William Maxwell - The Chateau

When they emerged from the building, they saw that it was at one end of a long terrace planted in flower beds, with a view over the lower part of the city. Leaning against a stone balustrade, with his guidebook open in front of him, he started to read about the terrace where they now were.

“What’s that?” Barbara asked.

He looked up. At the far end of the terrace a crowd had gathered. The singing came from that direction. They listened intently. It sounded like children’s voices.

“It’s probably something to do with Bastille Day,” he said, and stuffed the guidebook in his raincoat pocket, and they hurried off down the gravel paths.

FOR TOURISTS who fall in love with the country they are traveling in, charms of great potency are always at work. If there is a gala performance at the Opéra, they get the last two tickets. Someone runs calling and gesturing the whole length of the train to find them and return the purse that was left on a bench on the station platform. And again and again they are drawn, as if by wires, to the scene that they will never be able to forget as long as they live.

At first the Americans stood politely on the outskirts of the crowd, thinking that they had no right to be here. But then they worked their way in gradually, until at last they were clear inside.

The children, dressed all in white, had no leader, and did not need one. They had been preparing for this occasion for years. Their voices were very high, pure, on pitch, thoroughly drilled, and happy. Music heard in the open air is not like music in a concert hall. It was as if the singing came from one’s own heart.

Remember what the lark sounds like , said the stones of the Bishop’s Palace. Try for perfection .…

Try for joy , said the moss-stained fountain.

Do not be afraid to mark the contrasts if it is necessary , said the faded tricolor. But do not let one voice dominate .… Remember that you are French. Remember that in no other country in the world do children have songs that are as beautiful and gay and unfading as these .…

The exact sound of joy is what you must aim for .…

… of a pure conscience …

… of an enthusiastic heart …

“Oh, oh, oh,” Harold exclaimed under his breath, as if he had just received a fatal wound.

Full of delight but still exact and careful and like one proud voice the children sang: “Qui n’avait jam-jam-jamais naviGUÉ!”

He looked at Barbara. They shook their heads in wonder.

“They must be very old songs,” he whispered.

Turning, he studied the adults, dressed in somber colors and shabby suits, but attentive, critical, some of them probably with ears only for the singing of a particular child. They appeared to take the songs for granted. This is what it means to be French, he thought. It belongs with the red-white-and-blue flags and the careful enunciation and the look of intelligence in every eye and the red poppies growing in the wheat. These songs are their birthright, instead of “London Bridge Is Falling Down.…”

The children finished singing and marched off two by two, and the crowd parted to let in some little boys, who performed a ferocious staff dance in which nobody got hurt; and then six miniature couples, who marched into the open space and formed a circle. The boys had on straw hats, blue smocks, and trousers that were too large for them. The little girls wore white caps and skirts that dragged the ground and in some instances had to be held up with a safety pin. At a signal from an emaciated man with a violin, the gavotte began. In the patterns of movement, and quite apart from the grave self-conscious children who danced, there was a gallantry that was explicitly sexual, an invitation now mocked, now welcomed openly. But because they were only eight-year-olds, the invitation to love was like a melody transposed from its original key and only half recognizable. Suddenly he turned and worked his way blindly toward the outer edge of the crowd. Barbara followed him out into the open, where a group of fifteen-year-old girls in diaphanous costumes waited to go on. If the sight of a foreigner wiping his eyes with his handkerchief interested them, they did not show it. They stretched and bent over, practicing, or examined the blackened soles of their feet, or walked about in twos and threes. He saw that Barbara was looking at him anxiously and tried to explain and found he could not speak. Again he had to take his handkerchief out.

“There’s Mme Viénot,” Barbara said.

Turning, he saw her hurrying toward them between the flower beds. Ignoring his condition, she said: “M. and Mme Carrère are waiting in the pâtisserie,” and hurried them off down the gravel path.

The pastry shop was down below, in the rue de Commerce, and it was crowded and noisy. Cutting her way through clots of people, squeezing between tables, frustrating waitresses with trays, Mme Viénot arrived at the large round table in the rear of the establishment where M. and Mme Carrère and Mme Bonenfant were waiting, their serenity in marked contrast to the general noise and confusion. Mme Carrère invited Harold and Barbara to sit down, and then she allowed her eyes to roam over the room, as if something were about to happen of so important a nature that talk was not necessary. Mme Bonenfant asked if they had found Blois a beautiful city and was pleased when he said that they preferred Brenodville. The village was charming, she agreed; very old, and just the way a village should be; she herself had great affection for it. Mme Viénot went off in search of M. Gagny, and for the next ten minutes M. Carrère devoted himself to the task of capturing a busboy and ordering a carafe of “fresh” water. Human chatter hung in the air like mist over a pond.

They saw that Mme Viénot had returned, with the Canadian. She stopped to confer with the proprietress and he came straight back to their table. He had found the parfumerie, he explained as he sat down, but it did not have the kind of perfume his mother had asked him to get for her. The proprietress of the pâtisserie nodded, shrugged, and seemed in no way concerned about what Mme Viénot was saying to her. Arriving at the table in the rear, Mme Viénot said: “She’s going to send someone to take our order.” She sat down, glanced at her watch nervously, and said: “The Brenodville bus leaves at seven minutes to six and it is now after five,” and then explained to the Americans that the pâtisserie was well known.

The water arrived, was tested, was found to be both cool and fresh. They sat sipping it until a waitress came to find out what they wanted. This required a good five minutes of animated conversation to decide. The names meant nothing to Barbara and Harold, and since they could not decide for themselves, Mme Carrère acted for them; Mme Rhodes should have demi-chocolat et demi-vanille and M. Rhodes chocolat-praliné. The ices arrived, and with them a plate of pâtisseries—cream puffs in the shape of a cornucopia, strawberry tarts, little cakes that were rectangular, diamond-shaped, or in layers, with a soft filling of chocolate, or with almond paste or whipped cream. The enthusiasm of the Americans was gratifying to the French, who agreed among themselves that the pâtisseries, though naturally not what they had been before the war, were acceptable. “If you consider that they have not been made with white flour,” M. Carrère said, “and that the ices have to be flavored with saccharine …”

Harold was conscious of a genuine cordiality in the faces around the table. They were being taken in, it seemed; he and Barbara were being initiated into the true religion of France.