[Page 118.
As the sweet, mellow, solemn bell of the cathedral sounded, and before it had struck three notes, a blatant tin kettle of a clock, from a hotel near by, raspingly announced its own rendering of the time. Then here, then there, from all quarters, came shrill, discordant editions of the same fact, and the great thrilling, arresting reminder of the dignified past was silenced. So have I sometimes seen a modern, fashionable woman, decked out in all the tinsel fripperies of Paris, outshine some quiet, delicate, other-world beauty in a crowded room, so that the latter was, to all intents and purposes, completely shelved, so to speak. She needed her own environment, her own quiet background before her personal note could be heard; before she could shine in people's eyes, as she should have shone.
What is it that makes foreign churches a living centre of daily concern? That they are so, can hardly be disputed. Why they should be so is another matter, and reasons are bandied about. But whether they have a reasonable basis, is questionable. The reason chiefly given, of course, is the influence of the priest, and the background he can produce at will to the home life picture, if his suggestion in daily life are not carried out. But it remains to be proved if this reason can carry the weight that is laid upon its back by its supporters.
One afternoon about two o'clock I waited in the square opposite the cathedral for forty minutes, in order to see what manner of men and women were constrained to go through the little swinging door underneath one of those splendid archways. Every other moment, for the whole of that forty minutes, some one passed in and out: well-dressed women; countrywomen in white frilled cap, apron and sabots; hatless peasants; beggars; "sisters;" infirm people, healthy people; old people, young people, children. Some would come out slowly, stiffly; some with mackintosh flying behind; some accompanied, some unaccompanied.
There was no service; (for I went inside myself, to see, and found a quiet church—no one about but those who had come for a quiet "think," or a quiet prayer); it was evidently done simply to satisfy a need—a need that affected equally all sorts and conditions of men and women. Just as someone, during a sudden pause in the middle of the day's business, takes a quiet quarter of an hour aside for a chat with some chosen comrade; just as a mother, perhaps, during the "noisy years" of her children's lives, steals a quiet ten minutes of solitude to restore the balance of her thoughts, which have been unsettled by the quarrels and disputes of baby tongues. It is the time when the soul puts off the official robe of pressing business for a few short minutes and takes a deep drink at "the things that endure;" the time when the soul can stretch its tired, cramped spiritual limbs, and take a long breath; the hour when the burden that each of us carries is slipped for a time, and shrinks in stature. To bring the spiritual and the material to speaking terms has always been a crucial point of difficulty. England, to-day, belongs pre-eminently to a materialistic age, and it is full of people who are trying—some of them fairly successfully—to persuade themselves—knowing how difficult a matter it is to combine the spiritual element and the material,—that it is safest and happiest to divorce them as completely as possible. Where in this country does one see the compelling necessity at work with all classes on a week day, to go aside into some quiet, empty church, and draw from spiritual stores? One may safely affirm that this occurs somewhat rarely, out of London.
There was a good deal of garden drapery at our hotel, (a good deal of drapery too, as to prices, but this we did not find out until the last day of our stay!) Every night white tablecloths were spread over the beds of heather and chrysanthemums in the front garden. Every morning a very curious effect was caused by the snow, which had fallen during the night, having made deep folds in their sides and middles, so that at first sight it looked as if some enormous hats had been deposited there in the night. One evening, between eight and nine o'clock, while sitting quietly at the table d'hôte, which was presided over by a youthful master of ceremonies, who walked up and down in goloshes, (his invariable, though unexplainable, custom) there came the distant but rousing sound of bugles. Instantly chairs were pushed back, diners rose hastily, and presently the whole room emptied, and a shifting population tumultuously made its way across the hall, and through into the garden where the table-clothed flowers slept in their night wrappers,—and away to the gates. As we reached them the dark street was raggedly lit up by the flickering jerk of the red glare from moving torches: there was a sudden stir of music in the air: the bugles came nearer, accompanied by the quick tramp past of many feet: the rattle of the drums worked up the tune to its climax: then the call of the bugle again, exciting, questioning, hurrying: a moment later, the music dancing and edging off by rapid paces, till all the awakened emotion and excitement, stirred to vivid life of the passing, trenchant movement, sank—as it seemed, finally—quite suddenly, to a flicker in the socket, and ceased. The street in front of us grew emptier; and, the requirement of the inner man and inner woman again beginning to re-assert themselves, the garden witnessed the return to the deserted table d'hôte, of most of the crowd, who had, some minutes earlier, started up to follow the drum.
But I still waited on at the gate. The whole scene, but just enacted, had put me back many, many years, to a night long ago in very early childhood; when the torches and tar-barrels of a certain fifth of November celebration at St. Leonards, had flashed as startlingly, as brilliantly, an arrestingly on the panes of our sitting-room; and I, a little child playing quietly by myself on the floor, had been roused suddenly to instant attention by the glare and fantastic dancing reflections on the wall as the procession of shouting torch bearers came striding up the street to the stirring sound of the bugle. The whole incident had made an ineffaceable impression on my mind, and I had often recalled to myself the dark window, the sudden flickering glare, the roar of the flaming tar-barrels, the whole scene swaying ruddily up the street outside, the excited sense of something strange and new happening; but never till this evening, had I been taken right back, and my feet, as it were, planted once again on the same spot of the old sensation, from which the push of so many passing years had displaced the "me" of those days when the spring of life's year was but just beginning.
In the Rue des Ours there is a little humble restaurant to which I went again and again. It stands in a narrow, cobbled street, with old black timbered houses opposite it and beside it. It is itself of no mean age. Most of the more well-to-do restaurants in Rouen have indeed cartes fixed up in prominent places outside, but they are cartes without the horse of "Prix fixe" harnessed to them.
But if you once know your restaurant, then the thing to do is, in this case not to "find out men's wants and meet them there," but to "find out" what particular dish it is really good at cooking and "meet it there" by coming regularly for that very dish, not venturing out into the unknown, and often greasy, waters of a stew, a hors d'œuvre, or entremet. This is knowledge acquired by experience, for I have, in the craving that sometimes beseiges one for variety, gone much farther and—fared much worse, so now I am content to stay where I fare fairly well, if plainly, at moderate expenditure. One can pass a very happy hour at the little restaurant in the Rue des Ours; they can fry kippers to a turn, and one or two other simple things. Some people I know wouldn't care to come in and have kippers for second déjeuner: all I can say is, then they can stay out—go somewhere else and make greater demands on their trouser pockets.