And my neighbour, a tourist, answered with decision: 'Madame, we find
your wine excellent. It could not be bettered.'
Nor could she get round them on a single point, and I pitied her so
much that I bought bread and wine off her to console her, and I let
her overcharge me, and went out into the afterglow with her
benediction, followed also by the farewells of the middle-class, who
were now taking their coffee at little tables outside the house.
I went hard up the road to Remiremont. The night darkened. I reached
Remiremont at midnight, and feeling very wakeful I pushed on up the
valley under great woods of pines; and at last, diverging up a little
path, I settled on a clump of trees sheltered and, as I thought, warm,
and lay down there to sleep till morning; but, on the contrary, I lay
awake a full hour in the fragrance and on the level carpet of the pine
needles looking up through the dark branches at the waning moon, which
had just risen, and thinking of how suitable were pine-trees for a man
to sleep under.
'The beech,' I thought, 'is a good tree to sleep under, for nothing
will grow there, and there is always dry beech-mast; the yew would be
good if it did not grow so low, but, all in all, pine-trees are the
best.' I also considered that the worst tree to sleep under would be
the upas tree.
