I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the
steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious
orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night
there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs.
Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these
red and white sails are spread out to air.
How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and
practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close
season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be
more bustling than the sea just now--the sea that in winter was as
silent and deserted as a graveyard.
People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I
see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a dog to
frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling
after some dear and distant female friend.
* * * * *
How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky
thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him.
But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a
walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him
when he passes by.
Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour.
Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the
savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well
seasoned.
Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he
walks from his hips, and his fine carriage.
Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from
trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his
sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I have given her permission to
do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses
with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work.
* * * * *