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 carriages 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 in his corner, and said,
“It is most idiotic to go all that distance,” and as it was too late for
him to change his mind then, I said, “Well, you should not have come.”
He made 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 origin. How many people have jaws like a
bulldog, or heads like goats, rabbits, foxes, horses, or oxen. Paul is a
squirrel turned into a man. He has its bright, quick eyes, its hair,
its pointed nose, its small, fine, supple, active body, and a certain
mysterious resemblance in his general bearing; in fact, a similarity of
movement, of gesture, 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 passing along the Rhone. Soon the continued noise
of crickets came in through the windows, 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 guard 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 crickets had already
imparted to us.
Nothing fresh happened till we got to Marseilles, where we alighted
for breakfast, but when we returned to our carriage we found a woman
installed there.
Paul, with a delighted glance at me, gave his short mustache 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 in travelling 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, certainly a native of the south of
France, with splendid eyes, beautiful wavy black hair, which was so
thick and long that it seemed almost too heavy for her head. She was
dressed with a certain southern 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 that were certainly not diamonds, and she belonged
unmistakably to the People. One surmised 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 indignant, without even looking at us.
Paul began to talk to me, evidently with an eye to effect, trying to
attract her attention, as shopkeepers expose their choice wares to catch
the notice of passersby.
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?”
I began to laugh. “I am sure I don't know, and I don't in the least
care.”
He was quite excited.
“She is an uncommonly fresh and pretty girl. What eyes she has, and how
cross she looks. She must have been dreadfully worried, for she takes no
notice of anything.”
“You will have all your trouble for nothing,” I growled.
He began to lose his temper.
“I am not taking any trouble, my dear fellow. I think her an extremely
pretty woman, that is all. If one could only speak to her! But I don't
know how to begin. Cannot you give me an idea? Can't you guess who she
is?”
“Upon my word, I cannot. However, I should rather think she is some
strolling actress who is going to rejoin her company after a love
adventure.”
He seemed quite upset, as if I had said something insulting.
“What makes you think that? On the contrary, I think she looks most
respectable.”
“Just look at her bracelets,” I said, “her earrings and her whole dress.
I should not be the least surprised if she were a dancer or a circus
rider, but most likely a dancer. Her whole style smacks very much of the
theatre.”
He evidently did not like the idea.
“She is much too young, I am sure; why, she is hardly twenty.”
“Well,” I replied, “there are many things which one can do before one is
twenty; dancing and elocution are among them.”
“Take your seats for Nice, Vintimiglia,” the guards and porters called.
We got in; our fellow passenger was eating an orange, and certainly she
did not do it elegantly. She had spread her pocket-handkerchief on her
knees, and the way in which she tore off the peel and opened her mouth
to put in the pieces, and then spat the pips out of the window, showed
that her training had been decidedly vulgar.
She seemed, also, more put out than ever, and swallowed the fruit with
an exceedingly comic air of rage.
Paul devoured her with his eyes, and tried to attract her attention and
excite her curiosity; but in spite of his talk, and of the manner
in which he brought in well-known names, she did not pay the least
attention to him.
After passing Frejus and St. Raphael, the train passed through a
veritable garden, a paradise of roses, and groves of oranges and lemons
covered with fruits and flowers at the same time. That delightful coast
from Marseilles to Genoa is a kingdom of perfumes in a home of flowers.
June is the time to see it in all its beauty, when in every narrow
valley and on every slope, the most exquisite flowers are growing
luxuriantly. And the roses! fields, hedges, groves of roses. They climb
up the walls, blossom on the roofs, hang from the trees, peep out from
among the bushes; they are white, red, yellow, large and small, single,
with a simple self-colored dress, or full and heavy in brilliant
toilettes.
Their breath makes the air heavy and relaxing, and the still more
penetrating odor of the orange blossoms sweetens the atmosphere till it
might almost be called the refinement of odor.
The shore, with its brown rocks, was bathed by the motionless
Mediterranean. The hot summer sun stretched like a fiery cloth over
the mountains, over the long expanses of sand, and over the motionless,
apparently solid blue sea. The train went on through the tunnels, along
the slopes, above the water, on straight, wall-like viaducts, and a
soft, vague, saltish smell, a smell of drying seaweed, mingled at times
with the strong, heavy perfume of the flowers.
But Paul neither saw, looked at, nor smelled anything, for our fellow
traveller engrossed all his attention.
When we reached Cannes, as he wished to speak to me he signed to me to
get out, and as soon as I did so, he took me by the arm.
“Do you know, she is really charming. Just look at her eyes; and I never
saw anything like her hair.”
“Don't excite yourself,” I replied, “or else address her, if you have
any intentions that way. She does not look unapproachable; I fancy,
although she appear to be a little bit grumpy.”
“Why don't you speak to her?” he said.
“I don't know what to say, for I am always terribly stupid at first;
I can never make advances to a woman in the street. I follow them, go
round and round them, and quite close to them, but never know what to
say at first. I only once tried to enter into conversation with a
woman in that way. As I clearly saw that she was waiting for me to make
overtures, and as I felt bound to say something, I stammered out, 'I
hope you are quite well, madame?' She laughed in my face, and I made my
escape.”
I promised Paul to do all I could to bring about a conversation, and
when we had taken our places again, I politely asked our neighbor:
“Have you any objection to the smell of tobacco, madame?”
She merely replied, “Non capisco.”
So she was an Italian! I felt an absurd inclination to laugh. As Paul
did not understand a word of that language, I was obliged to act as his
interpreter, so I said in Italian:
“I asked you, madame, whether you had any objection to tobacco smoke?”
With an angry look she replied, “Che mi fa!”
She had neither turned her head nor looked at me, and I really did
not know whether to take this “What do I care” for an authorization, a
refusal, a real sign of indifference, or for a mere “Let me alone.”
“Madame,” I replied, “if you mind the smell of tobacco in the least--”
She again said, “Mica,” in a tone which seemed to mean, “I wish
to goodness you would leave me alone!” It was, however, a kind of
permission, so I said to Paul:
“You may smoke.”
He looked at me in that curious sort of way that people have when they
try to understand others who are talking in a strange language before
them, and asked me:
“What did you say to her?”
“I asked whether we might smoke, and she said we might do whatever we
liked.”
Whereupon I lighted my cigar.
“Did she say anything more?”
“If you had counted her words you would have noticed that she used
exactly six, two of which gave me to understand that she knew no French,
so four remained, and much can be said in four words.”
Paul seemed quite unhappy, disappointed, and at sea, so to speak.
But suddenly the Italian asked me, in that tone of discontent which
seemed habitual to her, “Do you know at what time we shall get to
Genoa?”
“At eleven o'clock,” I replied. Then after a moment I went on:
“My friend and I are also going to Genoa, and if we can be of any
service to you, we shall be very happy, as you are quite alone.” But she
interrupted with such a “Mica!” that I did not venture on another word.
“What did she say?” Paul asked.
“She said she thought you were charming.”
But he was in no humor for joking, and begged me dryly not to make fun
of him; so I translated her question and my polite offer, which had been
so rudely rejected.
Then he really became as restless as a caged squirrel.
“If we only knew,” he said, “what hotel she was going to, we would go to
the same. Try to find out so as to have another opportunity to make her
talk.”
It was not particularly easy, and I did not know what pretext to invent,
desirous as I was to make the acquaintance of this unapproachable
person.
We passed Nice, Monaco, Mentone, and the train stopped at the frontier
for the examination of luggage.
Although I hate those ill-bred people who breakfast and dine in
railway-carriages, I went and bought a quantity of good things to make
one last attack on her by their means. I felt sure that this girl must,
ordinarily, be by no means inaccessible. Something had put her out and
made her irritable, but very little would suffice, a mere word or some
agreeable offer, to decide her and vanquish her.
We started again, and we three were still alone. I spread my eatables on
the seat. I cut up the fowl, put the slices of ham neatly on a piece
of paper, and then carefully laid out our dessert, strawberries, plums,
cherries and cakes, close to the girl.
When she saw that we were about to eat she took a piece of chocolate and
two little crisp cakes out of her pocket and began to munch them.
“Ask her to have some of ours,” Paul said in a whisper.
“That is exactly what I wish to do, but it is rather a difficult
matter.”
As she, however, glanced from time to time at our provisions, I felt
sure that she would still be hungry when she had finished what she had
with her; so, as soon as her frugal meal was over, I said to her:
“It would be very kind of you if you would take some of this fruit.”
Again she said “Mica!” but less crossly than before.
“Well, then,” I said, “may I offer you a little wine? I see you have
not drunk anything. It is Italian wine, and as we are now in your own
country, we should be very pleased to see such a pretty Italian mouth
accept the offer of its French neighbors.”
She shook her head slightly, evidently wishing to refuse, but very
desirous of accepting, and her mica this time was almost polite. I took
the flask, which was covered with straw in the Italian fashion, and
filling the glass, I offered it to her.
“Please drink it,” I said, “to bid us welcome to your country.”
She took the glass with her usual look, and emptied it at a draught,
like a woman consumed with thirst, and then gave it back to me without
even saying “Thank you.”
I then offered her the cherries. “Please take some,” I said; “we shall
be so glad if you will.”
Out of her corner she looked at all the fruit spread out beside her, and
said so rapidly that I could scarcely follow her: “A me non piacciono ne
le ciriegie ne le susine; amo soltano le fragole.”
“What does she say?” Paul asked.
“That she does not care for cherries or plums, but only for
strawberries.”
I put a newspaper full of wild strawberries on her lap, and she ate them
quickly, tossing them into her mouth from some distance in a coquettish
and charming manner.
When she had finished the little red heap, which soon disappeared under
the rapid action of her hands, I asked her:
“What may I offer you now?”
“I will take a little chicken,” she replied.
She certainly devoured half of it, tearing it to pieces with the rapid
movements of her jaws like some carnivorous animal. Then she made up
her mind to have some cherries, which she “did not like,” and then some
plums, then some little cakes. Then she said, “I have had enough,” and
sat back in her corner.
I was much amused, and tried to make her eat more, insisting, in fact,
till she suddenly flew into a rage, and flung such a furious mica at me,
that I would no longer run the risk of spoiling her digestion.
I turned to my friend. “My poor Paul,” I said, “I am afraid we have had
our trouble for nothing.”
The night came on, one of those hot summer nights which extend their
warm shade over the burning and exhausted earth. Here and there, in the
distance, by the sea, on capes and promontories, bright stars, which I
was, at times, almost inclined to confound with lighthouses, began to
shine on the dark horizon:
The scent of the orange trees became more penetrating, and we breathed
with delight, distending our lungs to inhale it more deeply. The balmy
air was soft, delicious, almost divine.
Suddenly I noticed something like a shower of stars under the dense
shade of the trees along the line, where it was quite dark. It might
have been taken for drops of light, leaping, flying, playing and running
among the leaves, or for small stars fallen from the skies in order to
have an excursion on the earth; but they were only fireflies dancing a
strange fiery ballet in the perfumed air.
One of them happened to come into our carriage, and shed its
intermittent light, which seemed to be extinguished one moment and to
be burning the next. I covered the carriage-lamp with its blue shade and
watched the strange fly careering about in its fiery flight. Suddenly
it settled on the dark hair of our neighbor, who was half dozing after
dinner. Paul seemed delighted, with his eyes fixed on the bright,
sparkling spot, which looked like a living jewel on the forehead of the
sleeping woman.
The Italian woke up about eleven o'clock, with the bright insect still
in her hair. When I saw her move, I said: “We are just getting to Genoa,
madame,” and she murmured, without answering me, as if possessed by some
obstinate and embarrassing thought:
“What am I going to do, I wonder?”
And then she suddenly asked:
“Would you like me to come with you?”