Would The Prospective Inundation Inter-
Fere With My Visit To Vaucluse, Or Make It Imprudent
To Linger Twenty-Four Hours Longer At Avignon?
I must
add that the tourist was not perhaps, after all, so
sentimental.
I have spoken of the pilgrimage to the
shrine of Petrarch as obligatory, and that was, in fact,
the light in which it presented itself to me; all the
more that I had been twice at Avignon without under-
taking it. This why I was vexed at the Rhone - if
vexed I was - for representing as impracticable an ex-
cursion which I cared nothing about. How little I
cared was manifest from my inaction on former oc-
casions. I had a prejudice against Vancluse, against
Petrarch, even against the incomparable Laura. I was
sure that the place was cockneyfied and threadbare,
and I had never been able to take an interest in the
poet and the lady. I was sure that I had known many
women as charming and as handsome as she, about
whom much less noise had been made; and I was
convinced that her singer was factitious and literary,
and that there are half a dozen stanzas in Wordsworth
that speak more to the soul than the whole collection
of his _fioriture_. This was the crude state of mind in
which I determined to go, at any risk, to Vaucluse.
Now that I think it over, I seem to remember that I
had hoped, after all, that the submersion of the roads
would forbid it. Since morning the clouds had gathered
again, and by noon they were so heavy that there was
every prospect of a torrent. It appeared absurd to
choose such a time as this to visit a fountain - a
fountain which, would be indistinguishable in the
general cataract. Nevertheless I took a vow that if
at noon the rain should not have begun to descend
upon Avignon I would repair to the head-spring of the
Sorgues. When the critical moment arrived, the clouds
were hanging over Avignon like distended water-bags,
which only needed a prick to empty themselves. The
prick was not given, however; all nature was too much
occupied in following the aberration of the Rhone to
think of playing tricks elsewhere. Accordingly, I started
for the station in a spirit which, for a tourist who
sometimes had prided himself on his unfailing supply
of sentiment, was shockingly perfunctory.
"For tasks in hours of insight willed
May be in hours of gloom fulfilled."
I remembered these lines of Matthew Arnold (written,
apparently, in an hour of gloom), and carried out the
idea, as I went, by hoping that with the return of in-
sight I should be glad to have seen Vaucluse. Light
has descended upon me since then, and I declare that
the excursion is in every way to be recommended.
The place makes a great impression, quite apart from
Petrarch and Laura.
There was no rain; there was only, all the after-
noon, a mild, moist wind, and a sky magnificently
black, which made a _repoussoir_ for the paler cliffs of
the fountain. The road, by train, crosses a flat, ex-
pressionless country, toward the range of arid hills
which lie to the east of Avignon, and which spring
(says Murray) from the mass of the Mont-Ventoux. At
Isle-sur-Sorgues, at the end of about an hour, the fore-
ground becomes much more animated and the distance
much more (or perhaps I should say much less) actual.
I descended from the train, and ascended to the top
of an omnibus which was to convey me into the re-
cesses of the hills. It had not been among my pre-
visions that I should be indebted to a vehicle of that
kind for an opportunity to commune with the spirit of
Petrarch; and I had to borrow what consolation I
could from the fact that at least I had the omnibus to
myself. I was the only passenger; every one else was
at Avignon, watching the Rhone. I lost no time in
perceiving that I could not have come to Vaucluse at
a better moment. The Sorgues was almost as full as
the Rhone, and of a color much more romantic. Rush-
ing along its narrowed channel under an avenue of
fine _platanes_ (it is confined between solid little embank-
ments of stone), with the good-wives of the village, on
the brink, washing their linen in its contemptuous
flood, it gave promise of high entertainment further on.
The drive to Vaucluse is of about three quarters of
an hour; and though the river, as I say, was promis-
ing, the big pale hills, as the road winds into them,
did not look as if their slopes of stone and shrub were
a nestling-place for superior scenery. It is a part of
the merit of Vaucluse, indeed, that it is as much as
possible a surprise. The place has a right to its name,
for the valley appears impenetrable until you get fairly
into it. One perverse twist follows another, until the
omnibus suddenly deposits you in front of the "cabinet"
of Petrarch. After that you have only to walk along
the left bank of the river. The cabinet of Petrarch is
to-day a hideous little _cafe_, bedizened, like a sign-
board, with extracts from the ingenious "Rime." The
poet and his lady are, of course, the stock in trade of
the little village, which has had for several generations
the privilege of attracting young couples engaged in
their wedding-tour, and other votaries of the tender
passion. The place has long been familiar, on festal
Sundays, to the swains of Avignon and their attendant
nymphs. The little fish of the Sorgues are much
esteemed, and, eaten on the spot, they constitute, for
the children of the once Papal city, the classic sub-
urban dinner. Vaucluse has been turned to account,
however, not only by sentiment, but by industry; the
banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of
hideous mills for the manufacture of paper and of
wool.
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