Looking across the roses from this spot we can see the rich tapestry of blossom against the cypresses, tall, grave warders of the Garden of Pleasure.
And still nothing moves forward. The flies come out and make drowsy, foolish noises in the warmth. But they return upon their paths and make buzzing circuits. A particular spasmodic burnished insect that darts suddenly to a distance and then remains thunderstruck before the heart of a flower, keeps on doing the same ridiculous thing all round the garden, and only adds to the impression of changelessness. It is as if the world had really come to a pause, and time and trouble had ceased their eternal pulse-beat.
And we gather our roses—while we may.
"Mais Mesdames, vous n'avez choisi que les roses les plus communes; tenez Mesdames." And Monsieur the landlord plunges into the bushes and cuts bloom after bloom of the most exquisite sorts: red and yellow and creamy white, till his generous hand can grasp no more. He stands smiling discreetly while we bury our faces in the flowers, and hold them at arm's length to admire them the more.
"Elles vous rendent heureuses, les roses, Mesdames," he says, with a little smile and a bow; "alors vous rendez heureuses les roses—et votre serviteur."
We try to make a co-operative bow (bowing was not Barbara's strong point), and to indicate as well as we can that only in this delightful country had we ever met with such lovely roses or such kind people.
The first part of the day was occupied in wandering over the open country that surrounds this placid little town of the Romans. The plain is wide—immense in its spaces, marked with the inevitable walls of cypresses and dotted with shrubs and farms as far as the eye can follow.
The strange, almost grotesque outline of the Alpilles closes in this view to the South, and between these mountains and the town there are endless rough tracks and paths among the hollows and risings of the land, quaint cuttings in the soil which lead the eye to the blue of the hills.
