CHAPTER V.VALMAJOUR.
It takes hardly more than two hours to drive from Aps to Cordova Mountain provided the wind is astern. Drawn by the two old horses from the Camargue, the carriage went almost by itself, propelled by the mistral which shook and rattled it, beating on its leather hood and curtains or blowing them out like sails.
Out here it did not bellow any more as it did round the ramparts and through the vaulted passages of the town; but, free of all obstacles, driving before it the great plain itself, where a solitary farm and some peasant manses here and there, forming gray spots in the green landscape, seemed the scattering of a village by the storm, the wind passed in the form of smoke before the sky, and like sudden dashes of surf over the tall wheat and olive orchards, whose silvery leaves it made to flutter like a swarm of butterflies. Then with sudden rebounds that raised in blond masses the dust that crackled under the wheels it fell upon the files of closely pressed cypresses and the Spanish reeds with their long rustling leaves, which made one feel that there was a river flowing beside the road. When for one moment it stopped, as ifshort of breath, one felt all the weight of summer; then a truly African heat rose from the earth, which was soon driven off by the wholesome, revivifying hurricane, extending its jovial dance to the very farthest point on the horizon, to those little dull, grayish mounds which are seen on the horizon in all Provençal landscapes, but which the sunset turns to iridescent tints of fairyland.
They did not meet many people. An occasional huge wagon from the quarries filled with hewn stones, blinding in the sunlight; an old peasant woman from Ville-des-Baux bending under a greatcouffinor basket of sweet-smelling herbs; the robe of a mendicant friar with a sack on his back and a rosary round his waist, his hard, tonsured head sweating and shining like a Durance pebble; or else a group of people returning from a pilgrimage, a wagon-load of women and girls in holiday attire, with fine black eyes, big chignons and bright-colored ribbons, coming from Sainte Baume or Notre-Dame-de-Lumière. Well, the mistral gave to all these people, to hard labor, to wretchedness and to superstition the same flow of health and good spirits, gathering up and scattering again during its rushes the hymn of the monk, the shrill canticles of the pilgrims, the bells and jingling blue glass beads of the horses and the “Dia! hue!” of the carters, as well as the popular refrain that Numa, intoxicated by the breeze of his native land, poured forth with all the power of his lungs and with wide gesticulations that were waved from both the carriage doors at once:
“Beau soleil de la Provence,Gai compère du mistral!”(Splendid sun of old Provence,Of the mistral comrade gay!)
“Beau soleil de la Provence,Gai compère du mistral!”(Splendid sun of old Provence,Of the mistral comrade gay!)
“Beau soleil de la Provence,Gai compère du mistral!”(Splendid sun of old Provence,Of the mistral comrade gay!)
“Beau soleil de la Provence,
Gai compère du mistral!”
(Splendid sun of old Provence,
Of the mistral comrade gay!)
Suddenly he cried to the coachman: “Here! Ménicle, Ménicle!”
“Monsieur Numa?”
“What is that stone building on the other side of the Rhône?”
“That, Monsieur Numa, is thejonjonof Queen Jeanne.”
“Oh, yes, that’s so—I remember; poorjonjon!Its name is as much of a ruin as the tower itself!”
And then he told Hortense the story of the royal dungeon, for he was thoroughly grounded in his native legends.
That ruined and rusty tower up there dated from the time of the Saracen invasion, although more modern than the ruin of the abbey near it, a bit of whose half crumbled wall still remained standing near at hand, with its row of narrow windows showing against the sky and its big ogival doorway. He showed her, against the rocky slope, a worn pathway leading to a pond that shone like a cup of crystal, where the monks used to go to fish for eels and carp for the table of the abbot. As they looked at the lovely spot Numa remarked that the men of God had always known how to select the choicest spots in which to pass their comfortable, restful lives, generally choosing the summits where they might soar and dream, but whencethey descended upon the quiet valleys and levied their toll on all the good things from the surrounding villages.
Oh, Provence in the Middle Ages! land of the troubadours and courts of beauty!
Now briers dislocate the stones of the terraces erstwhile swept by the trains of courtly beauties—Stephenettes or Azalaïses—while ospreys and owls scream at night in the place where the dead and gone troubadours used to sing! But was there not still a perfume of delicate beauty, a charming Italian coquetry pervading this landscape of the Alpilles, like the quiver of a lute or viol floating through the pure, still air?
Numa grew excited, forgetting that he had only his sister-in-law and old Ménicle’s blue cloak for audience, and, after a few commonplaces fit for local banquets and meetings of the Academy, broke forth into one of those ingenious and brilliant impromptus that proved him to be indeed the descendant of the light Provençal troubadours.
“There is Valmajour!” said Ménicle all at once, pointing upwards with his whip as he leaned round on the box.
They had left the highroad and were climbing a zigzag path up the side of Cordova Mountain, narrow and slippery with the lavender whose fragrance filled the air with a smell of burnt incense as the carriage wheels passed. On a plateau half way up, at the foot of a black, dilapidated tower, the roofs of the farmstead could be seen. Here it was that for years and years the Valmajours hadlived, from father to son, on the site of the old château whose name abided with them. And who knows? perhaps these peasants really were the descendants of the princes of Valmajour, related to the counts of Provence and to the house of Baux. This idea, imprudently expressed by Roumestan, was eagerly taken up by Hortense, who thus accounted to herself for the really high-bred manners of the taborist.
As they conversed in the carriage on the subject Ménicle listened to their talk in amazement from his box. The name of Valmajour was common enough in the province; there were mountain Valmajours and Valmajours of the valley, according as they dwelt on upland or on plain. “So they are all noblemen!” he wondered. But the astute Provençal kept his thoughts on the subject to himself.
As they advanced further into this desolate but beautiful landscape the imagination of the young girl, excited by Numa’s animated conversation, gave free vent to its romantic impressions, stimulated by the brightly-colored fantasies of the past; and looking upward and seeing a peasant woman sitting on a buttress of the ruined tower, watching the approach of the strangers, her face in profile, her hand shading her eyes from the sun, she imagined she saw some princess wearing the mediæval wimple gazing down upon them from her feudal tower—like an illustration in an old book.
The illusion was hardly dispelled when, on leavingthe carriage, they saw before them the sister of the taborist, who was making willow screens for silk worms. She did not rise, although Ménicle had shouted to her from a distance: “Vé!Audiberte, here are visitors for your brother!” Her face with its delicate, regular features, long and green as an unripe olive, expressed neither pleasure nor surprise, but kept the concentrated look that brought the heavy black eyebrows together in front and seemed to tie a knot below her obstinate brows, as if with a hard, fixed line. Numa, somewhat taken aback by this frigid reception, said hastily: “I am Numa Roumestan, the deputy—”
“Oh, I know who you are well enough,” she answered gravely, and throwing down her work in a heap by her side: “Come in a moment, my brother will be here presently.”
When she stood up their hostess lost her imposing appearance; short of stature, with a large bust, she walked with an ungraceful waddle that spoiled the effect of her pretty head charmingly set off by the little Arles head-dress and the picturesque fichu of white muslin with its bluish shadow in every fold which she wore over her shoulders. She led her guests into the house. This peasant’s cottage, leaning up against its ruined tower, seemed to have imbibed a distinguished air, with its coat-of-arms in stone over a door shaded by an awning of reeds cracked by the heat of the sun and its big curtain of checked muslin stretched across the door to keep out the mosquitoes. The old guard-room, with its ceiling riddled by cracks, its tall,ancient chimneypiece and its white walls, was lighted only by small green-glass windows and the curtain stretched across the door.
In the dim light could be seen the black wooden kneading-trough, shaped like a sarcophagus, carved with designs of wheat and flowers; over it hung the open-work wicker bread-basket, ornamented with little Moorish bells, in which the bread is kept fresh in Provençal farm-houses. Two or three sacred images, the Virgin, Saint Martha and thetarasque, a small red copper lamp of antique form hanging from the beak of a mocking-bird carved in white wood by one of the shepherds, and on each side of the fireplace the salt and the flour boxes, completed the furniture of the big room, not forgetting a large sea-shell, with which they called the cattle home, glittering on the mantelpiece above the hearth.
A long table ran lengthwise through the hall, on each side of which were benches and stools. From the ceiling hung strings of onions black with flies, that buzzed loudly whenever the door curtain was raised.
“Take a seat, sir—a seat, madame; you must share thegrand boirewith us.”
Thegrand boireor “big drink” is the lunch partaken of wherever the peasants are working—out in the fields, under the trees, in the shade of a mill, or in a roadside ditch. But the Valmajours took theirs in the house, as they were at work near by. The table was already laid with little yellow earthen dishes in which were pickled olives andromaine salad shining with oil. In the willow stand where the bottles and glasses are kept Numa thought he saw some wine.
“So you still have vineyards up here?” he asked smilingly, trying to ingratiate himself with this queer little savage. But at the word “vineyards” she sprang to her feet like a goat bitten by an asp, and in a moment her voice struck the full note of indignation. Vines! oh, yes! nice luck they had had with their vineyards! Out of five only one was left to them—the smallest one, too, and that they had to keep under water half the year,—water from theroubineat that, costing them their last sou! And all that—who was to blame for it? the Reds, those swine, those monsters, the Reds and their godless republic, that had let loose all the devils of hell upon the country!
As she spoke in this passionate manner her eyes grew blacker with the murky look of an assassin; her pretty face was all convulsed and disfigured, her mouth was distorted and her black eyebrows made with their knot a big lump in the middle of her brow. The strangest of all was that in spite of her fury she continued her peaceful avocations, making the coffee, blowing the fire, coming and going, gesticulating with whatever was in her hand, the bellows or the coffee-pot, or a blazing brand of vine-wood from the fire, which she brandished like the torch of a Fury. Suddenly she calmed down.
“Here is my brother,” she said.
The rustic curtain, brushed aside, let in a flood ofwhite sunlight against which appeared the tall form of Valmajour, followed by a little old man with a smooth face, sunburned until it was as black and gnarled as the root of a diseased vine. Neither father nor son showed any more excitement at the sight of the visitors than Audiberte.
The first greeting over, they seated themselves at the table, on which had been spread the contents of the two baskets that Roumestan had brought in the carriage, at sight of which the eyes of old Valmajour shone with little joyous sparkles. Roumestan, who could not recover from the want of enthusiasm about himself shown by these peasants, began at once to speak of the great success on the Sunday at the amphitheatre. That must have made him proud of his son!
“Yes, yes,” mumbled the old man, spearing his olives with his knife. “But I too in my time used to get prizes myself for my tabor-playing”—and he smiled the same wicked smile that had played on his daughter’s lips in her recent gust of temper. Very peaceful just now, Audiberte sat upon the hearthstone with her plate upon her knees; for, although she was the mistress of the house and a very tyrannical one at that, she still obeyed the ancient Provençal custom that did not allow the women to sit at the table and eat with their men. But from that humble spot she listened attentively all the while to what they were saying and shook her head when they spoke of the festival at the amphitheatre. She did not care for the tabor, herself—nani!no indeed! Her mother had beenkilled by the bad blood her father’s love for it had occasioned. It was a profession, look you, fit for drunkards; it kept people from profitable work and cost more money than it made.
“Well then, let him come to Paris,” said Roumestan. “Take my word for it, his tabor will coin money for him there....”
Spurred on by the utter incredulity of the country girl, he tried to make her understand how capricious Paris was and how the city would pay almost anything to gratify its whims. He told her of the success of old Mathurin, who used to play the bagpipes at the “Closerie des Genets,” and how inferior were the Breton bagpipes, coarse and shrieking, fit only for Esquimaux in the Polar Circle to dance to, when compared with the tabor of Provence, so pretty, so delicate and high-bred! He could tell them that all the Parisian women would go wild over it and all wish to dance thefarandole. Hortense also grew excited and put in her oar, while the taborist smiled vaguely and twirled his brown moustache with the fatuous air of a lady-killer.
“Well now, come! Give me an idea what he would earn by his music!” cried the peasant girl. Roumestan thought a moment. He could not say precisely. One hundred and fifty to two hundredfrancs—
“A month?” quoth the old man excitedly.
“Heavens! no—a day!”
The three peasants started and then looked at each other. From any one else but M. Numathe deputy, member of the General Council, they would have suspected a joke, agaléjade!But with him of course the matter was serious. Two hundred francs a day—foutré!The musician himself wished to go at once, but his more prudent sister would have liked to draw up a paper for Roumestan to sign; and then quietly, with lowered eyelids, that the money greed in her eyes might not be seen, she began to canvass the matter in her hypocritical voice.
Valmajour was so much needed at home,pécaïré!He took care of the property, ploughed, dressed the vines, his father being too old now for such work. What should they do if her brother went away? And he—he would be sure to be homesick alone in Paris, and his money, his two hundred francs a day, who would take care of it in that awful great city? And her voice hardened as she spoke of money that she could not take care of and stow carefully away in her most secret drawer.
“Well,” said Roumestan, “come to Paris with him.”
“And the house?”
“Leave it or sell it. You can buy a much better one when you come back.”
He hesitated as Hortense glanced warningly at him, and, as if remorseful for disturbing the quiet life of these simple people, he said:
“After all, there is a great deal besides money in this life. You are lucky enough as you are.”
Audiberte interrupted him sharply: “Lucky?Existence is a struggle; things are not as they used to be!”—and she began again to whine about the vineyards, the silk-worms, the madder, the vermilion and all the other vanished riches of the country. Nowadays one had to work in the sun like cart-horses. It is true that they expected to inherit the fortune of Cousin Puyfourcat, the colonist in Algiers, but Algeria is so far away; and then the astute little peasant, in order to warm Numa up, whom she reproached herself for causing to lose some of his enthusiasm on the subject, turned in a catty way to her brother and said in her coaxing, singsong voice:
“Qué, Valmajour! suppose you play something for the pleasure of the pretty young lady.”
Ah, clever girl! she was not mistaken. At the first blow of the stick, at the first pearly notes of the fife Roumestan was trapped once more and went into raptures.
The musician leaned against the curb of an old well in front of the farmhouse door. Over the well was an iron frame, round which a wild fig-tree had wound itself and made a marvellously picturesque background for his handsome figure and swarthy face. With his bare arms, his dusty, toil-worn garments, his uncovered sun-browned breast, he looked nobler and prouder than he had appeared when in the arena, where his natural grace had a somewhat tawdry touch through a certain striving after theatrical effect. The old airs that he played on his rustic instrument, made poetic by the solitude and silence of the mountains and wakingthe ancient golden ruins from their slumbers in stone, floated like skylarks round the slopes all gray with lavender or checkered with wheat and dead vines and mulberry-trees with their broad leaves casting longer but lighter shadows on the grass at their feet. The wind had gone down. The setting sun played upon the violet line of the Alpilles and poured into the hollows of the rocks a very mirage of lakes, of liquid porphyry and of molten gold.
All along the horizon there seemed as it were a luminous vibration, like the stretched cords of a lyre, to which the song of the crickets and the hum of the tabor furnished the sonorous base. Silent and delighted, Hortense, seated on the parapet of the old tower, leaning her elbow on the fragment of a broken column near which a pomegranate grew, listened and admired while she let her romantic little mind wander, filled with the legends and stories that Roumestan had told her on the way to the farm.
She pictured to herself the old château rising from its ruins, its towers rebuilt, its gates renewed, its cloister-like arches peopled with lovely women in long-bodiced gowns, with those pale, clear complexions that the sun cannot injure. She herself was a princess of the house of Baux with a pretty name of some saint in a missal and the musician who was giving her a morning greeting was also a prince, the last of the Valmajours, dressed in the costume of a peasant.
“Of a certes, ywis, the song once finished,” asthe chroniclers of the courts of love of old used to say, she broke from the tree above her a bunch of pomegranate blossoms and held it out to the musician as the prize won by his playing. He received it with gallantry and wound it round the strings of his tabor.