On the walk to school you soon get beyond the château and the villas. But even on the promontory there is more than the dodging of automobiles to remind one that this is the twentieth century. The Corniche de l'Estérel has been singled out by the moving-picture men for playing out-of-door scenarios. When the sun is shining, a day rarely passes without film-making. The man with a camera has the rising road and bends around which the action can enter into the scene, the forest up and the forest down, the Mediterranean and mountain and island and Cannes backgrounds. Automobile hold-ups with pistols barking, the man and the maid in the woods and on the terrace, the villain assaulting and the hero rescuing the defenseless woman, the heroine jumping from a rock into the sea, and clinging to an upturned boat—these are commonplace events on the Corniche de l'Estérel.
The world of cinemas and motors does not rise early. On the morning walk, children and squirrels and birds were all one met. Children go slowly, and squirrels and birds belong to nature. There was always time to breathe in the forest and the sea and to look across to the mountains. When cartables and goûters were handed over at the school gate, parental responsibility ceased for three hours. One had the choice of going on around the point towards Trayas or down to the sea.
The people of Théoule say that Corsica, sixty miles away, can be seen from the Esquillon. All one has to do is to keep going day after day until "atmospheric conditions are favorable." The Touring-Club de France has built a Belvedere at the extremity of the Esquillon. Arrows on a dial indicate the direction of important places from Leghorn to Marseilles. The Apennines behind Florence, as well as Corsica, are marked as within the range of visibility. The Apennines had not been seen for years, but Corsica was liable to appear at any time. The first day the Artist went with me to the Esquillon, an Oldest Inhabitant said that we had a Corsica day. A milkwoman en route reported Corsica in sight, and told us to hurry. Towards nine o'clock the sun raises a mist from the sea, she explained. In the belvedere we found a girl without a guide book who had evidently come over from Trayas. She was crouched down to dial level, and her eyes were following the Corsica arrow. She did not look up or move when we entered. Minutes passed. There was no offer to give us a chance. We coughed and shuffled, and the Artist sang "The Little Gray Home in the West." I informed the Artist—in French—that a specialist had once remarked upon my hyperopic powers, and that if Corsica were really in sight I could not fail to see it.
Not until she had to shake the cramp out of her back did the girl straighten up.
"Corsica is invisible today," she announced.
"Yes," I answered sadly. "Ten minutes ago the mist began to come up. You know, sun upon the water—"
A look in her eyes made me hesitate. "And all that sort of thing," I ended lamely.
"Nonsense," she said briskly. She surveyed the Artist from mustache to cane point and turned back to me. "You, at least," she declared, "are American, but of the unpractical sort. And you are as unresourceful as you are ungallant, Monsieur. How do I know? Well, you were complaining about my monopolizing the dial. There is a map on the tiles under your feet, and a compass dangles uselessly from your watch-chain. I wonder, too, if you are hyperopic. You know which is the Carlton Hôtel over there in Cannes. Tell me how many windows there are across a floor."
The atmosphere was wonderfully clear, and the Carlton stood out plainly. But I failed the test.
The girl laughed. I did not mind that. When the Artist started in, I turned on him savagely.