It is almost impossible to speak of Bastien without mentioning that young woman, made famous by the remark of Gladstone that she had written the best book of the year, the woman who meant so much in his life—Marie Bashkirtsev. Fresh from the hands of her maid, she was a fascinating blond “vamp,” but in about twenty minutes the charms began to go. Her hair became unruly, buttons refused to do their duty, and slipper strings burst. She had beautiful feet and was inclined to wear her shoes too small. I once sent her a message saying that I would give her a sketch for one of her slippers. She replied:
“I know the value of a new pair of slippers, but I do not know the value of one of your pictures.”
On the apartment mantelpiece of Bojidar Karageorgivitch was a semicircle of shoes, a slipper in the center, and two bell jars covering riding boots at either end—all belonging to his cousin Marie. Borjidar was a charming person; the son of a king, his mother a Russian princess and second in line for the Serbian throne. His brother Nicolas was a weakling, and Peter, the king, was no good. Slight, pointed beard, and aquiline nose, he looked more the fashionable Frenchman than anything else. Like Pierre Loti, he was smitten with the divine Sarah, who visited him at Concarneau and left her painting materials behind. Borjidar always seemed to be surrounded with a halo of romance. One day we were sitting out on the pavement and some one mentioned thumb-nails. It is said that the larger the white moons, the greater the aristocrat. This royal prince had no moon at all, thus indicating no ancestry; but if the sign is true, it is not strange, since his grandfather had been an ignorant butcher who had jumped the throne. Through his mother he had a delightful touch. Years later I met Bojidar in Paris, and what do you suppose he was doing? Such a brave, fine thing! He was selling jewelry, which he designed himself, to the English snob and really making good at it. Many people like to buy from the son of a king.
There came to Concarneau a young girl, wide eyed, eager, temperamental, thirsting for a knowledge of life, but knowing about as much of it as the bird just out of the egg. She was alone and studying Art. She asked of the women folk the meaning of marriage, and wanted to be chaperoned until she had made up her mind whether to take the big step or not. Not so long after her enlightenment, she announced her wedding, and with none other than the now well-known writer—Havelock Ellis. Ellis seems to me an example of a man who took up one subject, stuck to it, and absorbed it thoroughly—a procedure almost always destined for success when accompanied by brains. Some years after, I visited the Ellises in England. There had been no children from the union, but the one-time timid and childish wife had developed into a charming woman, and, strange to say, a full-fledged raiser of blooded stock. She it was who tended the wants of the baby bulls and colts, was in at the births and deaths of the animals; while Havelock sat by the warmth of his very delightful fireplace, smoking his pipe and probably mulling over the psychological effect of all this on the feminine mind. Anyway, I had a delightful time and, upon his refusal to help her, I held the head of a baby calf while she slipped a dose of oil down its throat, oblivious to the fact that I was ruining a beautiful new pair of white flannel trousers.
Halfway between Concarneau and Pont Aven (that place of predigested food for artists and ready-made motifs) at the summit of a rise in the road, is the Rocking Stone. It is twenty feet in diameter, almost spherical in shape, and so poised by the glacial period upon another buried stone, that, if pressed at a certain angle, it rocks. The legend is that the stone gained this quality at the hands of the comtesse of the château, whose husband went to the Crusades and left her, a bride, to his dearest friend to take care of. This he proceeded to do by trying to make her his mistress; he was rebuffed and became her enemy. Upon her husband’s return from the wars, this so-called friend rushed ahead to meet him and told him his wife had betrayed him. The count drew his sword, walked ahead to meet her, and accused her of the infidelity. She placed her hand on the stone and said:
“God is my witness that it is a lie and, if I am chaste, will move this stone.”
Thereupon, she touched it ever so lightly, and it rocked!
It was a habit of the peasants and fishermen to take their sweethearts to this place to see if they could move the bowlder. On such superstitions does the virtue of a woman hang.
It was very dramatic, the way I first saw Spain. A cold and beastly night, changing into a hot day; third-class carriage and no coffee; the first sight out of the car window in the morning a dusty plain. It could have been an alkali desert in the West. In no sense like the Italians or French, the Spanish are haughty, silent, laconic, dignified, morose, and lonely, like their plains with every now and then a brilliant patch of green. Here and there would be a castle and, clustered around its feet, tiny houses. Human beings lived there! Farther on, bands of sheep or goats, and a herder whom one could imagine a Moorish horseman with a tall spear. There was a Don Quixote at every turn. At last, the plain stretched and widened until there was a hill line like the horizon of the ocean. Suddenly, the two horns of a snail stuck up, getting larger and larger, until the animal seemed to be creeping toward us out of the distance. A cloudless sky, vast stretches, with no sign of human habitation anywhere—and the horns of the snail suddenly changed into the towers of a building—the Cathedral at Bourgos!