Paul Morand: The Man in a Hurry

Apart from a ring of agaves and prickly pears, the building, constructed of such a brightly coloured stone that it looks as though it were new, stops beside a drop. It clings to the slope; it cleaves to some splendid thick rows of Aleppo pines in one of those luminous landscapes that rarely experience the splatter of rainfall. The olive trees have taken it upon themselves to settle around the oil mill; they display their greying leaves crowned with tender green shoots at a time of the year when the young, bitter olive has not yet turned a shade of violet. The cicadas can be heard… A Galilean peace.

Pierre and Placide enter a courtyard that has the stench of that quiet, silent existence of those farms where the labour takes place in the fields. An alcove bereaved of its saint. A black and white cat, paws folded, sleeps on the sill of one of the small columned arches that pierce the walls of the ancient chapel. For the old mas has its own very primitive Romanesque chapel, and also its leper house, which has been turned into a stable. Farmers have clumsily hacked out doors and windows from these thick eleventh-century walls that are so sparing of light and access. The mistral has torn off the shutters that have fallen onto the dry grass and which nobody has picked up. Nothing that the later centuries have added to the original building, which was designed to be low, compact and smooth as a pebble, has withstood the elements. On the contrary, everything that is ten centuries old appears new, not least the layout of the stones that are greenish-grey and flecked with silvery mica like those piedras de plata in the Andes that the conquistadors mention. The drinking trough is a sarcophagus in which the profile of the abbot can still be seen, an African abbot perhaps, thick-lipped, with negroid features. The bell-tower has lost its bell; it stands above a roof bereft of all its colour due to the sun, with the ribs of the tiles eaten away by yellow lichen: tiles that have been fired and refired and which sound hollow when pecked at by the beaks of the white doves, turned pink in the setting sun.

“It’s the lair of the owl and the nanny goat’s palace!”

They mop their brows with their ties and rest on a bench which gets so hot at midday that no one can sit on it, a bench that retains its heat all night long.

In the darkness, through the open door of the former leper house, the stable can be seen, and in the shade, a cow swinging her tail as though it were a fly-swatter. At their feet lie a demijohn corseted in rust and an old saucepan full of holes, once used for the chickens. Along the wall, close to the door of the chapel, beneath a thick-shaped, squat arcature with a full tympanum, stands one of those carts that are used in poor countries. It is tiny, like all those ploughing tools in the South of France which, compared to the equipment used in the North, would look like toys were it not for the fact that, worn, scratched and chipped by flint stones as they are, they reveal how much hardship and effort was involved.

“I’m madly happy!”

Pierre is already laying an owner’s hand over the sandstone that copper sulphate has turned green in places. There’s a surprising silence in this courtyard, where the only sound comes from the water of the fountain.

“And what a fountain! Porphyry from Egypt. Look at the Greek Cross.”

Their voices echo. An invisible dog barks. From a low door a woman comes out to meet them. She’s a stocky peasant with hair made frizzy in places by a perm several months old, accentuating her Phoenician features. Joints made of steel, bare legs, a working woman’s hips, a powerful neck leading down to firm, gypsy breasts. No thighs, but-tocks that begin at the back of her knees, and feet that are planted firmly on the ground and attached to her legs by large, rustic limbs, in pure Mediterranean style.

She had been expecting them, for she had dressed up: a very clean yellow shawl and some lipstick.

They shake hands.

“Did you receive my reply to your telegram?” asked Placide.

“Yes, yes indeed.”

“Is Monsieur de Boisrosé in?”

“He’s in, of course, but… he’s tired.”

“Well, he must rest, good God,” said Placide in placatory manner; “we shall see him later.”

“I repeat, he’s very tired. Don’t you follow me?”

“Not very well. Is he asleep?”

“He’s doing more than sleeping, the poor fellow, he’s fainted.”

It’s not easy to extract much from this Provençal woman who is on her guard. She sizes Pierre up, she sits in judgement. She has been waiting for these visitors too intently to divulge matters all at once.

“A fainting fit?” says Pierre anxiously.

“He’s been coughing now for some days, and he has a stitch in his side that makes him double up.”

“Pleurisy, his heart must have given out on him,” says Pierre.

“His heart was thumping away last night! It sounded like the old motor in the well. Monsieur was having too much fun working!”

Pierre and Placide glance at one another: “Have we arrived too late?” Cow-like, the woman reads their minds easily. Naively, she forgets herself and replies aloud:

“He’s already lost his mind four times in two days, the poor fellow. But he won’t pass away without having chatted with you.”

“Is he on his own?”

“Do you think I’d leave him! The lawyer, Maître Caressa, is keeping him company. Come in. I’ll go and warn him.”

She is no longer speaking like a maid, but as the mistress of the Mas Vieux, with the authority of a proprietor. One can sense that for years this scrupulous spider has spun her web here. She loses no time, certain that death will promptly reward her patience. Her future as a careful, prudent girl is at stake at this moment. She has worked long and hard preparing for this and the machine is set and running.

The two Parisians walk into the main room while she rushes to the bedroom. They look down and smell the tiled floor, brightly polished with linseed oil, and they look up at the old rafters of the house laid bare by the plasterwork; the rotten beams and planks of wood, the corner posts, as well as the crossbars and struts, the whole framework of the room consists of ancient joists riddled with woodworm in which cheese-mites dwell, those grubs that inhabit olive trees and that cause sawdust to fall on you when you step too heavily. The room has two shades: milky, whitewashed walls and tables blackened by smoke and the stain of oil used at meals. The soberness of an orthodox cloister; and the railway timetable for Sud-Provence for an icon.

Pierre nudges Placide’s elbow and points to a fireplace with a rounded hood and small columns supported by cushions filled with leaves.

“To think that I’ll be able to make a fire in a real Roman fireplace! A Roman fire!”

And, indicating a heap of heather roots, pine needles and cones:

“Here, you won’t be able to criticize me any more for pouring petrol on the wood to make it burn quicker! The fire will catch alight all on its own with these olive twigs. Have you ever seen olive wood burn, Placide? It’s full of blue and green glimmers, like rum punch.”

The beaded bamboo curtain quivered: a man appeared.

“Gentlemen, I have the great honour. I am the lawyer, Maître Caressa,” he said solemnly. “My client has come to his senses.”

“Ah, is he better?” said Pierre.

“No. He won’t see the sunrise, unfortunately.” The doctor was quite clear. “Monsieur de Boisrosé”, he affirmed, “will pass away during the night.”

The lawyer made as though he were tapping his heart, indicating how difficult his client’s breathing was, then, squeezing his throat, he pretended he was suffocating.

“Yet Monsieur de Boisrosé seemed to be in very good health?” Placide interrupted, very politely. “Might we know what it is that is sending him to the grave?”