We took the express one Thursday evening, Paul and I. Hardly anyone goes
South at that time of the year, so that we had the carriage to
ourselves, and both of us were in a bad temper on leaving Paris, sorry
for having yielded to the temptation of this journey, and regretting
Marly, the Seine, and our lazy boating excursions, and all those
pleasures in and near Paris which are so dear to every true Parisian.
As soon as the train started Paul stuck himself into his corner, and
said, "It is most idiotic to go all that way," and as it was too late
for him to change his mind then, I said, "Well, you should not have
come."
He gave me no answer, and I felt very much inclined to laugh when I saw
how furious he looked. He is certainly always rather like a squirrel,
but then every one of us has retained the type of some animal or other
as the mark of his primitive race. How many people have jaws like a
bull-dog, or heads like goats, rabbits, foxes, horses, or oxen. Paul is
a squirrel turned into a man. He has its bright, quick eyes, its old
hair, pointed nose, its small, fine, supple, active body, and a certain
mysterious resemblance in his general bearing: in fact, a similarity of
movements, of gestures, and of bearing which might almost be taken for a
recollection.
At last we both went to sleep with that uncomfortable slumber of the
railway carriage, which is interrupted by horrible cramps in the arms
and neck, and by the sudden stoppages of the train.
We woke up as we were going along the Rhone. Soon the continued noise of
the grasshoppers came in through the window, that cry which seems to be
the voice of the warm earth, the song of Provence; and seemed to instill
into our looks, our breasts, and our souls the light and happy feeling
of the South, that odor of the parched earth, of the stony and light
soil of the olive, with its gray-green foliage.
When the train stopped again a railway servant ran along the train
calling out "Valence" in a sonorous voice, with an accent that again
gave us a taste of that Provence which the shrill note of the
grasshoppers had already imparted to us.
Nothing new happened until we got to Marseilles, where we got out to
breakfast, but when we returned to our carriage we found a woman
installed there.
Paul, with a delightful look at me, gave his short moustache a
mechanical twirl, and passed his fingers through his hair, which had
become slightly out of order with the night's journey. Then he sat down
opposite the newcomer.
Whenever I happen to see a striking new face, either while traveling or
in society, I always have the strongest inclination to find out what
character, mind, and intellectual capacities are hidden beneath those
features.
She was a young and pretty woman, a native of the South of France
certainly, with splendid eyes, beautiful wavy black hair, which was so
thick, long, and strong that it seemed almost too heavy for her head.
She was dressed with a certain Southern elegant bad taste which made her
look a little vulgar. Her regular features had none of the grace and
finish of the refined races, of that slight delicacy which members of
the aristocracy inherit from their birth, and which is the hereditary
mark of thinner blood.
Her bracelets were too big to be of gold; she wore earrings with large
white stones which were certainly not diamonds, and she belonged
unmistakably to the commonalty. One would have guessed that she would
talk too loud, and shout on every occasion with exaggerated gestures.
When the train started she remained motionless in her place, in the
attitude of a woman who was in a rage, without even looking at us.
Paul began to talk to me, evidently with an eye to effect, trying to
attract her attention, like shopkeepers who expose their choice wares to
catch the notice of passers-by.
She, however, did not appear to be paying the least attention.
"Toulon! Ten minutes to wait! Refreshment room!" the porters shouted.
Paul motioned to me to get out, and as soon as we had done so, he said:
"I wonder who on earth she can be?"