To go to Arcachon in autumn is to have spread before one's eyes,
for almost the entire journey, a perfect feast of colour. I never
in my life saw such a magnificent revel of tints massed together
in profusion, scattered broadcast over the country so lavishly and
unstintingly, as passed rapidly before my eyes that day.
The vivid yellow of dwarf acacias; the brilliant crimson of some of the
vines; the dazzling gold of others; the dark sombre, olive green of the
dwarf pine-trees flecked here and there with splashes of vivid chrome
yellow from the embroidery on their bark of some lichen; here and there
a high ledge of thorn trees of pronounced terra-cotta. The prevailing
note of colour everywhere was a deep russet; in some places merging
into brilliant orange, picked out in sharp contrast with the pale
yellow leaves of the acacia, and the fainter speckling of those of the
silver birch, clear against the white glare of its trunk.
The whole of Nature's paint-box seemed flung into one passionate last
declaration of colour on the canvas of the dying year. Flaming red,
soft carmine, deepening into vermilion; rich orange fading to darker
crimson; soft lilac changing swiftly to purple. The whole atmosphere,
as far as the eye could reach, seemed flaming, shimmering with a glow
as of a gorgeous sunset; red seemed literally painted deep into the
air; it seemed pulsing with flame colour. High on the banks were piled
the ferns in huge masses of crimson and rich chocolate brown; here
and there turning to brick red the dying fronds carpeting thickly the
ground all around and beneath the trees.
Now and again, coming as almost a relief from the very excess of vivid
colour, would show up the welcome contrast given by a stretch of cold
lilac slate, and in the middle distance a line of the faintest rose
pink, delicate in tone, and indefinite as to outline. Beyond that,
the pale blue of the distant pines, far up the rising ground upon
the horizon. The stems of the pines are a rich, red brown, flaked in
places, and covered, some of them, with various coloured lichens and
fungi. These trees are, most of them, seamed and scarred with one slash
down the middle for the resin. At a few inches from the ground is
fastened a little cup, into which the resin flows, and at certain times
men go round to collect the cupfuls. Each _résinier_ has, in order to
earn his livelihood, to notch three hundred pines each day; this is
done with a sort of hatchet. The little cups were an invention of a
Frenchman named Hughes, in 1844, but were never used until some time
after his death; so he personally reaped no benefit from the invention.
After the oil is collected, it is subjected to many distillations,
some of which, as it is well known, are used medically. Here and
there in the woods are stacked, in the shape of a hut, sloped and
sloping, little bundles of faggots. Under the trees, white against the
sombre shade of the pines, gleam the sandy paths which traverse the
wide heathy plains which, alternately with the forests, make up the
landscape of this part of the Landes. These are varied, now and again,
by roads the colour of rich iron ore. The fences here are all made of
the thinnest lath striplings and seem put up more as suggestions than
to compel!
On the plains, cows wandered, accompanied always by their own special
woman (generally well on in years, with a huge overshadowing hat and
large umbrella) in waiting, who paused when the cow paused, moved on
when she moved on, ruminated when she ruminated,--"Where the cow goes,
there go I," her day's motto. We often saw a solitary cow meandering
about up the middle path between two clumps of vines, and nibbling
thoughtfully at the leaves of the vines themselves; these last looking
like gooseberry bushes. Sometimes a countrywoman would drive three
cows in front of her, and besides that would push a wheelbarrow full of
cabbages. Other women, again, we noticed working on the line, and some
washing in a stream, clad in red knickerbockers and huge boots.
As a rule, unlike our own spoilt meadows, the country is singularly
little disfigured by advertisements, but everywhere we went we were
confronted by the haunting words, "_Amer picon_," sometimes in placards
on a cottage wall, sometimes in a field, sometimes blazoned up on a
platform. At last it became so inevitable and so familiar, that we
used to feel quite lost if a day should go by without a trace of its
mystical letters anywhere! It occurred as continually before our eyes
as the word "_gentil_" sounds on one's ears from the lips of the French
madame. And everyone knows how often _that_ is!
Just before reaching the station of Arcachon, our carriage stopped
close beside a line of trucks. French trucks, in this part of the
country, have an individuality all their own. They have a little
twisting iron staircase, a little covered box seat high above the
trucks' business end, and very wonderful inscriptions along their
sides. On these we made out that it was etiquette for "Hommes 32,
40," and "Chevaux 8" to travel together! But if it were etiquette
for them to do so, it would certainly, in practice, be as cramping
and reasonless as are many of the injunctions of etiquette in social
matters!
Arrived at Arcachon, we found an array of curious cabs, furnished
inside with curtains on rings, of all kinds of flowrery patterns in
which very fully-blown roses and enormous chrysanthemums figured
largely. In one of these we drove to the hotel among the pines, to
which as we thought we had been recommended. It turned out, later,
that we had not been directed to that hotel at all, but then it
was too late to change. No one in this hotel could speak a word of
English intelligibly. We found later on that the _concierge_ could
say "va-terre," "Rome," "carrich" and "yes," but as these words
had to be said many times before they even approached the distant
semblance of any English words one had ever heard, and as, even when
understood, they did not convey much information, taken singly and not
in connection with any previous sentence, his assistance as interpreter
was not to be counted on.
I went the round of the bedrooms accompanied by the manageress. She
managed a good deal with her hands in the way of language, and I
managed some, with the aid of my little dictionary, which was my
inseparable companion throughout our entire trip, always excepting
the nights; and even then I am not sure if I did not have it under my
pillow!
Somehow the hotel had an empty feeling about its passages and rooms,
and the bedroom shutters were all barred and consequently, when
opened by the manageress, gave a sort of deserted, half drowsy air to
the rooms, which prevented my being at all impressed with them. We
descended the stairs again, my companion talking volubly but, to me,
(owing to an unfortunate personal disability for all languages except
my own), unintelligibly almost.
On our return to the entrance hall I found that an expectant group
awaited us, consisting of the hotel proprietor, the _concierge_, a
chambermaid, a daughter of the house, my friend and the coachman of the
flowery-papered cab. Our luggage had also put in an appearance and was
on the step by the door.
Nothing in the world--as far, of course, as regards minor matters of
life--is so difficult or so unpleasant to retreat from, as is hotel,
after you have been inspecting it in company with its authorities,
when they definitely expect you mean to remain, and when your luggage
has been removed from your cab by your too obsequious coachman! I
felt my decision weaken, die in my throat. I had fully meant on
the way downstairs to declare a negative to mine host's offer of
accommodation. Presently I had swallowed it, for on what ground could I
now trump up an excuse, and direct the removal of our portmanteaux to
an adjoining hotel? and the next thing was to face the thing like a man
and order our traps to be taken to our room.
And, after all, we were very fairly comfortable during our stay, until
confronted by an exorbitant charge at the end--my disinclination
to remain, in the first instance, being merely due to the somewhat
forsaken, gloomy look of the rooms, giving a certain oppressive
introductory atmosphere to the hotel.
November is the "off" season at Arcachon, and I can well understand
that it should be so, for there seemed no particular reason why anybody
should go and stay there at that time! I had been recommended, rather
mistakenly as it afterwards proved, to try it for my health, but it was
so bitterly cold the whole time of our stay that I rather regretted
having gone there at all, as I had come abroad in search of a mild,
warm climate. However, one good point in the hotel was that the
_salle-à-manger_ was always well warmed, and evenly warmed, with pipes
round the walls, and it was exceedingly prettily situated in the midst
of the pines.
There were but twelve of us who daily frequented it; and we might
almost have belonged to the Trappist Order for all the conversation
that was heard. Never have I been at such quiet _table d'hôtes_ as
those that took place there. The company consisted of an old man
and his wife, who kept their table napkins in a flowery chintz case
which the man never could tackle, but left to the woman's skill to
manipulate each evening. Both seemed to think laughter was most wrong
and improper in public. A consumptive, very shy young man who had to
have a hot bottle for his feet; a consumptive older man whose continual
cough approached sometimes, during the courses, to the very verge of
something else, and who passed his handkerchief from time to time
to his mother for inspection; a very bent and solitary man by the
door who had "shallow" hair growing off his temples, deeply sunken
eyes, black moustache and receding chin, and who had the air of a
conspirator, and a few other uninteresting couples.
The _menu_ was delightfully worded sometimes. Such items as "Veal
beaten with carrots," "Daubed green sauce," "Brains in butter," proved
no more attractive to the palate than they were to the eye. But, apart
from these delicacies, the fare was exceedingly appetising; oysters,
as common as sparrows, played always a large part, (the charge per
dozen, 1½ d.) Then, the last thing at night, our cheerful, bright-faced
chambermaid used to bring us the most delicious iced milk.
There was a curious, but so far as we could see un-enforced, regulation
hung up in the _salle-à-manger_, to the effect that if one was late
for _table d'hôte_ one would be punished by a fine of fifty centimes.
The evenings we usually spent in our bedroom; it being the off-season
there was practically nowhere else to go to. But it was cosy enough up
there, with our pine log fire blazing up the chimney, its brown streams
of liquid resin running down the surface of the wood, alight, and
dripping from time to time in dazzling splashes on to the tiles below.
The only drawback to our comfort--and it was a drawback--was that
the young man who had such unpleasant coughs and upheavals during
_table d'hôte_ paced restlessly and creakily up and down overhead
continuously, both in the evening as well as in the early morning, and
was, to judge by the sounds, always trying the effects of his bedroom
furniture in different parts of the room, and generally altering its
geography. He had quite as pronounced a craze for patrolling as had
John Gabriel Borkman.
There are few more irritating sounds, I think, than a creak, whether
it be of the human boot or of a door. Of the many penances which have
been devised from time to time could there be a more irritating form
of nerve flagellation than an insistent, recurring squeak when you are
vainly endeavouring to write an article, an important letter, or, if it
be night, to get to sleep? A squeak in two parts, as this particular
one was, was calculated to make one ready for any deed of violence!
One knew so well when one must expect to hear it, that it got in time
to be like the hole in a stocking which, as an old nurse's dictum ran,
one "looks for, but hopes never to find!" Thus one half unconsciously
listened for the creak. So great is the power of the Insignificant
Thing!
There were other sounds which broke the stillness of the night at
Arcachon. In England cocks crow, according to well-authenticated
tradition, handed down from cock to cock from primitive times, at
daybreak; in Arcachon they crow all through the night and, indeed,
keep time with the hours. They have, too, a more elaborate and ornate
crow. They do not accentuate, as ours do, the final "doo," but
introduce instead semi-quavers in the "dle;" so that it sounds thus:
"Cock-a-doo-a-doo-dle-doo." I noticed that they had a tendency to leave
off awhile at daybreak, while it was yet dark.
Then, sounding mysteriously and from afar on one's ear, came the quick
tones of the bell calling to early Mass from the little church in the
village street below.
Of ancient history Arcachon has its share. It was, in the thirteenth
century, the port of the Boiens, and in old records one finds it
mentioned under the name "Aecaixon" or "Arcasson," "Arcanson" being a
word used to designate one of the resin manufactures. In the beginning
of things, Arcachon was nothing but a desert, its forest surrounding
the little chapel founded by Thomas Illyricus for the seamen. During
the whole of the middle ages the country had the entire monopoly of the
pine oil industry, which was turned to account in so many ways.