Horses and the teams shot down, and the
gunners all the while impassive; but as I saw I should not be believed
I did not speak of such things, but confined myself to what he would
see and hear when he joined.
Meanwhile the good warm food and the rising morning had done two
things; they had put much more vigour into me than I had had when I
slunk in half-an-hour before, but at the same time (and this is a
thing that often comes with food and with rest) they had made me feel
the fatigue of so long a night. I rose up, therefore, determined to
find some place where I could sleep. I asked this friend of mine how
much there was to pay, and he said 'fourpence'. Then we exchanged
ritual salutations, and I took the road. I did not leave the town or
village without noticing one extraordinary thing at the far end of it,
which was that, whereas most places in France are proud of their
town-hall and make a great show of it, here in Flavigny they had taken
a great house and written over it ECOLE COMMUNALE in great letters,
and then they had written over a kind of lean-to or out-house of this
big place the words 'Hotel de ville' in very small letters, so small
that I had a doubt for a moment if the citizens here were good
republicans - a treasonable thought on all this frontier.
Then, a mile onward, I saw the road cross the canal and run parallel
to it. I saw the canal run another mile or so under a fine bank of
deep woods. I saw an old bridge leading over it to that inviting
shade, and as it was now nearly six and the sun was gathering
strength, I went, with slumber overpowering me and my feet turning
heavy beneath me, along the tow-path, over the bridge, and lay down on
the moss under these delightful trees. Forgetful of the penalty that
such an early repose would bring, and of the great heat that was to
follow at midday, I quickly became part of the life of that forest and
fell asleep.
When I awoke it was full eight o'clock, and the sun had gained great
power. I saw him shining at me through the branches of my trees like
a patient enemy outside a city that one watches through the loopholes
of a tower, and I began to be afraid of taking the road. I looked
below me down the steep bank between the trunks and saw the canal
looking like black marble, and I heard the buzzing of the flies above
it, and I noted that all the mist had gone. A very long way off, the
noise of its ripples coming clearly along the floor of the water, was
a lazy barge and a horse drawing it. From time to time the tow-rope
slackened into the still surface, and I heard it dripping as it rose.
The rest of the valley was silent except for that under-humming of
insects which marks the strength of the sun.
Now I saw clearly how difficult it was to turn night into day, for I
found myself condemned either to waste many hours that ought to be
consumed on my pilgrimage, or else to march on under the extreme heat;
and when I had drunk what was left of my Brule wine (which then seemed
delicious), and had eaten a piece of bread, I stiffly jolted down the
bank and regained the highway.
In the first village I came to I found that Mass was over, and this
justly annoyed me; for what is a pilgrimage in which a man cannot hear
Mass every morning? Of all the things I have read about St Louis which
make me wish I had known him to speak to, nothing seems to me more
delightful than his habit of getting Mass daily whenever he marched
down south, but why this should be so delightful I cannot tell. Of
course there is a grace and influence belonging to such a custom, but
it is not of that I am speaking but of the pleasing sensation of order
and accomplishment which attaches to a day one has opened by Mass; a
purely temporal, and, for all I know, what the monks back at the
ironworks would have called a carnal feeling, but a source of
continual comfort to me. Let them go their way and let me go mine.
This comfort I ascribe to four causes (just above you will find it
written that I could not tell why this should be so, but what of
that?), and these causes are:
1. That for half-an-hour just at the opening of the day you are silent
and recollected, and have to put off cares, interests, and passions in
the repetition of a familiar action. This must certainly be a great
benefit to the body and give it tone.
2. That the Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function
of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth)
to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to
catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you
during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular
repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter for action and
judgement.
3. That the surroundings incline you to good and reasonable thoughts,
and for the moment deaden the rasp and jar of that busy wickedness
which both working in one's self and received from others is the true
source of all human miseries.
