This Drawbridge Traverses The Small Gap Which
Divides The End Of The Gallery From The Bank Of The
Stream.
The house, therefore, does not literally rest
on opposite edges of the Cher, but rests on one and
just fails to rest on the other.
The pavilion would
have made that up; but after a moment we ceased to
miss this imaginary feature. We passed the little
drawbridge, and wandered awhile beside the river.
From this opposite bank the mass of the chateau looked
more charming than ever; and the little peaceful, lazy
Cher, where two or three men were fishing in the
eventide, flowed under the clear arches and between
the solid pedestals of the part that spanned it, with
the softest, vaguest light on its bosom. This was the
right perspective; we were looking across the river of
time. The whole scene was deliciously mild. The
moon came up; we passed back through the gallery
and strolled about a little longer in the gardens. It
was very still. I met my old gondolier in the twilight.
He showed me his gondola; but I hated, somehow, to
see it there. I don't like, as the French say, to _meler
les genres_. A gondola in a little flat French river?
The image was not less irritating, if less injurious, than
the spectacle of a steamer in the Grand Canal, which
had driven me away from Venice a year and a half
before. We took our way back to the Grand Monarque,
and waited in the little inn-parlor for a late train to
Tours.
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