THE OLD BRIDGE
The train has brought Gaston and his friend, a young officer. An automobile growls and sputters up the villa with the leading villain of a Parisian theater, a man full of kindly good humor, accompanied by a graceful woman with jet-black hair, a danseuse. It is Tuesday, there is no matinée and every one is happy.
And how gay they are! how full of spirit and rollicking camaraderie! How many toasts are drank, how many clever songs are sung during the whole of this bohemian breakfast! The officer and Jacques move the short upright piano close to the table. Suzanne, now the pink of neatness, with a little laugh mounts a chair, raises her glass through which the light glints as golden as her hair, and sings the aria from Charpentier’s “Louise.” The small company are silent in ecstasy under the spell of her mellow voice. The lines of smoke rising from the cigarettes seem like fires of incense burning in adoration of this fascinating little goddess whose golden heart has made her a rare good comrade.
And so with song and story the déjeuner ends. There is no more fishing. Yvette and Jacques go for a walk; the danseuse and the villain start in their tuff-tuff back to Paris; the old gentleman with the scarlet tie takes a nap; Suzanne and Gaston row down the river, and the officer returns to his barracks. Only when the moon floods the garden with its light do the lovers return. In the garden the roses pale in the glow of candles from the windows of the villa, nodding their heads sleepily in the night breeze. A bat zigzags over the tops of the hollyhocks; two little birds high up in the tree peep their last good-night. Dinner is at eight.
A PICNIC PARTY
Past this rural paradise the silent river glides and tells no tales.
I pulled up my anchor and rowed back to the inn. The villa with its happy day had fascinated me.
There must be hundreds of others like it along the Seine, I argued. That night I made up my mind to take a trip in a rowboat down to Rouen.