III.

[Illustration: 133]

The park is a great wood on a hill, embedded among meadows and harvests. You walk in long solitary alleys, under colonnades of superb oaks, while to the left the lofty stems of the copses mount in close ranks upon the back of the hill. The fog was not yet lifted; there was no motion in the air; not a corner of blue sky, not a sound in all the country. The song of a bird came for an instant from the midst of the ash-trees, then sadly ceased. Is that then the sky of the south, and was it necessary to come to the happy country of the Béarnais to find such {109}melancholy impressions? A little by-way brought us to a bank of the Gave: in a long pool of water was growing an army of reeds twice the height of a man; their grayish spikes and their trembling leaves bent and whispered under the wind; a wild flower near by shed a vanilla perfume. We gazed on the broad country, the ranges of rounded hills, the silent plain under the dull dome of the sky. Three hundred paces away the Gave rolls between marshalled banks, which it has covered with sand; in the midst of the waters may be seen the moss-grown piles of a ruined bridge. One is at ease here, and yet at the bottom of the heart one feels a vague unrest; the soul is softened and loses itself in melancholy and tender revery. Suddenly the clock strikes, and one has to go and prepare to take his soup between two commercial travellers.

[Illustration: 134]

IV. {110}

To-day the sun shines. On my way to the _Place Nationale_, I remarked a poor, half-ruined church, which had been turned into a coachhouse; they have fastened upon it a carrier’s sign. The arcades, in small gray stones, still round themselves with an elegant boldness; beneath are stowed away carts and casks and pieces of wood; here and there workmen were handling wheels. A broad ray of light fell upon a pile of straw, and made the sombre corners seem yet darker; the pictures that one meets with outweigh those one has come to seek.

From the esplanade which is opposite, the whole valley and the mountains beyond may be seen; this first sight of a southern sun, as it breaks from the rainy mists, is admirable; a sheet of white light stretches from one horizon to another without meeting a single cloud. The heart expands in this immense space; the very air is festal; the dazzled eyes close beneath the brightness which deluges them and which runs over, radiated from the burning dome of heaven. The current of the river sparkles like a girdle of jewels; the chains of hills, yesterday veiled and damp, extend at their own sweet will beneath the warming, penetrating rays, and mount range upon range to spread out their {111}green robe to the sun. In the distance, the blue Pyrenees look like a bank of clouds; the air that bathes them shapes them into aerial forms, vapory phantoms, the farthest of which vanish in the canescent horizon--dim contours, that might be taken for a fugitive sketch from the lightest of pencils.

[Illustration: 136]

In the midst of the serrate chain the peak du _Midi d’ Ossau_ lifts its abrupt cone; at this distance, forms are softened, colors are blended, the Pyrenees are only the graceful bordering of a smiling landscape and of the magnificent sky. There is nothing imposing about them nor severe; the beauty here is serene, and the pleasure pure. {112}

The statue of Henry IV., with an inscription in Latin and in patois, is on the esplanade; the armor is finished so perfectly that it might make an armorer jealous. But why does the king wear so sad an air? His neck is ill at ease on his shoulders; his features are small and full of care; he has lost his gayety, his spirit, his confidence in his fortune, his proud bearing. His air is neither that of a great nor a good man, nor of a man of intellect; his face is discontented, and one would say that he was bored with Pau. I am not sure that he was wrong: and yet the city passes for agreeable; the climate is very mild, and invalids who fear the cold pass the winter in it. Balls are given in the clubs; the English abound, and it is well known that in the matter of cookery, of beds and inns, these people are the first reformers in the universe.

They would have done well in reforming the vehicles: the rickety little diligences of the country are drawn by gaunt jades which descend the hills on a walk, and make stops in the ascent. All encouragements of the whip are thrown away on their backs; you could not bear them any grudge on that account, so piteous is their appearance, with their ridgy backbones, hanging ears, and shrunken bellies. The coachman rises on his {113}seat, pulls the reins, waves his arms, bawls and storms, clambers down and up again; his is a rude calling, but he has a soul like his calling. His passengers are of small consequence to him; he treats them as useful packages, a necessary counterpoise over which he has rights. At the foot of a mountain, the machine got its wheel into a ditch and tilted over; every one leaped out after the manner of Panurge’s sheep.

[Illustration: 138]

He went running from one to another to get them back, especially exhorting the people from the impériale, and pointing out to them the danger to the vehicle, which was leaning back, and so needed ballast in front. They however remained cool, and went on afoot, while he followed grumbling and abusing their selfishness. {114}