ROSES OF PROVENCE
What is the mysterious force in life that always makes it impossible to linger in any place where conditions are entirely congenial? We can stay so easily and with so much general approval in odious spots, among exasperating companions. But let a charm attach to any scene or circumstance and straightway every factor of one's destiny flies into violent collision with every other factor, so that immediate flight becomes necessary, to the farthest limits of the railway system.
Only "le violence de notre étoile," or at any rate of Barbara's "étoile," could drive us from these bright regions; but then her star was very violent. Our country clamoured for us. It would have seemed flattering had we not known that it sprang chiefly from the desire that consumes the majority of people to act as sheep-dog towards wandering members of the community; an instinctive feeling that if they are "away" it is high time that they should come back again.
Barbara announced that she must go in about a week or ten days; and all that remained for us to do was to make the most of her remaining time.
Our strange little mountains, the Alpilles, still held our fancy. Why not go to the little town at their foot, St. Remy, with its industry of seed culture? We had read of its Roman monuments and of the cordon of flowers which surround it in the blooming season.
"C'est le chevalier du guet,
Compagne de la majorlaine,
C'est le chevalier du guet,
Gai, gai, dessus le quai,"
runs the local rhyme.[20]