[Illustration: ROMAN MONUMENTS, ST. REMY. _By E. M. Synge._]
But, in fact, the human mind seeks not merely a change from excitement to repose; it demands a change of scene and a change of thought-atmosphere for its own sake.
During the whole of our stay at St. Remy we lived in an atmosphere of roses. We could not gather enough of them to please our host; and we used to have great bunches in our rooms placed on the window-sill, so that the sunlight filtered through their petals; and over them we could see the garden of their birth and the pale mountains beyond. Our very dreams were of roses and rose-gardens!
One evening, inspired by their loveliness, I arranged a wreath of them in Barbara's hair, added a creamy shawl flowing to her feet, and stood back to admire the result. It was something to be proud of! Our dull, discreet _régime_ of ladylike nonentities had disappeared, and there was the poetry, the unapologetic grace of the classic world.
Barbara rose to try to see herself in the minute mirror.
"No, no! you _dare_ to take it off! There are some more roses to come yet." (The victim made a comic face of resignation.) "I want _profusion_."
"You _do_!" said Barbara, sitting down to laugh. "Am I to wear this costume when we go to Les Baux to-morrow?" she asked.
But, alas! as soon as active opposition was withdrawn, Barbara removed the improvised costume, took the roses out of her hair and the vision of the ancient world faded away. When we went down to dinner we both of us had on our sombre prison garments.
And though Barbara laughed, I knew that the world was a sadder and a drearier place because of it!
"C'est le Moyen-age tragique,--l'acropole de la Provence féodale."
In all Provence, perhaps in all Europe, there is no more astonishing relic of mediæval life than that "crater of a feudal volcano" Les Baux,[21] a veritable eagle's nest of a city in one of the wildest and highest points of the Alpilles. It is a morning's drive from St. Remy across the little range to its steep southern side.
We plunge straight into their heart and begin to mount by gradual windings through little valleys, arid and lonely. Dwarf oak, lavender and rosemary make their only covering. But for their grey vesture one might imagine oneself in some valley of the moon, wandering dream-bound in a dead world. The limestone vales have something of the character of the lunar landscape: a look of death succeeding violent and frenzied life, which gives to the airless, riverless valleys of our satellite their unbearable desolation. It might have been fancy, but it seemed that in the Alpilles there was not a living thing; neither beast nor bird nor insect.