The window allows one to pass out into a nondescript territory where boots are cleaned, firewood is stacked, and the omnibus is regularly put to bed and tucked in after its day's work.
To the left, a magnificent plane-tree spreads golden foliage far and wide, brimming up to our bedroom windows just overhead. And a little further from the house, on this side of a sombre row of cypresses, with an ethereal view to the left of palest mountain peaks--a Provençal rose garden!
"But gather, gather, Mesdames," invites our kind host, "gather as many as you will." He smiles at our amazed delight, and waves a hospitable hand towards the masses of blossom, radiantly fresh and fair.
The sun draws out the fragrance and shines through the petals till they gleam like gemmed enamel. We linger entranced.
In the narrow path we are elbow high in roses. And everything seems to stand still and wait in the hot sun. Nothing moves on. There is only a tiny floating back and forwards of a thread of cobweb between rose and rose; and very slowly now and again a broad swathe of plane-foliage heaves up and down on a little swell of air which the tree has all to itself in the shade-dappled precincts that it rules.
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.
"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.
