第26章

I know not whether the exact limits of an excursion,as distinguished from a journey,have ever been fixed;at any rate,it seemed none of my business,at Tours,to settle the question.Therefore,though the making of excursions had been the purpose of my stay,I thought it vain,while I started for Bourges,to determine to which category that little expedition might belong.It was not till the third day that I returned to Tours;and the distance,traversed for the most part after dark,was even greater than I had supposed.That,however,was partly the fault of a tiresome wait at Vierzon,where I had more than enough time to dine,very badly,at the buffet,and to observe the proceedings of a family who had entered my railway carriage at Tours and had conversed unreservedly,for my benefit,all the way from that station,a family whom it entertained me to assign to the class of petite noblesse de province.Their noble origin was confirmed by the way they all made maigre in the refreshment oom (it happened to be a Friday),as if it had been possible to do anything else.They ate two or three omelets apiece,and ever so many little cakes,while the positive,talkative mother watched her children as the waiter handed about the roast fowl.I was destined to share the secrets of this family to the end;for when I had taken place in the empty train that was in waiting to convey us to Bourges,the same vigilant woman pushed them all on top of me into my compartment,though the carriages on either side contained no travellers at all.It was better,I found,to have dined (even on omelets and little cakes)at the station at Vierzon than at the hotel at Bourges,which,when I reached it at nine o'clock at night,did not strike me as the prince of hotels.The inns in the smaller provincial towns in France are all,as the term is,commercial,and the commisvoyageur is in triumphant possession.I saw a great deal of him for several weeks after this;for he was apparently the only traveller in the southern provinces,and it was my daily fate to sit opposite to him at tables d'hote and in railway trains.He may be known by two infallible signs,his hands are fat,and he tucks his napkin into his shirtcollar.In spite of these idiosyncrasies,he seemed to me a reserved and inoffensive person,with singularly little of the demonstrative goodhumor that he has been described as possessing.I saw no one who reminded me of Balzac's "illustre Gaudissart;"and indeed,in the course of a month's journey through a large part of France,I heard so little desultory conversation that I wondered whether a change had not come over the spirit of the people.They seemed to me as silent as Americans when Americans have not been "introduced,"and infinitely less addicted to exchanging remarks in railway trains and at tables d'hote the colloquial and cursory English;a fact perhaps not worth mentioning were it not at variance with that reputation which the French have long enjoyed of being a preeminently sociable nation.The common report of the character of a people is,however,an indefinable product;and it is,apt to strike the traveller who observes for himself as very wide of the mark.The English,who have for ages been described (mainly by the French)as the dumb,stiff,unapproachable race,present today a remarkable appearance of goodhumor and garrulity,and are distinguished by their facility of intercourse.On the other hand,any one who has seen half a dozen Frenchmen pass a whole day together in a railwaycarriage without breaking silence is forced to believe that the traditional reputation of these gentlemen is simply the survival of some primitive formula.It was true,doubtless,before the Revolution;but there have been great changes since then.The question of which is the better taste,to talk to strangers or to hold your tongue,is a matter apart;I incline to believe that the French reserve is the result of a more definite conception of social behavior.I allude to it only became it is at variance with the national fame,and at the same time is compatible with a very easy view of life in certain other directions.On some of these latter points the Boule d'Or at Bourges was full of instruction;boasting,as it did,of a hall of reception in which,amid old boots that had been brought to be cleaned,old linen that was being sorted for the wash,and lamps of evil odor that were awaiting replenishment,a strange,familiar,promiscuous household life went forward.Small scullions in white caps and aprons slept upon greasy benches;the Boots sat staring at you while you fumbled,helpless,in a row of pigeonholes,for your candlestick or your key;and,amid the coming and going of the commisvoyageurs,a little sempstress bent over the undergarments of the hostess,the latter being a heavy,stem,silent woman,who looked at people very hard.

It was not to be looked at in that manner that one had come all the way from Tours;so that within ten minutes after my arrival I sallied out into the darkness to get somehow and somewhere a happier impression.However late in the evening I may arrive at a place,I cannot go to bed without an impression.

The natural place,at Bourges,to look for one seemed to be the cathedral;which,moreover,was the only thing that could account for my presence dans cette galere.I turned out of a small square,in front of the hotel,and walked up a narrow,sloping street,paved with big,rough stones and guiltless of a footway.