QUIBERON.
In Quiberon, we breakfasted at old Rohan Belle-Isle's, who keeps the
Hôtel Penthièvre. This gentleman had his bare feet stuck in old
slippers, on account of the heat, and was drinking with a mason, a fact
which does not prevent him from being the descendant of one of the first
families of Europe; an aristocrat of the old stock! a real aristocrat!
_Vive Dieu!_ He immediately set to work to pound a steak and to cook us
some lobsters. Our pride was flattered to its innermost fibre.
The past of Quiberon is concentrated in a massacre. Its greatest
curiosity is a cemetery, which is filled to its utmost capacity and
overflows into the street. The head-stones are crowded together and
invade and submerge one another, as if the corpses were uncomfortable in
their graves and had lifted up their shoulders to escape from them. It
suggests a petrified ocean, the tombs being the waves, and the crosses
the masts of shipwrecked vessels.
In the middle, an open ossuary contains skeletons that have been exhumed
in order to make room for other corpses. Who has said: "Life is a
hostelry, and the grave is our home?" But these corpses do not remain in
their graves, for they are only tenants and are ejected at the
expiration of the lease. Around this charnel-house, where the heaps of
bones resemble a mass of fagots, is arranged, breast-high, a series of
little black boxes, six inches square, surmounted by a cross and cut out
in the shape of a heart in front, so that one can see the skulls inside.
Above the heart-shaped opening are the following words in painted
letters: "This is the head of ---- ----, deceased on such and such a
day, in such and such a year." These heads belonged to persons of a
certain standing, and one would be considered an ungrateful son if,
after seven years, he did not give his parents' skulls the luxury of one
of these little black boxes. The remainder of the bodies is thrown into
the bone-house, and twenty-five years afterwards the heads are sent to
join them. A few years ago they tried to abolish the custom; but a riot
ensued and the practice continued.
Perhaps it is wicked to play with those round skulls which once
contained a mind, with those empty circles in which passion throbbed.
Those boxes surrounding the ossuary and scattered over the graves, over
the wall and in the grass, without any attempt at order, may appear
horrible to a few and ridiculous to many; but those black cases rotting
even as the bones blanch and crumble to dust; those skulls, with noses
eaten away and foreheads streaked by the slimy trails of snails, and
hollow, staring eyes; those thigh-bones piled up as in the great
charnel-houses mentioned in the Bible; those pieces of skulls lying
around filled with earth, in which a flower springs up sometimes and
grows through the holes of the eyes; even the vulgarity of those
inscriptions, which are as similar as the corpses they identify--all
this human rottenness appeared beautiful to us, and procured us a
splendid sight.
If the post of Auray had arrived, we should have started at once for
Belle-Isle; but they were waiting for it. Transient sailors with bare
arms and open shirts sat in the kitchen of the inn, drinking to pass
away the time.
"At what time is the post due here in Auray?"
"That depends; usually at ten o'clock," replied the innkeeper.
"No, at eleven," put in a man.
"At twelve," said M. de Rohan.
"At one."
"At half-past one."
"Sometimes it doesn't reach here until two o'clock."
"It isn't very regular!"
We were aware of that; it was already three. We could not start before
the arrival of this ill-fated messenger, which brings Belle-Isle the
despatches from _terra firma_, so we had to resign ourselves. Once in a
while some one would get up, go to the door, look out, come back, and
start up again. Oh! he will not come to-day.--He must have stopped on
the way.--Let's go home.--No, let's wait for him.--If, however, you are
tired of waiting gentlemen.... After all, there may not be any
letters.... No, just wait a little longer.--Oh! here he comes!--But it
was some one else, and the dialogue would begin all over again.
At last we heard the beating of tired hoofs on the cobblestones, the
tinkling of bells, the cracking of a whip and a man's voice shouting:
"Ho! Ho! Here's the post! Here's the post!"
The horse stopped in front of the door, hunched its back, stretched its
neck, opened its mouth, disclosed its teeth, spread its hind legs and
rose on its hocks.
The animal was lean and tall, and had a moth-eaten mane, rough hoofs and
loose shoes; a seton bobbed up and down on its breast. Lost in a saddle
that swallowed him up, supported at the back by a valise and in front by
the mail-bag, which was passed through the saddle-bow, its rider sat
huddled on it like a monkey. His small face, adorned with straggling
blond whiskers and as wrinkled and rough as a winter apple, was hidden
by a large oil-cloth hat lined with felt; a sort of gray coutil coat was
drawn up to his hips and bagged around his stomach, while his trousers
stopped at the knees and disclosed his bare legs reddened by the rubbing
of the stirrup-straps, and his blue hose, which hung over his shoes. The
harness was held together with strings, the rider's clothes had been
mended with threads of different colours; all sorts of patches and all
kinds of spots, torn linen, greasy leather, dried mud, recent dust,
hanging straps, bright rags, a dirty man and a mangy horse, the former
sickly and perspiring, the latter consumptive and almost spent; the one
with his whip and the other with its bells--all this formed but one
object which had the same colour and movement and executed almost the
same gestures, which served the same purpose, the conducting of the
Auray post.
After another hour, when all the packages and commissions had been
attended to and we had waited for several passengers who were to come,
we finally left the inn and went aboard. At first there was nothing but
a confused mass of people and luggage, oars that caused us to stumble,
sails that dropped on our heads, men falling over each other and not
knowing where to go; then everything quieted down, each one found his
nook, the luggage was put in the bottom of the boat, the sailors got on
the benches, and the passengers seated themselves as best they could.
There was no breeze and the sails clung limply to the masts. The heavy
boat hardly moved over the almost motionless sea, which swelled and
subsided with the gentle rhythm of a sleeping breast.
Leaning against one of the gunwales, we gazed at the water, which was as
blue and calm as the sky, and listened to the splashing of the oars;
sitting in the shadow of the sail, the six rowers lifted their oars
regularly to make the forward stroke, and when they dipped them into the
water and brought them up again, drops of crystal clung to their
paddles. Reclining on the straw, or sitting on the benches, with their
legs dangling and their chins in their hands, or leaning against the
sides of the boat, between the big jambs of the hull, the tar of which
was melting in the heat, the silent passengers hung their heads and
closed their eyes to shut out the glare of the sun, that shone on the
flat ocean as on a mirror.
A white-haired man was sleeping at my feet, a gendarme was sweltering
under his three-cornered hat, and two soldiers had unfastened their
knapsacks and used them as pillows. Near the bowsprit stood a cabin-boy
looking into the stay-sail and whistling for wind, while the skipper
remained aft and managed the tiller. Still no wind arose. Orders were
given to haul in the sails; slowly and gently they came down and fell in
a heap on the benches; then each sailor took off his waistcoat, stowed
it away under the bow of the boat, and the men began to row again with
all their might.
* * * * *
Our departure had been so delayed that there was hardly any water left
in the harbour and we had great difficulty in landing. Our boat grated
on the pebbles, and in order to leave it, we were compelled to walk on
an oar as if it were a tight-rope.
Ensconced between the citadel and its ramparts, and cut in two by an
almost empty port, the Palay appeared to us a useless little town
overcome with military ennui, and put me in mind, I do not know why, of
a gaping _sous-officier_.
One fails to see the low-crowned, broad-brimmed black felt hats of Le
Morbihan, that give protection to the shoulders as well as the head. The
women do not affect the big, white caps that stand out from their faces,
and reach down their backs like those worn by the nuns, so that when
worn by little girls they cover half of their bodies. Their gowns are
made without the wide stripe of velvet applied on each shoulder and
rounding away under the arms. Nor do they wear the low shoes with square
toes, high heels, and long black ribbon streamers. Here, as elsewhere,
we found faces that resemble other faces, costumes that really are no
costumes at all, cobblestones, and even a sidewalk.
Was it worth while to expose ourselves to seasickness (which, by the
way, we escaped, a fact that inclined us to leniency), only to see a
citadel that we do not admire, a lighthouse that did not appeal to us in
the least, and a rampart built by Vauban, of whom we were already
heartily tired? But people had spoken to us of Belle-Isle's rocks. So we
started at once, and taking a short cut across the fields, walked to the
beach.
We saw one grotto, only one (the day was near its close), but it
appeared so beautiful to us (it was draped with sea-weed and decorated
with shells, and water dripped from the top), that we resolved to spend
a day in Belle-Isle, in order to discover more of them, if there were
any, and feast our eyes leisurely upon their beauties.
The following day, at dawn, having filled our flasks and put some
sandwiches in our knapsacks, we decided to go where we pleased; so,
without a guide or information of any sort (this is the best way), we
set out to walk, having resolved that we would go anywhere, provided it
were far, and would return home at any time, provided it were late.
We began by a path which led to the top of a cliff, then followed its
asperities and valleys and continued around the whole island. When we
reached places where landslips had obliterated it, we struck out into
the country and let our eyes roam over the horizon of the sea, the deep
blue line of which touched the sky; then we walked back to the edge of
the rocks, which had suddenly reappeared at our side. The perpendicular
cliff, the top of which we were treading, concealed the flank of the
rocks, and we could only hear the roaring of the breakers below us.
Sometimes the rock was split in its entire length, disclosing its two
almost straight sides, streaked with layers of silica, with tufts of
yellow flowers scattered here and there. If we threw a stone, it
appeared suspended in the air for a time, would then strike the sides of
the cliff, rebound from the one to the other, break into a thousand
bits, scattering earth and pebbles in its course, and finally land at
the bottom of the pit, where it frightened the cormorants, which
shrieked and took flight.
Frequent storms and thaws have pushed a part of the upper grounds into
these gorges, and so their steep slope has grown less abrupt, and one is
able to climb down to the bottom. We attempted to do so by sliding down
like children, holding ourselves back with our hands and feet, and
finally we landed safely on the soft, wet sand.
The tide was going out, but in order to be able to pass, we had to wait
until the breakers receded. We watched them approach us. They dashed
against the rocks, swirled in the crevices, rose like scarfs on the
wind, fell back in drops and sprays, and with one long, sweeping
libration, gathered their green waters together and retreated. When one
wave left the sand, its currents immediately joined, and sought lower
levels. The sea-weed moved its slimy branches; the water bubbled between
the pebbles, oozed through the cracks of the rocks and formed a thousand
rivulets and fountains. The drenched sand absorbed it all, and soon its
yellow tint grew white again through the drying action of the sun.
As soon as we could, we jumped over the rocks and continued on our way.
Soon, however, they increased in numbers, their weird groups being
crowded together, piled up and overturned on one another. We tried to
hold on with our hands and feet, but we slid on their slippery
asperities. The cliff was so very high that it quite frightened us to
look up at it. Although it crushed us by its formidable placidity, still
it fascinated us, for we could not help looking at it and it did not
tire our eyes.
A swallow passed us and we watched its flight; it came from the sea; it
ascended slowly through the air, cutting the luminous, fluid atmosphere
with its sharp, outstretched wings that seemed to enjoy being absolutely
untrammelled. The bird ascended higher and higher, rose above the cliff
and finally disappeared.
Meanwhile we were creeping over the rocks, the perspective of which was
renewed by each bend of the coast. Once in a while, when the rocks
ended, we walked on square stones that were as flat as marble slabs and
seamed by almost symmetrical furrows, which appeared like the tracks of
some ancient road of another world.
In some places were great pools of water as calm as their greenish
depths and as limpid and motionless as a woodland stream on its bed of
cresses. Then the rocks would reappear closer than before and more
numerous. On one side was the ocean with its breakers foaming around the
lower rocks; on the other, the straight, unrelenting, impassive coast.
Tired and bewildered, we looked about us for some issue; but the cliff
stretched out before us, and the rocks, infinitely multiplying their
dark green forms, succeeded one another until their unequal crags seemed
like so many tall, black phantoms rising out of the earth.
We stumbled around in this way until we suddenly perceived an undulating
series of rough steps which enabled us to climb up to flat land again.
It is always a pleasure, even when the country is ugly, to walk with a
friend, to feel the grass under one's feet, to jump over fences and
ditches, to break thistles with one's stick, to pull leaves from the
bushes and wheat from the fields, to go where one's fancy dictates,
whistling, singing, talking, dreaming, without strange ears to listen to
one's conversation, and the sound of strange footsteps behind one, as
absolutely free as if one were in the desert!
Ah! Let us have air! air! And more space! Since our contracted souls
suffocate and die on the window-sill, since our captive spirits, like
the bear in its cage, turn around and around, and stagger against the
walls of their prison, why not, at least, let our nostrils breathe the
different perfumes of all the winds of the earth, why not let our eyes
rove over every horizon?
No steeple shone in the distance, no hamlet with thatched roofs and
square yards framed by clusters of trees, appeared on the side of a
hill; not a soul was to be seen, not even a peasant, a grazing sheep, or
a stray dog.
All those cultivated fields look uninhabited; the peasants work in them,
but they do not live there. One is led to believe that they benefit by
them but do not care about them in the least.
We saw a farm and walked in; a ragged woman served us some ice-cold milk
in earthen cups. The silence all around was peculiar. The woman watched
us eagerly, and we soon took our departure.
We walked into a valley, the narrow gorge of which appeared to extend to
the ocean. Tall grass with yellow flowers reached up to our waists, and
we had to take long strides in order to advance. We could hear the
murmur of flowing water near by, and we sank ankle-deep into the marshy
soil. Presently the two hills parted; their barren sides were covered
with short, stubby grass and here and there were big yellow patches of
moss. At the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the
drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses
itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on
the leaves of the water-lilies. The sun beat down on us. The gnats
rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with
the weight of their tiny bodies. We were alone in the tranquillity of
this desert.
At this point, the valley curved and widened and formed a sharp bend. We
climbed a little hill, in order to locate ourselves, but the horizon
either ended abruptly, enclosed by another hill, or else stretched out
over new plains. We did not lose courage, however, and continued to
advance, while we thought of the travellers on desert islands who climb
on promontories in the hope of sighting some vessel setting sail towards
them.
The soil was growing less moist, and the grass less high; presently the
ocean came in view, ensconced in a narrow bay, and soon the shore,
strewn with débris of shells and madrepores, crunched beneath our
footsteps. We let ourselves drop to the ground and as we were exhausted,
we soon fell asleep. An hour later the cold woke us up, and we started
homeward without any fear of losing our way this time. We were on the
coast facing France, and Palay was on our left. It was here, the day
before, that we had discovered the grotto we admired so much. It did not
take us long to find others, higher and deeper even than the first one.
They always opened through large, pointed arches which were either
upright or inclined, their bold columns supporting enormous pieces of
rock. Black, veined with purple, fiery red, or brown streaked with
white, these beautiful grottoes displayed for their visitors the
infinite variety of their shapes and colouring, their graces and their
grand caprices. There was one all of silver veined with deep red; in
another, tufts of flowers resembling periwinkles had grown on glazings
of reddish granite, and drops of water fell from the ceiling on the fine
sand with never-ceasing regularity. In the background of another grotto,
beneath a long semi-circle, a bed of polished white gravel, which the
tide no doubt turns and makes fresh every day, seemed to be waiting to
receive the body of a mermaid; but the bed is empty and has lost her
forever! Only the moist seaweed remains on which she used to stretch her
delicate nude limbs when she was tired of swimming, and on which she
reclined till daybreak, in the pale light of the moon.
The sun was setting, and the tide was coming in over the rocks that
melted in the blue evening mist, which was blanched on the level of the
ocean by the foam of the tumbling waves. In the other part of the
horizon, the sky streaked with orange stripes looked as if it had been
swept by a gale. Its light reflected on the waters and spread a gleaming
sheen over them, and projected on the sand, giving it a brownish tinge
and making it glitter like steel.
Half a mile to the south, the coast is covered by a line of rocks that
extends to the sea. In order to reach them, we should have been
compelled to tramp as we had already done that morning. We were tired,
and it was far; but a temptation seemed to push us forward. The breeze
played in the cracks of the rocks and wrinkled the surface of the pools;
the sea-weed, cleaving to the sides of the cliff, shook in the wind, and
from the part of the sky where the moon was to rise, a pale light spread
over the waters. It was the hour when the shadows lengthen. The rocks
appeared larger, and the breakers a deeper green. The sky seemed to
expand, and all nature assumed a different appearance.
So we started, without giving a thought to the incoming tide or whether
or not we should find later a way to get back to land. We wished to
enjoy our pleasure to the fullest extent. We seemed lighter than in the
morning, and ran and jumped without the slightest feeling of fatigue. An
abundance of animal spirits impelled us onward and we felt a peculiarly
robust twitching in our muscles. We shook our heads in the wind and
touched the grasses with our fingers. We breathed the salt air of the
ocean, and noted and assimilated every color, every sunbeam, every
sound, the design of the seaweed, the softness of the sand, the hardness
of the rocks that echoed under our footsteps, the height of the cliffs,
the fringe of the waves, the accidents of the coast, and the voice of
the horizon; and the breeze that passed over our faces like intangible
kisses, the sky with its passing clouds, the rising moon, the peeping
stars. Our souls bathed in all this splendour, and our eyes feasted on
it; we opened our ears and nostrils wide; something of the very life of
the elements, forced from them undoubtedly by the attraction of our
eyes, reached us and was assimilated, so that we were able to comprehend
them in a closer relation and feel them more keenly, thanks to this
complex union.
By thus entering and penetrating into nature, we became a part of it,
diffused ourselves in it, and were claimed by it once more; we felt that
it was overpowering us, and we rejoiced; we desired to be lost in it, to
be borne away, or to carry it away with us. As in the raptures of love,
one wishes more hands with which to caress, more lips with which to
kiss, more eyes with which to see, more soul with which to worship;
spreading ourselves out in nature, with a joyful and delirious abandon,
we regretted that our eyes could not penetrate to the innermost parts of
the rocks, to the bottom of the sea, to the end of the heavens, in order
to see how the stones grow, how the breakers are made, how the stars are
lighted; we regretted that our ears could not catch the rumour of the
fermentation of the granite in the bowels of the earth, could not hear
the sap circulate in the plants and the coral roll in the solitudes of
the ocean. And while we were under the spell of that contemplative
effusion, we wished that our souls, radiating everywhere, might live all
these different lives, assume all these different forms, and, varying
unceasingly, accomplish their metamorphoses under an eternal sun!
But man was made to enjoy each day only a small portion of food,
colours, sounds, sentiments and ideas. Anything above the allotted
quantity tires or intoxicates him; it becomes the idiocy of the drunkard
or the ravings of the ecstatic. O, God! How small is our glass and how
large is our thirst! What weak heads we have!