As it was remarkably fine this morning, I started for the Chartreuse de la Verne.
Two recollections draw me towards this ruin: that of the sensation of infinite solitude and the unforgettable melancholy of the deserted cloister; and also that of an old peasant couple, to whose cottage I had been taken the year before by a friend who was guiding me across this country of the Moors.
Seated in a country cart, for the road soon became impracticable for a vehicle on springs, I followed the line of the bay to its deepest point. I could see upon the opposite shore the pine woods where the Company is attempting to create another winter resort. The shore indeed is exquisite, and the whole country magnificent. Then the road plunges into the mountains, and soon passes through the town of Cogolin. A little further on, I quitted it for a rough broken lane, which was scarcely more than a long rut. A river, or rather a big stream, runs by the side, and every hundred yards or so, cuts through the ravine, floods it, wanders away a little, returns, loses itself again, quits its bed and drowns the track, then falls into a ditch, strays through a field of stones, appears suddenly to calm down into wisdom, and for a while follows its due course; but seized all at once by some wild fancy, it precipitates itself again into the road, and changes it into a marsh, in which the horse sinks up to the breast-plate, and the high vehicle up to the driving seat.
There are no more houses; only from time to time, a charcoal burner's hut; the poorest live in absolute holes. Is it not almost incredible that men should inhabit holes in the ground, where they live all the year, cutting wood and burning it to extract the charcoal, eating bread and onions, drinking water, and sleeping like rabbits in their burrows, in narrow caverns hewn in the granite rocks. Lately, too, in the midst of these unexplored valleys, a hermit has been discovered, a real hermit, hidden there for these thirty years, unknown to anyone, even to the forest rangers.
The existence of this wild man, revealed by I know not whom, was, no doubt, mentioned to the driver of the diligence, who spoke of it to the post-master, who talked of it to the telegraph clerk male or female, who flew with the wonder to the editor of some little local paper, who made out of it a sensational paragraph, copied into all the country journals of Provence.
The police set to work, to hunt out the hermit, without apparently causing him any alarm, whence we may conclude that he had kept all needful papers by him. But a photographer, excited by the news, set off in his turn, wandered three days and three nights amongst the mountains, and ended by photographing some one, the real hermit some say, an impostor, others will tell you.
Last year then, the friend who first revealed to me this strangely quaint country, showed me two creatures infinitely more curious, than the poor devil who had come to hide in these impenetrable woods, a grief, a remorse, an incurable despair, or perhaps simply the mere ennui of living.
This is how he first discovered them. Wandering on horseback among these valleys, he suddenly came across a prosperous farm: vines, fields, and a farmhouse, which looked comfortable though humble.
He entered. He was received by a woman, a peasant, about seventy years old. The husband, seated under a tree, rose and came forward to bow.