We made our luncheon camp a little way from the clear stream, and brought water from it and cooked eggs and made coffee (but we carry bottled water for that), and loafed in the May sun and shade, and looked at that unique world-wonder for an hour or more. The Joy discovered a fine school of fish in the stream—trout, maybe.
A hundred years ago and more the lower arches of the Pont du Gard were widened to make a bridge, and when at last we were packed and loaded again we drove across this bridge for the nearer view. It was quite impossible to believe in the age of the structure—its preservation was so perfect. We drove to the other end and, turning, drove slowly back. Then lingeringly we left that supreme relic in the loneliness where, somehow, it seemed to belong, and followed the broad white road to Nîmes. There is a Roman arena at Nîmes, and a temple and baths—the Romans built many such things; but I think they could have built only one Pont du Gard.
Chapter IX
THE LUXURY OF NÎMES
When the Romans captured a place and established themselves in it they generally built, first an Arch of Triumph in celebration of their victory; then an arena and a theater for pleasure; finally a temple for worship. Sometimes, when they really favored the place and made it a resort, they constructed baths. I do not find that they built an Arch of Triumph at Nîmes, but they built an arena, baths, and a temple, for they still stand. The temple is the smallest. It is called the "Maison Carrée," and it is much like the temple we saw at Vienne that day in the rain, but in a finer state of preservation. Indeed, it is said to be one of the best preserved Roman temples in existence. It is graceful and exquisite, and must have suited Henry James, who did not care for Roman arenas because they are not graceful and exquisite, as if anything built for arena purposes would be likely to be anything less than solid and everlasting. We did not go into the Maison Carrée. It is a museum now, and the fact that it has also been used as a warehouse and stable somehow discouraged us. It would be too much done over. But the outside was fascinating.
We thought the garden of the Roman baths and fountain would be well to see in the evening. We drove along the quay by the side of the walled river which flows down the middle of the street, and came to the gates of the garden and, leaving the car, entered.
At first it seemed quite impossible to believe that a modern city of no great size or importance should have anything so beautiful as this garden, or, having it, should preserve it in such serene beauty and harmony. But then one remembered that this was France, and of France it was the Provence and not really a part of the sordid, scrambling world at all.
It is a garden of terraces and of waterways and of dim, lucent pools to which stairways descend, and of cypresses, graying statuary, and marble bridges and fluted balustrades; and the water is green and mysterious, and there is a background of dark, wooded hills, with deep recesses and lost paths. We climbed part way up the hillside and found a place where we could look out on the scene below. In the fading light it seemed a place of enchantment.
It is not easy to tell what part of this garden the Romans built and what was added from time to time during the centuries. It seems to have been liberally reconstructed a hundred or so years ago, and the statuary is none of it of the Roman period. But if there was ever any incongruity the blurring hand of time has left it invisible to our unpracticed eyes. We lingered in this magic garden, and spoke softly of the generations that for nineteen centuries have found their recreation there, and we turned often for a last look, reluctant to leave something that seemed likely to vanish the moment one turned away.