I want to put away and keep my memory of the fragrance of the garden, and its little voices, bird and bee and grasshopper and cricket and stirring leaf. I want to remember things I saw from my window—the terrace with its grey stone mossy parapet; the steps between the pots of heliotrope and roses; the parterres, the old vague statues, the crouching sphynxes—beautiful because they are broken and deep in roses—the trimmed yews, the paths and box borders and formal beds of flowers; the wall of trees around; the glimpses through the trees of the town's stained, blurred roofs, and of grain fields and the forests.
I want to remember the little clover leaf table for my breakfast tray, the bowl of sweet-peas, the taste of the raspberries.
I want to remember the Long Gallery, the château smell in it; the clear green stir of the limes in the entrance court under its windows; the stairs that I kept dreaming about, with the dark Spanish pictures hung along them, and the armour on their turnings.
I want to remember the bird's nest in the lantern over the entrance door, and the begonias in the beds along the wall; the big dogs dragging at their chains to come and meet me, the huge tumbling puppy, the gardener's babies, Thérèse and Robert, bringing Thérèse's new rag doll to show me.
I started, motoring, only about 10 o'clock for Paris.
It was market day in the Place; there were the rust-red and burnt-umber awnings and the women's blue aprons and clattering sabots.
There were many magpies in the road. "Une pie, tant pis; deux pies, tant mieux," and one must bow nine times to each of them.
The country was dim and blue in the gauze lights of the morning. The road was empty between the poplar trees. It was good to see the peasants at work in the fields, and the life of the villages going its way in the morning streets.
I tried to get the papers in Compiègne, but they were not yet come.
There were many soldiers about.