It Was A Sunday Afternoon, And The Light
Was Yellow, Save Under The Trees Of The Avenue, Where,
In Spite Of The Waning Of September, It Was Duskily
Green.
Three or four peasants, in festal attire, were
strolling about.
On a bench at the beginning of the
avenue, sat a man with two women. As I advanced
with my companions he rose, after a sudden stare,
and approached me with a smile, in which (to be
Johnsonian for a moment) certitude was mitigated by
modesty and eagerness was embellished with respect.
He came toward me with a salutation that I had seen
before, and I am happy to say that after an instant I
ceased to be guilty of the brutality of not knowing
where. There was only one place in the world where
people smile like that, - only one place where the art
of salutation has that perfect grace. This excellent
creature used to crook his arm, in Venice, when I
stepped into my gondola; and I now laid my hand on
that member with the familiarity of glad recognition;
for it was only surprise that had kept me even for a
moment from accepting the genial Francesco as an
ornament of the landscape of Touraine. What on
earth - the phrase is the right one - was a Venetian
gondolier doing at Chenonceaux? He had been
brought from Venice, gondola and all, by the mistress
of the charming house, to paddle about on the Cher.
Our meeting was affectionate, though there was a kind
of violence in seeing him so far from home.
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