"The houses in the courts were stables downstairs."
We were expressing our enthusiasm in a court where the living green combined with age to glorify the buildings. We did not see the dilapidation, we did not smell the dirt, we did not feel the squalor. A woman was lighting a fire in a brazier on her doorstep. She looked hostilely at us. We beamed in counteraction. She looked more hostilely. As the Artist wanted to sketch her house, some words seemed necessary. I detailed our emotions. Was not her lot, cast in this picturesque spot, most enviable?
"We want to take away with us," I said, "a tangible memory of this beautiful, this picturesque, this verdant court in which you live."
"If you had to live here," she announced simply, "you'd want to go away and forget it."
The fumes had burned from the charcoal. The woman picked up the brazier, carried it inside without another word or look, and slammed the door behind her with her foot.
The Artist was already in his sketch, but he paused to growl and philosophize. "If she had waited a minute longer," he complained, "I should have had her and the brazier. Funny how unappreciative people are. You and I, mon vieux, would like nothing better than to stay here. From the other side of her house that woman must have a great view of the sea and the mountains. Is she going to watch the sunset? No, she is going to make soup for her man on that brazier in a dark hole of a room, and feel sorry for herself because she doesn't live in Paris where she could go to the movies every night."
Our ardor for Saint-Paul-du-Var lasted splendidly through the sunset on the ramparts. We had found the ideal spot. Hoi polloi could have their Nice and their Cannes! But when night fell, there were few lights on the street, and shopkeepers looked at us in stupid amazement when we inquired about lodgings. We did not dare to ask in the drinking places, for fear they might volunteer to put us up. In the épiceries, we were offered bread and sardines. There was no butter. So we went rather less reluctantly than we had thought possible an hour earlier out of the gate towards the hôtel-restaurant. An old man was camped against the wall in a wagon like Pierre's. He had been sharpening Saint-Paul-du-Var's scissors and knives. We confided in him, and asked if he thought the hôtel-restaurant would give us a good dinner and a good bed. The scissors-grinder wrinkled his nose and twinkled his eyes. "The last tram from Vence to Cagnes stops over there at eight-ten," he said decisively. "You have five minutes to catch it. Get off at Villeneuve-Loubet, and go to the Hôtel Beau-Site. The proprietor is a cordon bleu of a chef. He has his own trout, and he knows just what tourists like to eat and drink. Motorists stop there over night, so you need have no fear."
"But—" I started to remonstrate.
The Artist was already hurrying in the direction of the tram. I followed him.