In and out of Three Normandy Inns

by Anna Bowman Dodd

Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with the sea.

Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach. Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails, children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.

In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.

To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life—this became, after a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.

The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds, we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second, the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly, the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know their habits of mind as we did their facial peculiarities; certain of their actions made an event in our day. It became a serious matter of conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the social swell of the town, would or would not offer up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by Friponne, her black poodle. If Friponne issued forth from the narrow door, in company with her austere mistress, the shining black silk gown, we knew, would not decorate the angular frame of this aristocratic provincial; a sober beige was best fitted to resist the dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed nails. It was for this, to don a silk gown in full sight of her neighbors; to set up as companion a dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of caniches, that twenty years of patient nursing a paralytic husband—who died all too slowly—had been counted as nothing!

Once we were summoned to our outlook by the vigorous beating of a drum. Madame Mouchard and Augustine were already at their own post of observation—the open inn door. The rest of the village was in full attendance, for it was not every day in the week that the "tambour," the town-crier, had business enough to render his appearance, in his official capacity, necessary; as a mere townsman he was to be seen any hour of the day, as drunk as a lord, at the sign of "L'Ami Fidèle." His voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, was as staccato in pitch as any organ can be whose practice is largely confined to unceasing calls for potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice was shouting:

"Madame Tricot—à la messe—dimanche—a—perdu une broche—or et perles—avec cheveux—Madame Merle a perdu—sur la plage—un panier avec—un chat noir—"

We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drummed the very next morning. Augustine had made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; she had taken it upon herself to call in the drummer. So great was the attendance of villagers, even the abstractors of the lost garment must, we were certain, be among the crowd assembled to hear our names shouted out on the still air. We were greatly affected by the publicity of the occasion; but the village heard the announcement, both of our names and of our loss, with the phlegm of indifference. "Vingt francs pour avoir tambouriné mademoiselle!" This was an item which a week later, in madame's little bill, was not confronted with indifference.

"It gives one the feeling of having had relations with a wandering circus," remarked the young philosopher at my side.

"But it is really a great convenience, that system," she continued; "I'm always mislaying things—and through the drummer there's a whole village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubtless, always have that, now, in my bills!" And Charm, with an air of serene confidence in the village, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape.