I
“At that time I was twenty-five years old, and I was daubing along the coast of Normandy. I call ‘daubing’ to wander about, with a knapsack on one’s back, from inn to inn, under the pretext of making studies and sketches from nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free, without shackles of any kind, without a care, without a single preoccupation, without even a thought of tomorrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save what pleases your eyes. You pull up, because a running brook seduces you, or because you are attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of fried potatoes. Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your choice, or the glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise these rustic affections. These girls have souls as well as bodies, firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its savour, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.
“I have had rendezvous in ditches full of primroses, behind the stable in which the cattle slept, and among the straw in garrets still warm from the heat of the day. I have memories of course grey linen on supple strong bodies, and of hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, in their sincere brutality, than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.
“But what you love most in these pilgrimages of adventure are the country, the woods, the sunrises, the twilights, the light of the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in a long, quiet rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, beneath the bright sunset, you watch in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour of noon.
“You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of an oak, amid a covering of tall, fragile weeds, glistening with life. You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip. Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and gentle quivering of the current.
“You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted when the sun is drowned in an ocean of bloodred shadows, and when it casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon, as it passes across the roof of heaven, you think of things, singular things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.
“So, in wandering through the same country where we are this year, I came to the little village of Bénouville, on the rocky coast, between Yport and Étretat. I came from Fécamp, following the coast, a high coast, perpendicular as a wall, with projecting and rugged rocks falling sheer down into the sea. I had walked since morning on the close-clipped grass, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet, which grows along the edge of the cliff, fanned by the salt breezes of the ocean. Singing lustily, I walked with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and lazy flight of a gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens, sometimes at the green sea, or at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In short, I had passed a happy day, a day of liberty and freedom from care.
“I was shown a little farmhouse, where travellers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the centre of a Norman court, surrounded by a double row of beeches.
“Leaving the court, I reached the hamlet, which was shut in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
“She was an old country woman, wrinkled and austere, who always seemed to receive customers reluctantly, with a kind of contempt.
“It was the month of May: the flowering apple trees covered the court with a roof of perfumed flowers, with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon the people and upon the grass.
“I said:
“ ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?’
“Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
“ ‘That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking.’
“In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited my bag upon the earthen floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and a washstand. The room opened into the large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and with the woman herself, who was a widow.
“I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a chicken fricassee for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stewpot, black with smoke.
“ ‘You have visitors, then, at the present time?’ said I to her.
“She answered in an offended tone of voice:
“ ‘I have a lady, an English lady, of a certain age. She is occupying the other room.’
“For an extra five sous a day, I obtained the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
“My place was then set in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with hunger the lean limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which, though four days old, was excellent.
“Suddenly, the wooden barrier which opened on to the highway was opened, and a strange person directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red checks. You would have believed that she had no arms, if you had not seen a long hand appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist’s umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited grey hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a pickled herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.
“This singular apparition made me curious. She undoubtedly was my neighbour, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.
“I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which, you know, extends as far as Étretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I returned to the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this eccentric old creature. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water out for her with great alacrity, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.
“I ceased taking any notice of her, although she had disturbed my thoughts. At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.
“She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Bénouville, some six months before, and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of Protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The curé himself had received no less than four copies, at the hands of an urchin to whom she had paid two sous’ commission. She said sometimes to our hostess, abruptly, without the slightest preliminary leading up to this declaration:
“ ‘I love the Saviour above all; I worship him in all creation; I adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.’
“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her brochures which were destined to convert the universe.
“In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had declared that she was an atheist, and a kind of stigma attached to her. The curé, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:
“ ‘She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I believe her to be a person of pure morals.’
“These words, ‘atheist,’ ‘heretic,’ words which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich, and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world, because her family had thrown her off. Why had her family thrown her off? Because of her natural impiety?
“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles, one of those obstinate puritans of whom England produces so many, one of those good and insupportable old women who haunt the tables d’hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterannean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their petrified vestal manners, their indescribable toilettes, and a certain odour of india-rubber, which makes one believe that at night they slip themselves into a case of that material. When I meet one of these people in a hotel, I flee like the birds when they see a scarecrow in a field.
“This woman, however, appeared so singular that she did not displease me.
“Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not rural, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous, which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and mysterious travail of soul. She said: ‘That woman is a demoniac.’ This phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly comic. I, myself, never called her now anything else but ‘the demoniac,’ feeling a singular pleasure in pronouncing this word on seeing her.
“I would ask Mother Lecacheur: ‘Well, what is our demoniac doing today?’ To which my rustic friend would respond, with an air of having been scandalized:
“ ‘What do you think, sir? She picked up a toad which had its leg battered, carried it to her room, put it in her washstand, and dressed its wound as if it were a human. If that is not profanation, I should like to know what is!’
“On another occasion, when walking along the shore, she had bought a large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought it, though paid handsomely, was greatly provoked at this act—more exasperated, indeed, than if she had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For a whole month he could not speak of the circumstance without getting into a fury and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a demoniac, this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an inspiration of genius in thus christening her.
“The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a knowing air: ‘She is an old hag who has had her day.’ If the poor woman had but known.
“Céleste, the little servant, did not like waiting on her, but I was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she was a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue, and of another religion. She was a demoniac in brief!
“She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and searching for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused at having been found thus, looking at me with eyes as frightened as those of an owl surprised in open day.
“Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly see her on the edge of the cliff, standing like a semaphore signal. She gazed passionately at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with her elastic English step; and I would go towards her, mysteriously attracted, simply to see her visionary expression, her dried-up, ineffable features, full of an inward and profound happiness.
“Often I would encounter her in the corner of a field sitting on the grass, under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little Bible lying open on her knee, while she looked meditatively into the distance.
“I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country neighbourhood, bound to it as I was by a thousand links of love for its soft and sweeping landscapes. I was happy at this farm, which was out of the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful green soil, which we ourselves shall fertilise with our bodies some day. And, I must confess, there was perhaps a certain amount of curiosity which kept me at Mother Lecacheur’s. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to learn what passes in the solitary souls of those wandering old, English dames.