IV
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
Nothing can be pleasanter than to journey alone in an unknown country, without a definite end, without recent cares; all little thoughts are blotted out. Do I know whether this field belongs to Peter or to Paul; whether the engineer is at war with the prefect, or if there is any dispute over a projected canal or road? I am happy indeed in know-all that; happier still in first time, finding fresh sensations, and not being troubled by comparisons and souvenirs. I can consider things through-general views, no longer regarding the soil as made the most of by mankind, can forget the useful, think only of the beautiful, and feel the movement of forms and the expression of colors.
The very road seems beautiful to me. What an air of resignation in those old elms. They bud and spread forth in branches, from head to foot, they have such a desire for life, even under this dust. Then come lustrous plane trees, tossing their beautiful and regular leaves. White bindweed, blue campanulas, hang at the edge of the ditches. Is it not strange that these pretty creatures remain so solitary, that they should be fated to die to-morrow, that they should scarcely have looked upon us an instant; that their beauty should have flourished only for its two seconds of admiration? They too have their world, this people of high grasses bending over on themselves; these lizards which wave the thicket of the herbs; these gilded wasps that hum in their chalices. This world here is well worth ours, and I find them happy in opening thus, then in closing their pale eyes to the peaceful whisper of the wind.
The road, as far as the eye can reach, curves and lifts anew its white girdle around the hills; this sinuous movement is of infinite sweetness; the long riband tightens to their figure their veil of fair harvests or their robe of green meadows.
[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
These slopes and roundnesses are as expressive as human forms; but how much more varied, how much stranger and richer in attitudes? Those there on the horizon, almost hid behind a troop of others, smile dimly in their timidness, under their crown of vapory gauze; they form a round on the brink of heaven, a fleeting round that the least disturbance of the air would put out of sight, and which yet regards with tenderness the fretted creatures lost in its bosom. Others, their neighbors, rudely dint the soil with their haunches and their brown slopes; the human structure here half peeps forth, then disappears under the mineral barbarism; here are the children of another age, ever powerful, severe still, unknown and antique races, whose mysterious history the mind searches without willing it. Tawny moors filled with herds mount upon their flanks to the summits; splendid meadows sparkle upon their back. Some among these plunge abruptly away down into depths where they disgorge the streams that they accumulate, and where is gathered all the heat of the burning vault which shines above under the most generous sun. It, meanwhile, embraces and broods over the country; from woods, plains, hills, the great soul of vegetation starts forth mounting to meet its rays.
Here your neighbor, who is engaged in a warm dispute, pulls your sleeve, crying: “The gigot at Orthez doesn’t give cramps in the stomach, does it, sir?”
You start; then in another moment you turn your nose toward the window. But the sensation has disappeared: the mutton of Dax has blotted out everything. The meadows are so many kilogrammes of unmown hay, the trees are so many feet of timber, and the herds are only walking beefsteaks.
