A Humble Drama
Meetings constitute the charm of travelling. Who does not know the joy of coming, five hundred leagues from one’s native land, upon a man from Paris, a college friend, or a neighbour in the country? Who has not spent a night, unable to sleep, in the little jingling stagecoach of countries where steam is still unknown, beside a strange young woman, half seen by the gleam of the lantern when she clambered into the carriage at the door of a white house in a little town?
And, when morning comes, and brain and ears are still numbed by the perpetual ringing of the bells and the noisy clatter of the windows, how charming to see your pretty tousled neighbour open her eyes, look about her, arrange her rebellious tresses with the tips of her slim fingers, adjust her hat, feel with her skilful hand whether her corsets have not slipped, whether her person is as it should be, and her skirt not too crushed!
She gives you, too, a single cold, inquisitive glance. Then she settles herself into her corner and seems to have no eyes for anything but the landscape.
In spite of yourself, you stare at her all the time: you think of her the whole time in spite of yourself. What is she? Where has she come from? Where is she going to? In spite of yourself, you sketch a little romance in your mind. She is pretty; she seems charming! Happy man! … Life might be exquisite by her side. Who knows? Perhaps she is the woman necessary to our emotions, our dreams, our desires.
And how delicious, too, is the regret with which you see her get off at the gate of a country-house. A man is waiting there with two children and two servants. He takes her in his arms and kisses her as he helps her down. She stoops and takes up the little ones who are stretching out their hands, and caresses them lovingly; they go off down a path while the maids take the boxes which the conductor is handing down from the roof.
Goodbye! It is finished. You will never see her again. Goodbye to the woman who has spent the night at your side. You never knew her, never spoke to her; still you are a little sad when she goes. Goodbye!
I have many of these memories of travel, grave and gay.
I was in Auvergne, wandering on foot among those delightful French mountains, not too high, not too wild, but friendly and homely. I had climbed the Sancy, and was just going into a little inn, near a pilgrims’ chapel named Notre Dame de Vassivière, when I noticed an old woman, a strange, absurd figure, lunching by herself at the table inside.
She was at least seventy, tall, withered, and angular, with white hair arranged in old-fashioned sausage curls on her temples. She was dressed in the quaint and clumsy style of the wandering Englishwoman, like a person to whom clothes were a matter of complete indifference; she was eating an omelette and drinking water.
She had an odd expression, with restless eyes, the face of one whom life has treated harshly. I stared at her in spite of myself, wondering: “Who is she? What sort of thing is this woman’s life? Why is she wandering all alone in these mountains?”
She paid, then rose to go, readjusting upon her shoulders an extraordinary little shawl, whose two ends hung down over her arms. She took from a corner a long alpenstock covered with names engraved in the rusty iron, then walked out, straight and stiff, with the long strides of a postman setting off on his round.
A guide was waiting for her at the door. They moved off. I watched them descend the valley, along the road indicated by a line of high wooden crosses. She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster than he.
Two hours later I was climbing up the brim of that deep funnel in the heart of which, in a vast and wonderful green cavity filled with trees, bushes, rocks, and flowers, lies Lake Pavin, so round that it looks as though it had been made with a compass, so clear and blue that one might suppose it a flood of azure poured down from the sky, so charming that one would like to live
