A bell bird from the trees beyond the road sent her golden notes floating on the wind, a shadow passed them, it was a woman, a mulatress, old, wrinkled, the picture of age.
Then the mule bells jangled as the mule driven by a negro scrambled from the steep path on to the road and Marie, suddenly, like a person awakening from a dream drew her hands away. Gaspard turned, more people were coming up the steep way from the Rue Vauclin.
“Come,” said he, “let us go away from all these people, where is there, here, that we may be quiet, and where you can rest after your journey?”
“Come with me,” she said.
She led the way down towards the town, they passed along one of the higher streets and at the door of a heavily-built house, whose green window shutters were drawn against the afternoon sun, she knocked.
A woman opened the door, she was a calendeuse, a friend of Marie’s, and the girl asked her to take her tray to keep till the next morning.
Then, released from her load, she kissed the woman on the cheek, thanked her, and turned to Gaspard.
“Come,” she said, and the woman closed the door as they passed away down the road. They passed along by the highest streets and then down a steep way by an old convent wall above which the palms of the convent garden bent to the evening wind. Then, by a path between two great cactus hedges she led him and lo! they were upon the road leading over the Morne de Parnasse and close to the gates of the Jardin des Plantes.
The old garden had drawn her to it at last. Often and often she had passed the gates, glancing in at the trees and the gloom, bright and heedless as a butterfly. One might imagine the spirit of the place watching the girl as she passed, singing, light-hearted, walking alone and content, the spirit which is neither malignant nor benign, the spirit which sets the siffleur de montagne singing to his mate, calls flowers into being, sets blossom calling to blossom and bird to bird, one might imagine him casting his spell upon the bright figure, as she passed his gates the other day, and, now, one might have fancied this spirit of nature sighing contentedly in the wind-bent trees—she had obeyed the spell and found a mate.
They passed the gateway and entered a world of twilight and perfume. Palm stems soared away into the gloom above; air shoots of the wild pine, ropes of convolvulus, lianas, festooned and trellised the twilight; gigantic ferns called the eye into glades where orchids hung like birds come to ruin, butterflies caught in some trap of the air.