unfamiliar surroundings ever reminded me that I was in a strange
country.
And now when I see any of the little things that I brought from there
for my museum, or when I look over the brief letters that I wrote to my
mother every day, I suddenly feel the warm sunshine, I experience again
the strange newness, I smell the fragrance of ripe southern fruits,
and I feel the keen freshness of the mountain air; and at such times I
realize that in spite of the long descriptions in these dead pages they
inadequately express all I felt.