William Maxwell - The Chateau

Harold shook his head.

“I’m afraid it was not very discreet of me,” she said. “Jean-Claude is quite different from the rest of his family, who are charming but hors de siècle.”

“Does that mean ‘old-fashioned’?”

“They are gypsies.”

“Real gypsies? The kind that travel around in wagons?”

“Oh mercy no, they are perfectly respectable, and of a very old family, but— How shall I put it? They are unconventional. They come to meals when they feel like it, wear strange clothes, stay up all night practicing the flute, and say whatever comes into their minds.… Is there a word for that in English?”

“Bohemian,” Barbara said.

“Yes,” Mme Viénot said, nodding. “But not from the country of Bohemia. His mother is so amusing, so unlike anyone else. Sometimes she will eat nothing but cucumbers for weeks at a time. And Jean-Claude’s father blames every evil under the sun on the first Duke of Marlborough—with perhaps some justice but not a great deal. There are too many villains of our own époque, alas.… I am keeping you from resting?”

Reassured, she stayed so long that they were all three late for dinner. The box of diamonoes remained unopened on Mme Viénot’s desk in the petit salon, and the evening was given over, as before, to the game of conversation.

ON WEDNESDAY MORNING the cook prepared a picnic lunch and the Americans took the train to Amboise. There was a new bridge across the river at Amboise, and so they did not have to risk their lives. After they had seen the château they went and peered into the little chapel where Leonardo da Vinci either was or was not buried.

Down below in the village, Harold saw a row of ancient taxis near the Hôtel Lion d’Or, and arranged with the driver of the newest one to take them to Chenonceau, twelve kilometers away. After they had eaten their lunch on the river bank, they went back to where the row of taxis had been and, mysteriously, there was only one and it was not their taxi, but the man Harold had talked to was sitting in the driver’s seat and seemed to be waiting for them. It was a wood-burning taxi, and for the first few blocks they kept looking out of the back window at the trail of black smoke they were leaving in their wake.

Crossing a bridge on the narrow dirt road to Chenonceau, they passed a hiker with a heavy rucksack on his back. The driver informed them that the hiker was a compatriot of theirs, and Harold told him to stop until the hiker had caught up with them. He was Danish, not American, but on finding out that he was going to the château, Harold invited him into the car anyway. He spoke English well and French about the way they did.

The taxi let them out at an ornamental iron gate some distance from the château itself. They stayed together as far as the drawbridge, and then suddenly the Dane was no longer with them or in fact anywhere. Half an hour later, when they emerged from the château with a dozen other sight-seers, they saw him standing under a tree that was far enough away from the path so that they did not have to join him if they did not care to. The three of them studied the château from all sides and found the place where they could get the best view of the inverted castle in the river. The formal gardens of Catherine de Médicis and Diane de Poitiers were both planted in potatoes. A small bronze sign said that the gardens had been ruined by the inundation of May 1940, and since the river flowing under the château at that moment was only a few inches deep, they took this to be a reference to the Germans, though as a matter of fact it was not. They rode back to Amboise in the wood-burning taxi and, sitting on the bank of the Loire, Harold and Barbara shared what was left of their lunch and a bottle of red wine with the Dane, who produced some tomatoes for them out of his rucksack and told them the story of his life. His name was Nils Jensen, he was nineteen years old, and he had cut himself off from his inheritance. It had been expected that he would go into the family business in Copenhagen and instead he was studying medicine. He wanted to become a psychiatrist. He could only bring a small amount of money out of Denmark, and so he was hiking through France. Harold saw in his eyes that there was something he wanted them to know about him that he could not say—that he was well bred and a gentleman. He did not need to say it, but he was a gentleman who had been living largely on tomatoes and he badly needed a bath and clean clothes.

He had not yet decided where he was going to spend the night; he might stay here; but if he went on to Blois he would be taking the same train they were taking. He had not yet seen the château of Amboise, and so they said good-by, provisionally. The Americans went halfway across the bridge and down a flight of stairs to a little island in the middle of the river, and there they walked up and down in a leafy glade, searching for just some small trace of the Visigoths and the Franks who, around the year 500 A.D., met here and celebrated a peace treaty, the terms of which neither army found it convenient to honor.

At the railroad station, Harold and Barbara looked around for Nils Jensen, and Harold considered buying third-class tickets, in case he turned up later, but in the end decided that he was not coming and they might as well be comfortable. When the train drew in, there he was. He appeared right out of the ground, with a second-class ticket in his hand—bought, it was clear, so that he could ride with them.

The god of love could be better represented than by a little boy blindfolded and with a bow and arrow. Why not a member of the Actors’ Equity, with his shirt cuffs turned back, an impressive diamond ring on one finger, his long black hair heavily pomaded, his magic made possible by a trunkful of accessories and a stooge somewhere in the audience. Think of a card—any card. There is no card you can think of that the foxy vaudeville magician doesn’t have up his sleeve or in a false pocket of his long coattails.

The train carried them past Monteux, past Chaumont on the other side of the river. There was so much that had to be said in this short time, and so much that their middle-class upbringing prevented them from saying or even knowing they felt. The Americans did not even tell Nils Jensen—except with their eyes, their smiles—how much they liked being with him and everything about him. Nils Jensen did not say: “Oh I don’t know which of you I’m in love with—I love you both! And I’ve looked everywhere, I’ve looked so long for somebody I could be happy with.… ” Nevertheless, they all three used every minute that they had together. The train, which could not be stopped, could not be made to go slower, carried them past Onzain and Chouzy. At Brenodville they shook hands, and Angle A and Angle B got out and then stood on the brick platform waving until the train took Angle C (as talented and idealistic and tactful and congenial a friend as they were ever likely to have) away from them, with nothing to complete this triangle ever again but an address in Copenhagen that must have been incorrectly copied, since a letter sent there was never replied to.

Walking through the village, with the shadows stretching clear across the road in front of them, they saw windows and doors that were wide open, they heard voices, they met people who smiled and spoke to them. They thought for a moment that the man returning from the fields with his horse and his dog was one of the men who were sitting on the café terrace the day they arrived, and then decided that he wasn’t. Coming to an open gate, they stopped and looked in. There was no one around and so they stood there studying the courtyard with its well, its neat woodpile, its bicycle, its two-wheeled cart, its tin-roofed porch, its clematis and roses growing in tubs, its dog and cat and chickens and patient old farm horse, its feeding trough and watering trough, so like an illustration in a beginning French grammar: A is for Auge, B is for Bicyclette, C is for Cheval , etc.