One of the most spontaneous, infectious laughs that I have ever heard,
was in the market place at Bordeaux, from a market woman keeping one of
the stalls. It was like the trill of a lark springing upwards for pure,
light-hearted impulse of gaiety. In it seemed impressed the whole soul
of humour.
There is so much in a laugh. Some laughs make one instantly desire
to be grave: some are absolutely mirthless, but are part of one's
conventional equipment, and come in handy when some sort of a
conversational squib has been thrown into the midst of a drawing-room
full of people, and does not go off as it was expected to do. But the
laugh born of the very spirit of humour itself is rare indeed.
The laugh of the woman in the market place at Bordeaux, was one of
these last. What provoked it I have forgotten, but I rather fancy it
was in some way connected with my camera, as a few moments later she
was exclaiming to her companions, her whole face beaming with pleasure,
"_Ah! je suis pris! je suis pris!_" Her voice was like a little,
dancing, sparkling Yorkshire beck that is continually and musically,
garrulous. It was full of those little sympathetic descents, when
pitying or condoling, which never fall on one's ear so delicately as
from a Frenchwoman's tongue. How heavily drag most of our own chariot
wheels of voice modulation compared with hers! For her sentences in
this respect are all coloured, and ours are often inexpressive, often
humourless.
It may be--and perhaps this is a possible hypothesis--that our words
mean more than hers, but to be bald, if only in expression, is almost
as bad as to be bald on the top of one's head!
In the market our first glimpse in the dull gloom of the tarpaulins,
was of huge pumpkins sliced open, their vivid yellow showing in sharp
outline against the sooty black of the flapping canvas: cool pineapples
wearing still their soft prickly leaves and stalks; the dull crimson of
the beetroot: the large open baskets filled with _ceps_, (the fungus
common in the neighbourhood, which is like a mushroom, only much
larger, and with tiny roots at its base), and with the curious looking
bits of warty earth, or dried, dingy sponges, which truffles resemble
more than anything else, when first gathered. There was a continuous
conversation from all quarters going on as we entered the market, which
fell on one's ears like the roar of surf on a distant shore.
In one corner, a little party of four stall holders was sitting down to
dinner. The inevitable little bottle of red wine figured on the table,
and some hot stew had just been produced, accompanied by the familiar
twisted roll of bread which is always a welcome adjunct to any board,
whether of high degree or low--the medium betwixt the bread and lip of
course being the knife of peculiar shape which one sees everywhere.
Everywhere one met with a ready smile, charming courtesy and kindly
interest. For some unknown reason we were taken for Americans in almost
every place to which we went! Occasionally, I must confess, I received
more "interest" than I care for. For instance, when sketching in the
Rue Quai-Bourgeois, I was sometimes aimed at from an upper window with
bits of stale bread and apple parings, which luckily failed of their
mark and fell harmlessly at my feet! And when trying to "take" some old
doorway, people, now and again governed by the idea that human nature
must always surpass in interest their dwellings, would strike a pose
in the doorway, or leaning against the doorpost itself, hinder one's
getting sight of it in its entirety.
Not content even with this, it did on occasion happen that a man would
come so close to the lens of the camera that he literally blocked it
up! Once a whole family party came down and stood, or sat, in becoming
attitudes before the door, all having assumed the pleasing smile which
they consider to be a _sine quâ non_ on such occasions. It really
went to my heart not to take them, but I was reserving my last plate
that afternoon for a particularly charming old doorway farther on.
As I turned away I saw with the tail of my eye the smiles smoothing
themselves out, the man's arm slipping down from the waist of the girl
beside him, the surprised disappointment sweeping across the group
of faces like a cloud across the sun, and I almost "weakened" on my
doorway!
I remember once, some years ago, in Belgium, my modest camera attracted
so much attention that I speedily became the centre of an enormous
crowd, which increased every minute in bulk, so that at last the street
was blocked and all traffic suspended.
Bordeaux is a city of barrels. They are the first thing you see as you
leave the station. They line the quay side: barrels yellow, barrels
green, barrels blue. They meet you daily as you pass along the streets,
whether they lie along the road, or whether they are being conveyed
in one of the large, fenced-in carts, whose horses are covered with a
faded "art-green" horse cloth, and who wear over the collar a curious
black wool top-knot.