CHAPTER XII

Appearance of Trouville--Mother Oseraie--How people are accommodated at Trouville when they are married--The price of painters and of the community of martyrs--Mother Oseraie's acquaintances--How she had saved the life of Huet, the landscape painter--My room and my neighbour's--A twenty-franc dinner for fifty sous--A walk by the seashore--Heroic resolution

The weather kept faith with our sailors' promise: the sea was calm, the wind in the right quarter and, after a delightful three hours' crossing--following that picturesque coast, on the cliffs of which, sixteen years later, King Louis-Philippe, against whom we were to wage so rude a war, was to stand anxiously scanning the sea for a ship, if it were but a rough barque like that Xerxes found upon which to cross the Hellespont--our sailors pointed out Trouville. It was then composed of a few fishing huts grouped along the right bank of the Touque, at the mouth of that river, between two low ranges of hills enclosing a charming valley as a casket encloses a set of jewels. Along the left bank were great stretches of pasture-land which promised me magnificent snipe-shooting. The tide was out and the sands, as smooth and shining as glass, were dry. Our sailors hoisted us on their backs and we were put down upon the sand.

The sight of the sea, with its bitter smell, its eternal moaning, has an immense fascination for me. When I have not seen it for a long time I long for it as for a beloved mistress, and, no matter what stands in the way, I have to return to it, to breathe in its breath and taste its kisses for the twentieth time. The three happiest months of my life, or at any rate the most pleasing to the senses, were those I spent with my Sicilian sailors in a _speronare_, during my Odyssey in the Tyrrhenian Sea. But, in this instance, I began my maritime career, and it must be conceded that it was not a bad beginning to discover a seaport like Trouville. The beach, moreover, was alive and animated as though on a fair day. Upon our left, in the middle of an archipelago of rocks, a whole collection of children were gathering baskets full of mussels; upon our right, women were digging in the sand with vigorous plying of spades, to extract a small kind of eel which resembled the fibres of the salad called _barbe de capucin_ (_i.e._ wild chicory); and all round our little barque, which, although still afloat, looked as though it would soon be left dry, a crowd of fishermen and fisher-women were shrimping, walking with athletic strides, with the water up to their waists and pushing in front of them long-handled nets into which they reaped their teeming harvest. We stopped at every step; everything on that unknown seashore was a novelty to us. Cook, landing on the Friendly Isles, was not more absorbed or happy than was I. The sailors, noticing our enjoyment, told us they would carry our luggage to the inn and tell them of our coming.

"To the inn! But which inn?" I asked.

"There is no fear of mistake," replied the wag of the company, "for there is but one."

"What is its name?"

"It has none. Ask for Mother Oseraie and the first person you meet will direct you to her house."

We were reassured by this information and had no further hesitation about loafing to our heart's content on the beach of Trouville. An hour later, various stretches of sand having been crossed and two or three directions asked in French and answered in Trouvillois, we managed to land at our inn. A woman of about forty--plump, clean and comely, with the quizzical smile of the Norman peasant on her lips--came up to us. This was Mother Oseraie, who probably never suspected the celebrity which one day the Parisian whom she received with an almost sneering air was to give her. Poor Mother Oseraie! had she suspected such a thing, perhaps she would have treated me as Plato in his _Republic_ advises that poets shall be dealt with: crowned with flowers and shown to the door! Instead of this, she advanced to meet me, and after gazing at me with curiosity from head to foot, she said--

"Good! so you have come?"

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Well, your luggage has arrived and two rooms engaged for you."

"Ah! now I understand."

"Why two rooms?"

"One for madame and one for myself."

"Oh! but with us when people are married they sleep together!"

"First of all, who told you that madame and I were married?... Besides, when we are, I shall be of the opinion of one of my friends whose name is Alphonse Karr!"

"Well, what does your friend whose name is Alphonse Karr say?"

"He says that at the end of a certain time, when a man and a woman occupy only one room together, they cease to become lover and mistress and become male and female; that is what he says."

"Ah! I do not understand. However, no matter! you want two rooms?"

"Exactly."

"Well, you shall have them; but I would much rather you only took one [_prissiez_]."

I will not swear that she said _prissiez_, but the reader will forgive me for adding that embellishment to our dialogue.

"Of course, I can see through that," I replied; "you would have made us pay for two and you would have had one room left to let to other travellers."

"Precisely!--I say, you are not very stupid for a Parisian, I declare!"

I bowed to Mother Oseraie.

"I am not altogether a Parisian," I replied; "but that is a mere matter of detail."

"Then you will have the two rooms?"

"I will."

"I warn you they open one out of the other."

"Capital!"

"You shall be taken to them."

She called a fine strapping lass with nose and eyes and petticoats turned up.

"Take madame to her room," I said to the girl; "I will stop here and talk to Mother Oseraie."

"Why?"

"Because I find your conversation pleasant."

"Gammon!"

"Also I want to know what you will take us for per day."

"And the night does not count then?"

"Night and day."

"There are two charges: for artists, it is forty sous."

"What! forty sous ... for what?"

"For board and lodging of course!"

"Ah! forty sous!... And how many meals for that?"

"As many as you like! two, three, four--according to your hunger--of course!"

"Good! you say, then, that it is forty sous per day?"

"For artists--Are you a painter?"

"No."

"Well, then it will be fifty sous for you and fifty for your lady--a hundred sous together."

I could not believe the sum.

"Then it is a hundred sous for two, three or four meals and two rooms?"

"A hundred sous--Do you think it is too dear?"

"No, if you do not raise the price."

"Why should I raise it, pray?"

"Oh well, we shall see."

"No! not here ... If you were a painter it would only be forty sous."

"What is the reason for this reduction in favour of artists?"

"Because they are such nice lads and I am so fond of them. It was they who began to make the reputation of my inn."

"By the way, do you know a painter called Decamps?"

"Decamps? I should think so!"

"And Jadin?"

"Jadin? I do not know that name."

I thought Mother Oseraie was bragging; but I possessed a touch-stone.

"And Huet?" I asked.

"Oh, yes! I knew him."

"You do not remember anything in particular about him, do you?"

"Indeed, yes, I remember that I saved his life."

"Bah! come, how did that happen?"

"One day when he was choking with a sole bone. It doesn't take long to choke one's self with a fish bone!"

"And how did you save his life."

"Oh! only just in time. Why, he was already black in the face."

"What did you do to him?"

"I said to him, 'Be patient and wait for me.'"

"It is not easy to be patient when one is choking."

"Good heavens! what else could I have said? It wasn't my fault. Then I ran as fast as I could into the garden; I tore up a leek, washed it, cut off its stalks and stuffed it right down his throat. It is a sovereign remedy for fish bones!"

"Indeed, I can well believe it."

"Now, he never speaks of me except with tears in his eyes."

"All the more since the leek belongs to the onion family."

"All the same, it vexes me."

"What vexes you? That the poor dear man was not choked?"

"No, no, indeed! I am delighted and I thank you both in his name and in my own: he is a friend of mine, and, besides, a man of great talent. But I am vexed that Trouville has been discovered by three artists before being discovered by a poet."

"Are you a poet, then?"

"Well, I might perhaps venture to say that I am."

"What is a poet? Does it bring in an income?"

"No."

"Well, then, it is a poor sort of business."

I saw I had given Mother Oseraie but an indifferent idea of myself.

"Would you like me to pay you a fortnight in advance?"

"What for?"

"Why! In case you are afraid that as I am a poet I may go without paying you!"

"If you went away without paying me it would be all the worse for you, but not for me."

"How so?"

"For having robbed an honest woman; for I am an honest woman, I am."

"I begin to believe it, Mother Oseraie; but I, too, you see, am not a bad lad."

"Well, I don't mind telling you that you give me that impression. Will you have dinner?"

"Rather! Twice over rather than once."

"Then, go upstairs and leave me to attend to my business."

"But what will you give us for dinner?"

"Ah! that is my business."

"How is it your business?"

"Because, if I do not satisfy you, you will go elsewhere."

"But there is nowhere else to go!"

"Which is as good as to say that you will put up with what I have got, my good friend.... Come, off to your room!"

I began to adapt myself to the manners of Mother Oseraie: it was what is called in the _morale en action_ and in collections of anecdotes "la franchise villageoise" (country frankness). I should much have preferred "l'urbanité parisienne" (Parisian urbanity); but Mother Oseraie was built on other lines, and I was obliged to take her as she was. I went up to my room: it was quadrilateral, with lime-washed walls, a deal floor, a walnut table, a wooden bed painted red, and a chimney-piece with a shaving-glass instead of a looking-glass, and, for ornament, two blue elaborately decorated glass vases; furthermore there was the spray of orange-blossom which Mother Oseraie had had when she was twenty years of age, as fresh as on the day it was plucked, owing to the shade, which kept it from contact with the air. Calico curtains to the window and linen sheets on the bed, both sheets and curtains as white as the snow, completed the furnishings. I went into the adjoining room; it was furnished on the same lines, and had, besides, a convex-shaped chest of drawers inlaid with different coloured woods which savoured of the bygone days of du Barry, and which, if restored, regilded, repaired, would have looked better in the studio of one of the three painters Mother Oseraie had just mentioned. The view from both windows was magnificent. From mine, the valley of the Touque could be seen sinking away towards Pont-l'Évêque, which is surrounded by two wooded hills; from my companion's, the sea, flecked with little fishing-boats, their sails white against the horizon, waiting to return with the tide. Chance had indeed favoured me in giving me the room which looked on to the valley: if I had had the sea, with its waves, and gulls, and boats, its horizon melting into the sky always before me, I should have found it impossible to work. I had completely forgotten the dinner when I heard Mother Oseraie calling me--

"I say, monsieur poet!"

"Well! mother!" I replied.

"Come! dinner is ready."

I offered my arm to my neighbour and we went down. Oh! worthy Mother Oseraie! when I saw your soup, your mutton cutlets, your soles _en matelote_, your mayonnaise of lobster, your two roast snipe and your shrimp salad, how I regretted I had had doubts of you for an instant! Fifty sous for a dinner which, in Paris, would have cost twenty francs! True, wine would have accounted for some of the difference; but we might drink as much cider as we liked free of charge. My travelling companion suggested taking a lease of three, six, or nine years with Mother Oseraie; during which nine years, in her opinion, we could economise to the extent of a hundred and fifty thousand francs! Perhaps she was right, poor Mélanie! but how was Paris and its revolutions to get on without me? As soon as dinner was finished we went back to the beach. It was high tide, and the barques were coming into the harbour like a flock of sheep to the fold. Women were waiting on the shore with huge baskets to carry off the fish. Each woman recognised her own boat and its rigging from afar; mothers called out to their sons, sisters to their brothers, wives to their husbands. All talked by signs before the boats were near enough to enable them to use their voices, and it was soon known whether the catch had been good or bad. All the while, a hot July sun was sinking below the horizon, surrounded by great clouds which it fringed with purple, and through the gaps between the clouds it darted its golden rays, Apollo's arrows, which disappeared in the sea. I do not know anything more beautiful or grand or magnificent than a sunset over the ocean! We remained on the beach until it was completely dark. I was perfectly well aware that, if I did not from the beginning cut short this desire for contemplation which had taken possession of me, I should spend my days in shooting sea-birds, gathering oysters among the rocks and catching eels in the sand. I therefore resolved to combat this sweet enemy styled idleness, and to set myself to work that very evening if possible.

I was under an agreement with Harel; it had been arranged that I should bring him back a play in verse, of five acts, entitled _Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux._ M. Granier, otherwise de Cassagnac, published, in 1833, a work on me, since continued by M. Jacquot, otherwise de Mirecourt, a work in which he pointed out the sources whence I had drawn all the plots for my plays, and taken all the ideas for my novels. I intend, as I go on with these Memoirs, to undertake that work myself, and I guarantee that it shall be more complete and more conscientious than that of my two renowned critics; only, I hope my readers will not demand that it shall be as malicious. But let me relate how the idea of writing _Charles VII._ came to me, and of what heterogeneous elements that drama was composed.