II
“We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished a study which seemed to me rather striking. It must have been, for it was sold for ten thousand francs, fifteen years later. It was as simple, however, as twice two make four, and had nothing to do with academic rules. The whole of the right side of my canvas represented a rock, an enormous jagged rock, covered with seawrack, brown, yellow, and red, across which the sun poured like a stream of oil. The light fell upon the stone, and gilded it as if with fire, but the sun itself was behind me and could not be seen. That was all. A foreground dazzling with light, blazing, superb.
“On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-coloured sea, but a sea of jade, greenish, milky, and hard under the overcast sky.
“I was so pleased with my work that I danced as I carried it back to the inn. I wished that the whole world could have seen it at one and the same moment. I can remember that I showed it to a cow, which was browsing by the wayside, exclaiming, at the same time: ‘Look at that, my old beauty; you will not often see its like again.’
“When I had reached the front of the house, I immediately called out to Mother Lecacheur, bawling with all my might:
“ ‘Hello, there, Landlady! Come here and look at this.’
“The woman came and looked at my work with stupid eyes, which distinguished nothing, and did not even recognize whether the picture represented an ox or a house.
“Miss Harriet was coming into the house, and she passed behind me just at the moment when, holding out my canvas at arm’s length, I was exhibiting it to the female innkeeper. The ‘demoniac’ could not help but see it, for I took care to exhibit the thing in such a way that it could not escape her notice. She stopped abruptly and stood motionless, stupefied. It was her rock which was depicted, the one which she usually climbed to dream away her time undisturbed.
“She uttered a British ‘Oh,’ which was at once so accentuated and so flattering, that I turned round to her, smiling, and said:
“ ‘This is my latest study, Mademoiselle.’
“She murmured ecstatically, comically, and tenderly:
“ ‘Oh! Monsieur, you understand nature in a most thrilling way!’
“I coloured up, of course, and was more excited by that compliment than if it had come from a queen. I was seduced, conquered, vanquished. I could have embraced her—upon my honour.
“I took my seat at the table beside her, as I had always done. For the first time, she spoke, drawling out in a loud voice:
“ ‘Oh! I love nature so much.’
“I offered her some bread, some water, some wine. She now accepted these with the vacant smile of a mummy. I then began to converse with her about the scenery.
“After the meal, we rose from the table together and walked leisurely across the court; then, attracted by the fiery glow which the setting sun cast over the surface of the sea, I opened the outside gate which faced in the direction of the cliff, and we walked on side by side, as satisfied as any two persons could be who have just learned to understand and penetrate each other’s motives and feelings.
“It was a misty, relaxing evening, one of those enjoyable evenings which impart happiness to mind and body alike. All is joy, all is charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfume of grass, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odour of the wild flowers, caresses the nostrils with its wild perfume, the palate with its salty savour, the soul with a penetrating sweetness. We were going to the brink of the abyss which overlooked the vast sea, which rolled its little waves below us, at a distance of less than a hundred metres.
“We drank, with open mouth and expanded chest, that fresh breeze from the ocean which glides slowly over the skin, salted as it is by long contact with the waves.
“Wrapped in her plaid shawl, with a look of inspiration as she faced the breeze, the English woman gazed fixedly at the great sun ball as it descended toward the horizon. Far off in the distance a three-master in full sail was outlined on the bloodred sky and a steamship, somewhat nearer, passed along, leaving behind it a trail of smoke on the horizon. The red sun globe sank slowly lower and lower and presently touched the water just behind the motionless vessel, which, in its dazzling effulgence, looked as though framed in a flame of fire. We saw it plunge, grow smaller and disappear, swallowed up by the ocean.
“Miss Harriet gazed in rapture at the last gleams of the dying day. She seemed longing to embrace the sky, the sea, the whole landscape.
“She murmured: ‘Ah! I love—I love—’ I saw a tear in her eye. She continued: ‘I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up into the firmament.’
“She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on the cliff, her face as red as her shawl. I should have liked to have sketched her in my album. It would have been a caricature of ecstasy.
“I turned away so as not to laugh.
“I then spoke to her of painting as I would have done to a fellow artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of the profession. She listened attentively, eagerly seeking to divine the meaning of the terms, so as to understand my thoughts. From time to time she would exclaim: ‘Oh! I understand, I understand. It is very interesting.’
“We returned home.
“The next day, on seeing me, she approached me, cordially holding out her hand; and we at once became firm friends.
“She was a good creature who had a kind of soul on springs, which became enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all women who are spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be preserved in vinegary innocence, though her heart still retained something of youth and of girlish effervescence. She loved both nature and animals with a fervent ardour, a love like old wine, mellow through age, with a sensual love that she had never bestowed on men.
“One thing is certain: a bitch feeding her pups, a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird’s nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open mouths and enormous heads, and no feathers, made her quiver with the most violent emotion.
“Poor solitary beings! Sad wanderers from table d’hôte to table d’hôte, poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable, I love you ever since I became acquainted with Miss Harriet!
“I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but dared not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the morning with my box on my back, she would accompany me to the end of the village, silent, but evidently struggling inwardly to find words with which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly, and, with jaunty step, walk away quickly.
“One day, however, she plucked up courage:
“ ‘I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you show me? I have been very curious.’
“And she coloured up as though she had given utterance to words extremely audacious.
“I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had commenced a large picture.
“She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was disturbing me, she said to me: ‘Thank you,’ and walked away.
“But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every day, with visible pleasure. She carried her folding stool under her arm, would not consent to my carrying it, and she sat by my side. She would remain there for hours immovable and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush in its every movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of colour spread on with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a half-suppressed ‘Oh!’ of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature’s divine work. My studies appeared to her as a species of holy pictures, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting me.
“Oh! He was a queer creature, this God of hers. He was a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great power; for she always pictured him to herself as a being in despair over injustices committed under his eyes, as if he were helpless to prevent them.
“She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the confidante of his secrets and of his whims. She said: ‘God wills, or God does not will,’ just like a sergeant announcing to a recruit: ‘The colonel has commanded.’
“At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself compelled, to impart to me.
“Every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colours, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.
“I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality. But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner, though, for a while, I paid little attention to it.
“When I was painting, whether in my valley or in some country lane, I would see her suddenly appear with her rapid, springy walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running or were overcome by some profound emotion. Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would turn ashy pale and seem about to faint away. Gradually, however, her natural colour would return and she would begin to speak.
“Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a sentence, spring up from her seat and walk away so rapidly and so strangely that I was at my wits’ ends to discover whether I had done or said anything to displease or wound her.
“I finally came to the conclusion that those were her normal manners, somewhat modified no doubt in my honour during the first days of our acquaintance.
“When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the windy coast, her long curls often hung straight down, as if their springs had been broken. This had hitherto seldom given her any concern, and she would come to dinner without embarrassment all dishevelled by her sister, the breeze.
“But now she would go up to her room in order to adjust what I called her glass lamps. When I would say to her, with familiar gallantry, which, however, always offended her: ‘You are as beautiful as a planet today, Miss Harriet,’ a little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.
“Then she became quite savage, and ceased coming to watch me paint. But I always thought: ‘This is only a fit of temper. It will pass.’
“But it did not always pass away. When I spoke to her now, she would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference, or in sullen anger; and she became by turns rude, impatient, and nervous. I never saw her except at meals, and we spoke but little. I concluded, at length, that I must have offended her in something: and, accordingly, I said to her one evening:
“ ‘Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act towards me as formerly? What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!’
“She responded, in an angry tone, which was very funny: ‘I am always the same to you as formerly. It is not true, not true,’ and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.
“At times she would look upon me with strange eyes. Since that time I have often said to myself that those condemned to death must look thus when informed that their last day has come. In her eye there lurked a species of madness, an insanity at once mystical and violent—something more, a fever, an exasperated desire, impatient, unrealized and unrealizable!
“It seemed to me that there was also going on within her a combat, in which her heart struggled against an unknown force that she wished to overcome—perhaps, even, something else. But what could I know? What could I know?