The architect went home to his wife in mingled elation and despair.
The couple had evidently not had traffic with the devil for nothing, for they hit upon the contemptibly mean device of thrusting the penalty of their evil compact upon helpless and innocent shoulders. The wife suggested that they should set free a hare at one end of the bridge and let it run across to the devourer of souls, who was to wait at the other end with an open sack to catch his prey. And the trick succeeded. When the poor hare arrived at the fatal end of the bridge the devil, recognising in a fury how he had been duped, flung the animal against the wall, where it is said its impress on the stone can be seen to this day.[17]
The task of the tourist is to cross the river on the topmost tier of arches, through the disused aqueduct, and I set forth to accomplish this apparently break-neck feat. It is in reality quite easy. One has but to walk over the bridge that runs along the lowest tier of arches and then scramble up the rough hill on the opposite side of the river. The arches seen thus in sharp perspective are sublime, and they seem never-ending.
On the hillside grow many sweet-smelling aromatic plants, and they tempt one to linger that one may bruise the leaves and so enjoy the fresh wholesomeness of the perfume. Below, at a dizzy distance, runs the Gard, the shores rich with woods over which now is a sort of mysterious bloom that seems in perfect keeping with the unseen Enchanted Castle filled with exquisite works of art from all the quarters of the globe, that hides somewhere among the foliage a little lower down the stream.
Ascending to the level of the aqueduct one sees traces of its route over the hill on the way to Nimes. To reach it one must mount a short stair, and then one finds oneself in an immensely long tunnel, about seven or eight feet high, roofed in with stone slabs, which, however, are lacking here and there, so that the passage is dimly lighted. Along this ruined watercourse I crossed the Gard. It was like walking through a catacomb open at intervals to the sky. Here and there through chinks between the slabs, or in places where they had been broken away, one could catch glimpses of beautiful reaches of the river.
One emerges at the end of the tunnel on to a rough hillside, covered with shrubs, brambles, shaggy trees, and masses of ivy, a sort of Salvator Rosa landscape under the clouded heavens; for the day had changed and a mantle of grey spread itself over the majestic scene.
Scrambling down by chance steep pathways among the shrubs—losing my way more than once by following tracks that led to the edge of some miniature precipice—I found myself wondering, in the foolish, insistent way that one does wonder about trivial things, whether our tourist friend had managed to feel as disappointed as he had expected he would be with the Pont du Gard.
It looked absolutely sublime as one retreated from it on the homeward way; its towering arches rearing themselves tier above tier, like some dauntless human life lived steadily for a great purpose. And the storms of centuries have not been able to touch its splendour, though for ever they assail it—rain and sun, rain and sun, as the Provençal children sing—
"Plou, plou, souléio
Sus lou pont de Marseio."