A Traveller’s Notes
Seven o’clock. A whistle blows; we are off. The train passes over the turnplates with the noise of stage thunder, then it plunges into the night, panting, puffing up its steam, throwing gleams of red light on passing walls, hedges, woods, and fields.
We are six, three on each seat, under the light of the lamp. Opposite me is a stout lady with a stout gentleman, an old married couple. A hunchback sits in the left corner; beside me is a young married pair, or, at least, a young couple! Are they married? The young woman is pretty and seems modest, but she smells too strongly of perfume. What kind of perfume is it? I know it without being able to name it. Ah! now I’ve got it. Peau d’Espagne? That tells nothing. Let us wait and see.
The stout lady looks at the young woman with an air of hostility which sets me to thinking. The stout gentleman closes his eyes. Already! The hunchback has rolled himself up into a ball. I no longer see where his legs are. One sees nothing but his bright eye under a skull cap with a red tassel. Then he shrinks into his travelling-shawl. He looks like a small parcel thrown down on the seat.
The old lady alone stays awake, suspicious, uneasy, like a watchman whose duty it is to guard the order and morality of the occupants of the carriage.
The young people do not move; their knees are under the same shawl, and their eyes are open, but they do not speak; are they married?
I also pretend to sleep, and watch.
Nine o’clock. The stout lady is about to give in, she closes her eyes spasmodically, and her head drops on her breast, but she lifts it up again by fits and starts. Then at last she goes to sleep.
O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature.
I rise and put the light blue shade over the lamp, and then I also go to sleep.
Every now and then the stopping of the train awakens me. An employee calls out the name of a town, and then we go on.
Here is the dawn. We are running alongside the Rhône, which is going down to the Mediterranean. Everybody is sleeping. The young people have their arms around each other. One of the feet of the young woman is peeping from under the shawl. She is wearing white stockings! That is commonplace: they are married! The air is not fresh in the compartment, and I open a window to change it. The cold coming in awakens everyone, except the hunchback, who is snoring under his cover.
The ugliness of the faces becomes more accentuated in the light of the new day.
The stout lady, with red face and untidy hair, looks awful. She glances around spitefully at her neighbours. The young woman looks smilingly at her companion. If she were not married she would have first looked at her mirror.
Here we are at Marseilles. Twenty minutes’ stop. I breakfast. We go on. The hunchback is missing, and we have, instead, two old gentlemen.
Then the two married couples, the old and the young, unpack their provisions. A chicken here, cold veal there, pepper and salt in paper, pickles in a handkerchief—everything to make you disgusted with food forever. I know nothing more common, more vulgar, more out of place, and more ill-bred than to eat in a carriage where there are other passengers.
If it is freezing, open the windows. If it is hot, close them and smoke your pipe, even if you detest tobacco; begin to sing, to bark, indulge in the most annoying eccentricities, take off your shoes and stockings and pare your toenails; in short, pay these ill-bred people in their own coin for their lack of good manners.
The farsighted man will carry a bottle of benzine or petrol to sprinkle on the cushions when the people beside him begin to eat. Everything is permitted, anything is too good for the boors who poison you with the odour of their food.
Now we are running beside the blue sea. The sun beats down upon the coast dotted with charming towns.
Here is Saint-Raphael. Yonder is Saint-Tropez, the little capital of that deserted, unknown, and delightful country called the Mountains of the Moors. A broad river not spanned by any bridge, the Argens, separates this wild peninsula from the continent, and one can walk there for a whole day without meeting a soul. Here, the villages perched upon the mountains, are the same as they were in former times, with their Oriental houses, their arcades, their low-vaulted doors ornamented with sculpture.
No railroad, no public conveyance penetrates into these splendid wooded valleys. Only an old mail-boat carries the letters from Hyères and Saint-Tropez.
On we go. Here is Cannes, so pretty on the shore of its two gulfs, opposite the islands of Lérins, which would make two perfect paradises for the sick, if they could be connected with the mainland.
Here is the Gulf of Juan; the armoured squadron seems to lie asleep on the water.
Here is Nice. There is apparently an exhibition in the town. Let us go to see it.
Following a boulevard, which seems like a marsh, we reach a building on an elevation, in doubtful taste, which seems a miniature replica of the great palace of the Trocadéro.
Inside there are some people walking about in the midst of a chaos of boxes. The Exhibition, which has been open for a long time, will doubtless be ready next year!
It would be attractive inside if it were finished. But it is far from that.
Two sections especially attract me: that of the comestibles and that of the Fine Arts. Alas! there really are preserved fruits of Grasse here, and a thousand other good things to eat. But—it is forbidden to sell them! One may only look at them! And that is so as not to injure the trade of the town! To exhibit sweetmeats for the mere pleasure of looking at them, and forbid anybody to taste them, really seems to be one of the finest inventions of the human mind.
The Fine Arts are—in preparation! Yet some halls are open, where one may see very fine landscapes by Harpignies, Guillemet, Le Poittevin, a superb portrait of Mademoiselle Alice Regnault by Courtois, a delightful Béraud, etc. As for the rest—when they are unpacked!
As one must see everything on visiting a place, I will treat myself to an air trip in the balloon of MM. Godard and Company.
The mistral is blowing. The balloon is swaying in an uneasy way. Suddenly there is an explosion; the cords of the net have broken. The public is forbidden to come within the enclosure, and I also am turned out.
I climb upon my carriage and survey the scene.
Every moment another rope snaps with a singular noise, and the brown skin of the balloon attempts to rise from the meshes that hold it. Then suddenly, under a more violent gust of wind, there is an immense tear from top to bottom of the great ball, which falls together like a limp cloth, torn and dead.
The next morning on awakening I call for the newspapers and read with astonishment:
“The tempest now raging on our coast has compelled the management of the captive and free balloons of Nice to empty its great aerostat, in order to avoid accidents. The system of instantaneous emptying used by M. Godard is one of his inventions that redound most to his honour.”
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, the dear public!
The entire coast of the Mediterranean is the Eldorado of the chemists. One must be ten times a millionaire to dare purchase even a simple box of cough drops from these haughty merchants, who ask the price of diamonds for their jujubes.
One can go from Nice to Monaco via La Corniche, along the sea coast. There is nothing more charming than this road cut in the rock, which skirts gulfs, passes under arches, and turns and twists along the mountain through wonderful country.
Here is Monaco on its rock, and behind it Monte Carlo. Hush! I can understand how those who like to gamble adore this pretty little town. But how sombre and sad it is for those who do not gamble! There is no other pleasure, no other attraction.
Farther on is Mentone, the hottest place on the coast, and the one most frequented by invalids. There oranges ripen and consumptives are cured.
I take the night train to return to Cannes. In my compartment there are two ladies and a man from Marseilles who is determined to tell stories of railway accidents, murders, and thefts.
“I once knew a Corsican, madame, who came to Paris with his son. I speak of long ago, in the early days of the P.L.M. railway. I joined them, since we were friends, and off we went.
“The son, who was twenty years old, was utterly amazed at the running of the train, and stood leaning out of the window all the time to watch it. His father kept repeating to him: ‘Heh! Take care, Mathéo! Don’t lean out too far, or you may hurt yourself.’ But the boy did not even answer.
“I said to the father:
“ ‘Let him do it, if it amuses him.’
“But the father repeated:
“ ‘Come now, Mathéo, don’t lean out like that.’
“Then, as the son did not answer, he took him by the coat to make him come back into the carriage, and gave it a pull. And then the body fell back on our knees. He was minus his head, madame, for it had been cut off by a tunnel. And the neck was not even bleeding any longer; all the blood had flowed along the line.”
One of the ladies heaved a sigh, closed her eyes, and sank upon her neighbour. She had fainted.