“Supposing we bathe!”
“Yes—but—what about costumes?”
“Bah! We are in the desert.” So we bathed—!
If I were a poet I would describe the unforgettable vision of the two young, naked bodies in the transparent water. The shelving, upright cliff enclosed the still waters of the lake, round and shining like a silver coin; the sun poured into it a flood of warm light, and by the rocks the blonde swimmers glided about apparently suspended in the air, by the hardly visible waves. Their movements were reflected on the sand at the bottom of the lake.
26 July.—Some of the people seem to regard my rapid friendship with the two widows with disapproval and condemnation! There are evidently people so constituted that they think the right thing in life is to be bored. Everything that appears amusing at once becomes either a breach of good manners or of morality. For them duty is subject to rigid and deadly gloomy rules.
I would like to point out with all humility that the standard of duty differs for the Mormons, Arabs, Zulus, Turks, the English or the French, and that good people are to be found amongst them all.
I will give an example. In regard to women, a sense of duty is developed at the age of nine in England, whereas in France it does not exist until the age of fifteen. As for me, I take a little from each country, the result being on the lines of the teaching of the saintly King Solomon.
27 July.—Good news. I have lost over a pound in weight. Excellent, this Châtel-Guyon water! I am taking the widows to dine at Riom, a melancholy town whose anagram makes it an undesirable neighbour to healing springs: Riom, Mori.
28 July.—Crash! Bang! Two men have come to fetch my two widows. Two widowers, of course.—They are leaving this evening, they wrote to tell me.
29 July.—Alone! Long excursion on foot to the extinct crater of Nachère. Superb view.
30 July.—Nothing. Am following the treatment.
31 July. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.
This beautiful country is full of disgusting streams. I am drawing the careless town council’s attention to the abominable sewer which poisons the road in front of the hotel. All the kitchen refuse of this place is thrown into it. It makes a good breeding-ground for cholera.
1 August.—Nothing. Treatment.
2 August. Lovely walk to Châteauneuf, centre for rheumatic patients where everybody is lame. Nothing could be funnier than this population of people on crutches.
3 August.—Nothing. Treatment.
4 August.—Ditto. Ditto.
5 August.—Ditto. Ditto.
6 August.—Despair!—I have just been weighed and have put on over half a pound. Well; what then?—
7 August.—Over sixty-six miles’ drive in the mountains. I won’t mention the name of the country out of respect for its women.
This excursion had been suggested to me as beautiful and uncommon. I reached a rather pretty village on the bank of a river, surrounded by a lovely wood of walnut-trees after a four hours’ drive. Hitherto I had never seen so extensive a walnut forest in Auvergne. Moreover, it constitutes all the wealth of the district, for it is planted on common land. Formerly this land was nothing but a bare hillside covered with brushwood. The authorities tried in vain to get it cultivated; it barely sufficed to feed a few sheep.
Today it is a superb wood, thanks to the women, and has a curious name: it is called “The Sins of the Curé.”
It must be acknowledged that the women of this mountain district have the reputation of being loose in character, more so than those of the plain. A boy who meets one anywhere owes her at least one kiss and if he does not take more he is a fool.
To be quite frank, this is the only reasonable and logical way of approaching the question. Since it is recognised that woman’s natural mission is to please man—whether the woman be town or countrybred—the least man can do is to show her that she does please him. If he refrains from any display of feeling, it means that he considers her ugly, which amounts to an insult. If I were a woman I would never receive a man a second time who had not been wanting in respect at the first meeting; I would consider that he had failed to appreciate my beauty, my charm, my essential womanhood.
So the bachelors of the village X often proved to the women of the district that they found them to their taste, and the curé, who could not succeed in preventing these gallant and perfectly natural demonstrations, decided to turn them to some profit. So every woman who made a slip had to do penance by planting a walnut on the common land, and, night after night, lanterns might be seen twinkling on the hillside like will-o’-the-wisps; for the guilty were not anxious to make atonement in broad daylight.
In two years’ time there was no more room on the land belonging to the village, and there are now said to be over three thousand magnificent trees whose foliage conceals the belfry that calls the faithful to prayer and praise. These are “The Sins of the Curé.”
A way to reafforest France has been sought for so eagerly that the Administration of Forests might come to an understanding with the clergy and use the simple method invented by this humble curé.
7 August.—Treatment.
8 August.—I am packing up and bidding farewell to this charming spot, so peaceful and silent, to the green mountain, the quiet valleys, the deserted casino from whence you can see the immense plain of Limagne, always veiled in its light, bluish mist. I shall leave tomorrow.
There the manuscript stopped. I will add nothing to it, my
