It was this first part of the journey that his imagination was most slow in accomplishing. It would be delayed in an infinity of mysterious solitudes, where that interminable waste of sand impeded his progress.
Then he had to cross Algiers and the Mediterranean, reach the coast of France and ascend the valley of the Rhône, to arrive at last at that spot, marked on the map with little black shadings, which he envisaged as blue-tinged peaks, seen among the clouds: the Cevennes.
Mountains! His eyes had been so long accustomed to the lonely plains; it was so long since he had seen any mountains that he had almost forgotten what they were like.
And forests! The great chestnut woods of his country, moist and shadowy, where real streams of living water ran, where the soil was earth, carpeted with moss and delicate grasses.... He felt that it would be a relief merely to see a small clod of damp, mossy earth—instead of the dry sand blown about by the desert wind.
And his beloved village, which in his imaginary journey he beheld at first from above, as if he were hovering over it, the old church, which he pictured under snow, with its bell doubtless ringing the Angelus (it was seven in the evening), and close by, his cottage—the whole scene enveloped in a bluish haze, on a cold December evening, with rays of pale moonlight glancing upon it.
Was it possible? Somewhere all this actually existed; it was not a mere memory, a vision of the past; it existed; it was not even so very far away; actually at this moment people were living in that very spot, and it was possible to go there.
What were they doing, his poor old parents, at this very moment when he was thinking of them? Seated in a corner by the fire, no doubt, in front of the wide fireplace, by the cheerful blaze of branches gathered in the forest. He saw again all the objects familiar to him from childhood, the little lamp lighted on winter evenings, the pieces of old furniture; the cat curled up asleep on a stool. Among all these friendly things he sought to place the well-beloved owners of the cottage.
Nearly seven o’clock! He had the very picture before him. The evening meal was over; his parents were seated in a corner by the fire, grown older, no doubt; his aged father in his usual attitude, leaning on his hand his fine grey head—the head of an old cuirassier turned mountaineer again—and his mother probably knitting, moving her long needles very rapidly in her capable, quick, hard-working hands, or spinning, with her distaff of hemp held very upright.
And Jeanne—she was with them perhaps. His mother had written that she would often come and keep them company on winter evenings. What was she like now? “Changed and grown still prettier,” he had been told. What was that face like now, that face of the grown-up girl he had never seen?