I was shown a little farm house, where travelers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the center of a Norman court, which was surrounded by a double row of beeches.
Quitting the Falaise, I gained the hamlet, which was hemmed in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
She was an old, wrinkled and austere rustic, who seemed always to succumb to the pressure of new customs with a kind of contempt.
It was the month of May: the spreading apple-trees covered the court with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon people and upon the grass.
"Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?"
Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
"That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking."
In five minutes we were in perfect accord, and I deposited my bag upon the bare floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and a wash-stand. The room looked into the large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and the farmer, who was a widower.
I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman fricasseed a chicken for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stew pot, black with smoke.
"You have travelers, then, at the present time?" I said to her.
She answered, in an offended tone of voice:
"I have a lady, an English lady, who has attained to years of maturity. She is going to occupy my other room."
I obtained, by means of an extra five sous a day, the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.
My cover was then placed in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with my teeth the lean members of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which was four days old, though excellent.
Suddenly, the wooden barrier which gave into the highway, was opened, and a strange person directed her steps towards the house. She was very slender, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red borders, and one might have believed that she had no arms, if one had not seen a long hand appear just above the haunches, holding a white tourist umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited, gray hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a sour herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.