The Pont Du
Gard Is One Of The Three Or Four Deepest Impressions
They Have Left; It Speaks Of Them In A Manner With
Which They Might Have Been Satisfied.
I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the
whereabouts of the chateau of the obliging young
Man I had met on the way from Nimes; I must con-
tent myself with saying that it nestled in an en-
chanting valley, - _dans le fond_, as they say in France,
- and that I took my course thither on foot, after
leaving the Pont du Gard. I find it noted in my
journal as "an adorable little corner." The principal
feature of the place is a couple of very ancient towers,
brownish-yellow in hue, and mantled in scarlet Vir-
ginia-creeper. One of these towers, reputed to be
of Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more
effective; the other is incorporated in the house,
which is delightfully fragmentary and irregular. It
had got to be late by this time, and the lonely _castel_
looked crepuscular and mysterious. An old house-
keeper was sent for, who showed me the rambling
interior; and then the young man took me into a
dim old drawing-room, which had no less than four
chimney-pieces, all unlighted, and gave me a refec-
tion of fruit and sweet wine. When I praised the
wine and asked him what it was, he said simply,
"C'est du vin de ma mere!" Throughout my little
joumey I had never yet felt myself so far from Paris;
and this was a sensation I enjoyed more than my
host, who was an involuntary exile, consoling him-
self with laying out a _manege_, which he showed me
as I walked away. His civility was great, and I was
greatly touched by it. On my way back to the little
inn where I had left my vehicle, I passed the Pont
du Gard, and took another look at it. Its great arches
made windows for the evening sky, and the rocky
ravine, with its dusky cedars and shining river, was
lonelier than before. At the inn I swallowed, or tried
to swallow,a glass of horrible wine with my coach-
man; after which, with my reconstructed team, I drove
back to Nimes in the moonlight. It only added a
more solitary whiteness to the constant sheen of the
Provencal landscape.
XXVII.
The weather the next day was equally fair, so that
it seemed an imprudence not to make sure of Aigues-
Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; at a pinch, I could
attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that
Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to
desire that gems should have an opportunity to sparkle.
This is an excursion of but a few hours, and there is
a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train that will con-
vey you, in time for a noonday breakfast, to the small
dead town where the blessed Saint-Louis twice em-
barked for the crusades.
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