The wine was very good, with a slight tang that was almost a sparkle in it, and as I sat blissfully at rest with it the room was invaded first by a man with a drum, then by a man with a cornet, then by several more men with very loud voices. I was immediately whisked away by the youth who had received me, and who seemed to be in sole charge of the place, into another little room across a passage, where he presently served me with dinner, consisting of soup, an omelette, beef, potatoes and carrots, cheese, oranges, and biscuits, and another litre of the good wine. Soon after that he showed me a clean little room, in which I slept deeply, hardly disturbed by the voices of the jour de fête beneath me, and was only once thoroughly awakened, at about one o'clock, by a great bustle of arrival in a room adjoining mine.
The busy young man was still as active as possible at that hour, but he was quite ready to give me my coffee at six o'clock the next morning, at a little table in the garden. He had also thoroughly cleaned my boots, but before I left I heard him called a marauder for something or other he had omitted to do for the two gentlemen who had arrived in the night.
For the whole of this entertainment I paid five francs and a half, and the helpful and willing young man explained that the charge was rather high because I had drunk two litres of wine.
And so I came happily to my second day, in the bright spring sunshine.
CHAPTER II
Flowers and Scents
If you look at a map of this coast, before it begins to run south from Cagnes and Villeneuve, you will see that the hills stretch down to the sea like the fingers of a hand spread out, and the main roads run down between them. I should have preferred to keep away from the coast and cross the remaining ranges by tracks and footpaths, but I wanted to see a relative who lives at Nice. Otherwise I should never have gone near such a place, for which I was quite unsuited, both in spirit and attire.
Contes is only fourteen miles or so from Nice by a good road, and I thought I might pay my visit, and in the afternoon get back into the hills again. But crowning the ridge opposite to the one I had come down the night before was the old deserted town of Châteauneuf, and in the soft early morning sunshine it looked so attractive that I thought I would go up to it, and walk down to Nice along the valley on the other side.