CHAPTER VII
Aix
The rain began to fall as I sat outside the inn at Porcieux, and by the time I reached Trets I was wet through. So I went to bed in an inn until my clothes should be dry, and greatly daring ordered a cup of tea. When it came it was of a pale straw colour, and its flavour would not have satisfied the connoisseurs of Mincing Lane. But it was tea, with the astringent quality possessed by that beverage alone among all infusions of herbs or berries. Wine is one of the gifts of God that in this drab world one may be thankful for, but as a beverage it palls. Of all the many drinks I enjoyed in my travels in Provence I think that cup of indifferent tea stands out as the most refreshing.
My clothes were brought up to me in an hour or two's time almost as wet as ever, and I put them on and went down into the kitchen to dry them myself. There was an enormous open hearth, but very little fire on it; but they threw on bundles of sticks, and very soon there was a hot fire. The master of the inn, his wife and daughters, the cook in his white cap and apron, who had just come in to begin his evening's work, and one or two maids, all took the most serious and sympathetic interest in the process. I hung my coat on the back of a chair, which I placed on the hearth itself, and stood by the fire, turning to it first one side and then the other, enveloped in a cloud of steam from my sopping flannel trousers. I should have thought that most people under the necessity of drying their clothes would have done so something after this fashion, but to them it seemed to show an ingenious originality, and people were summoned from tables in the café to stand at the kitchen door and see the remarkable sight. When I was fairly dry we all drank wine together, after which we shook hands and I went out to see the town, leaving behind me, by all tokens, an agreeable memory.
Trets is very old, and has the appearance of being uncared for. One is so accustomed, in France, to seeing remains of historic interest cleaned and furbished up and saved from further decay, that these ruinous gateways and towers and fortifications, and narrow untidy streets with decayed-looking houses lining them, strike a dismal note. The church is partly of the eleventh century, very massive and very dark inside, and has an unfinished tower that adds to the general appearance of decay. Perhaps the rain, which had begun to fall again, had something to do with the impression that the place made upon me; I was glad enough to get away from it and take the train to Aix.
I dined for a franc at Gardanne, and reached Aix after dark in renewed torrents of rain. But I had something to look forward to—an hotel that I knew, which would provide a hot bath, and a bag of clothes waiting for me. I had been on the road for nine days, and was ready for a little ordinary comfort.
It was dull and cold the next morning, and Aix is a city that has provided itself against heat. Its fine broad central boulevard, the Cours Mirabeau, is shaded by a double avenue of planes, which must be among the largest to be found even in this land of planes. The Place de la Rotonde, at one end of it, has an elaborate system of fountains, and there are three other fountains in the middle of the boulevard itself, one of which is fed by a hot spring. The shade of the giant trees and the plash of the water must be pleasant enough in hot weather, but the bare branches conveyed none of the charm that their foliage would give later on, and Aix seemed to me a little cheerless, though I hasten to say that that is not its true character.
Aix rejoices in the name of "The French Athens." It has always been learned, classical, and aristocratic. The streets are lined with the fine hotels of the Provençal noblesse, some of which are still occupied by families whose roots strike far back into history. Many of them are said to contain rare treasures of art, hidden from the public gaze in proud seclusion, and for the most part unknown to the world.
These things are not for the wayfarer to see, but I think that if I had read M. Paul Mariéton's charming book, "La Terre Provençal," before my walk in Provence instead of after, I should have made an attempt to see some of them.
"In Aix," he writes, "you will find masterpieces in rooms scarcely furnished, mansions mouldering to decay, with staircases of honour bare and cold leading to garden courts uncultivated—unless a few vegetables for the pot are grown between staves in wine casks.