The following morning, as I was looking at the names of the bathers staying at the hotel, I noticed, not far from mine, those of Mr. and Mrs. Little of Chester, with the indication that they had arrived the day before. It was of no importance to me to know what the name of admirably matched couple was, but, in any case, I knew.
From that day on, and for twenty more, I stayed in Biarritz. My life was spent, naturally, on the edge of the sea—all the time that was not spent indoors, that is, for I took the plunge every morning and evening.
And as the life of the other bathers was identical to mine I could not help encountering Mr. and Mrs. Little quite frequently
One morning, when I was walking, after my bath, along the “Côte des Fous,” I passed so close to the couple that, in spite of the scant sympathy they inspired in me because of my ancient grievances against them, I judged it appropriate to salute them.
Although his gaze met mine—at least, such was my conviction—Mr. Little did not raise his hat. Nor did Mrs. Little incline her head, as convention would have required, but remained perfectly straight and stiff.
I was choked by that. It remained to be determined where it was intentional rudeness on the party of the English couple, or simple inadvertence. I thought at first of intentional rudeness, and I called both of them bumpkins mentally. Then I reflected that, after all, they had no reason to be impolite in my regard, and I almost arrived at excusing them, on thinking that Mr. Little was too occupied with conversing with Mrs. Little, and Mrs. Little too occupied with listening to Mr. Little, to take the trouble to salute me.
Furthermore, I have noticed that the English, probably because they are islanders, have the very particular gift of isolating themselves in a crowd. It seems that they always have a little sea around them.
That consideration dispelled the slight rancor that I still had against Mr. and Mrs. Little. Nevertheless, I promise myself to isolate myself as well henceforth when I passed within range of them—which is to say, not to salute them again. And I kept my word.
It was perhaps ten days that the English couple and I had been in Biarritz, and we had encountered one another every day, either at table at the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs, or on the beach—or even, as people used to say, in the bosom of Amphitrite—without even looking at one another. One morning, as I was taking my bath at Port-Vieux, and while swimming, I had drawn somewhat apart, I heard cries of distress. As I was on my back at that moment and could only see the sky, I turned over precipitately, and gave the water a good kick in order to rise above the waves, in order to see where the cries were coming from.
I then perceived a crowd of people on the beach who were making signals to me, and a short distance away from me, a small indistinct mass that was struggling against the waves.
In a few strokes, I had reached the object in question, which it was impossible for me to define, while the observation boat arrived from the other direction, impelled by its oars.
I seized the object, which was a body wrapped in black woolen fabric, which the boatman and I hoisted into the boat, to the applause of the spectators.
I climbed into the boat myself, and as the boatman rowed toward the shore, which was not very far away. I gazed with a very sympathetic curiosity at the kind of human package that we had pulled out of the water.
It was a man, and a man whose face was not unknown to me, it seemed, without my being able to put a name to it. But I had something more urgent to do than rack my brains trying to find it. Was the man, whoever he was, alive or dead? It did not take me long to establish that he was alive, for as I bent over him, he opened his eyes to look at me, and his mouth to say to me: “I thank you.”
Oh, of course, I should have suspected it. It was the Englishman from the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs, Mr. Little—except that his ruddy face had gone very pale.
Meanwhile, the boat touched the shore, the sailor threw the anchor, and then we both picked Mr. Little up, him by the feet and me by the shoulders, and we carried him on to the beach, where a curious crowd had gathered.
Mrs. Little was there, in tears, with a woolen peignoir in her hands, with which she enveloped her husband, while she enveloped me, I have to admit, with a gaze moist with gratitude. And as if that gaze were insufficient to translate her thought, she said to me, amid sobs that truly went to my heart: “Monsur, you have saved the life of the husband of me. You are courageous gentleman.” And she added: “I bless you.”19
“Not at all, Madame,” your words are not made to wound me.”
And I slipped away as quickly as possible, for, apart from the fact that my attire was not very appropriate and was even little shocking for the ultra-prudish gaze of a lady, I was beginning to feel cold and was in haste to dry myself.
While running toward my cabin, however, I wondered why the devil Mrs. Little imagined that she might be wounding me by declaring that I was a courageous gentleman.
By dint of reflection I remembered that the English verb “to bless” refers to benediction, and that consequently, Mr. Little had simply wanted to wish me well.
When I was dressed, my first concern was to enquire about Mr. Little, and I learned with pleasure that he was as well as could be. I was told that after he had drunk a glass of port, he had had himself wrapped in a warm blanket, and that two strong fellows were presently occupied in massaging him.
He has no further need of me, I thought, and I headed for the hotel with all the more haste because I was late for lunch and I had a great appetite.
My arrival at table, where everyone was gathered, was greeted by a sympathetic murmur. Doubtless everyone already knew that I had assisted in the Englishman’s rescue, and it even seemed to me that they had been talking about it when I came in. At any rate, in addition to compliments that I could have done without—for, in sum, there was absolutely nothing heroic in my perfectly natural action—questions were addressed to me, to which I could not reply, regarding the cause that had nearly cost the life of Mr. Little, an excellent swimmer.
I left the table before he arrived there, but I met him at the door of the hotel as he was coming back from the beach, accompanied by his wife.
On perceiving me he quit the latter’s arm and, extending both his hands to me, he said effusively: “I want to know the name of you, Monsur.”
“The name of me,” I said, laughing, “is Le Bref.”
“Ho ho! That was very good, but can you give to me the little card of you?”
“Gladly.” And, taking one of my cards out of my wallet, I handed it to him.
“Perfectly,” he said, looking at the card. “Le Bref is the name of you. That name, it was forever written on the breast of me, Tommy Little, cheese-maker of Chester.”
“Much obliged,” I said to him. And I thought: It’s lucky that he didn’t tell me that my name is inscribed in his bowels.
“This is the little card of me,” he said, handing me his card, “and know, Monsur, that I was at your disposal in my fortune and my life.”
“Oh, Monsieur,” I exclaimed, “you’re too good, a thousand times too good.”
“No,” said Mrs. Little.
“Go and have lunch,” I said, “for you must be hungry.”
“I have already had port with little biscuits,” replied the cheese manufacturer, “but Mrs. Little, no...”
“Then Mrs. Little must be very hungry,” I said to the husband. “It is, in fact, improbable that your port and little biscuits have sustained her.”
“No,” replied Mrs. Little, seriously, while Mr. Little laughed at my joke.
“But tell me, Monsieur,” I said, “did you have a fainting-fit in the water, for you’re a swimmer of the first order?”
“Ho, yes, in the water…how do you say it...a fainting-fit?”
“Yes, a fainting-fit…you suddenly felt lost consciousness?”
“Ho, yes, lost...”
“It gripped you in the head?”
“No, no, it gripped me in the belly by a sudden natural n
eed.”
“Ah!” I said, stiffening my lips in order not to burst out laughing. “That’s truly peculiar. In any case, we won’t talk about it anymore. Believe me, go and have lunch.”
It was thus that our first conversation concluded; it was to be followed by many others, a perfect intimacy having been established between us thereafter.
III
That intimacy became so warm and so cordial on either part that we decided to undertake a trip to Spain together.
The proposal was made to me by Mr. Little and I must say that I was very hesitant to accept it, for fear of having to suffer more than once in that little plan the British egotism that had to be—at least, I believed so then—stronger than friendship.
However, Mr. and Mrs. Little had become so pleasant, and even obliging, toward me since the rescue that I thought I might risk the trip.
It was therefore agreed that when our season ended, we would take the steamboat at Bayonne for San Sebastian, and from there we would go in stages all the way to Andalusia.
An unexpected event prevented up from completing our journey, but at least we tried and went quite a long way.
You know the Gulf of Gascony, and you know that it isn’t always in a good mood. Our crossing from Bayonne to San Sebastian was completed without too much inconvenience, but when we arrived in port, at the very moment when the passengers were disembarking by means of small launches, the waves became very angry.
The launch into which I had already descended was agitated terribly. Our two oarsmen were unable to maintain the boat at the side of the steamer. I extended my hand to Mrs. Little to help her get down, while her husband, who was still on the deck of the steamer, supported her by the waist, and that worked quite well.
When Mr. Little wanted to get down in his turn, however, he recklessly refused the hand I held out to him and, the launch having suddenly sifted, our worthy islander would surely hand fallen into the water if I had not grabbed him just in time by the strap of his marine binoculars.
“Ho, yes,” he said, with great phlegm, when he had sat down. “You will still be saving the life of me, then.”
“One good turn deserves another,” I replied.
“Ho, yes, I liked nothing so much as to see in frightful danger, to show you my gratitude.
“Ho, yes,” confirmed Mrs. Little, with the most amusing gravity.
“I’d prefer it, my dear Monsieur Little, and very much so, if you didn’t have the opportunity.”
“No, no, I wanted absolutely to have it, me, that opportunity, and you disoblige me in refusing it to me.”
“In truth, you’re very good.”
The few people who were about to disembark from the launch with us were laughing to the point of tears at the slightly excessive zeal deployed toward me by the worthy Mr. Little, who, in order to have the satisfaction of saving me in his turn, would have liked me to be on the brink of doom.
Having spent two successive years in England, one of them at the University of Oxford, I certainly knew English far better that Mr. and Mrs. Little knew French, and they recognized fully my superiority in that regard, having judged it for themselves in Biarritz, on one occasion when I had tried to converse with them in English. But, Mr. Little having adjured me only to employ the French language in my conversation with his wife and himself in order to constrain them to learn it, whether they like it or not, I had naturally deferred to his desire.
Scarcely had we reached Spanish soil than Mr. Little, addressing me for the first time in English, said to me: “If I were capable of speaking Spanish, I would say to you: ‘Let’s speak Spanish, since we’re in the homeland of Cervantes,’ but I have to admit that I’m incapable of speaking Spanish, at least until further notice. We can now, therefore, if you please, speak English between us.”
I was so content with that resolution that I showed Mr. Little how much I approved by an exceedingly prolix response in the language of Walter Scott. Instead of quite simply saying “Gladly, Mr. Little,” I made a veritable speech on two points: firstly, the pleasure that he caused me thereby, and then on the merits of his idiom.
Since I had had the honor of knowing Mrs. Little, I had been struck by her scant expansion toward a husband who had the greatest attention for her. It was not that she was insensible to his attentions, for it was not rare when she was the object of them for her to squeeze Mr. Little’s hand with a marked tenderness, but she scarcely said two or three words to him at intervals. More often than not she only replied with a monosyllabic “Yes” or “No” to questions, reflections or explanations emanating from her husband.
British coldness being insufficient to explain that constant mutism, I had thought that it might be attributable to the singular obligation imposed on Mrs. Little by her husband only to speak French, which was far from being familiar to her. I was mistaken. When it was permissible for her to express herself in the mother tongue, she scarcely said any more. It was, therefore, a matter of personal temperament. She was what is known in the French Midi—and also in Spain, I believe—as a sang-mort.20
She was positively not astonished by anything, applying too literally Horace’s precept Nul mirari.
Mr. Little, doubtless long habituated too that superlative nonchalance, did not seem to be affected by it in the slightest. It was sufficient for him that she listen to him complaisantly, which she did not fail to do.
As for me, on seeing the woman limit herself to being the recipient of her husband’s thoughts—and mine, for I had no more success than Mr. Little in getting four words out of her—I sometimes had a muted irritation. She’s not a wife, I said to myself, she’s an automaton; and I could not understand why Mr. Little had brought such an insignificant person with him across Europe instead of confining her to his cheese-factory in Chester. I was judging things from my own point of view, without reflecting that Mr. Little’s might by quite different—as I learned subsequently, since his wife’s principal charm in his eyes was her very passivity.
It is certain, considering things carefully, that such a woman, if not precisely agreeable, is at least very inoffensive. She did, said and thought almost exactly what her husband wanted, while others agitate thoughts of rebellion incessantly against theirs, quarrel with them and behave in such a fashion as to make them discontent.
In the entire course of our voyage in Spain, I never saw Mrs. Little emit a determination, or even a simple desire, but, on the other hand, I always saw her approve of her husband’s resolutions—which, I ought to say, were perfectly in accord with mine.
San Sebastian is, as you know, one of the most picturesquely situated towns in all of Spain, on the slope of Mount Orgulio, the summit of which, crowned by the citadel, is no less than a hundred sixteen meters above sea level. The little port wedged between the mountain and the island of Santa Clara is a charming sight. Thus we could not help admiring it as we climbed up toward the town, although it had nearly been inhospitable to us.
When we were half way up Mount Orgulio, alongside steep rocks, Mrs. Little, to whom I had offered my arm in order to lend her a little support in her ascendant march, broke her habitual silence.
“It’s very singular,” she said, in English, “to represent the virgin with a mantilla on her head and a fan in her hand.”
The wife of the Chester cheese-maker was thinking aloud in that fashion about a Madonna that we had just seen while passing the Church of Santa Clara, where she was in great honor.
“Do you think so, Madame?” I said. “It is, on the contrary, quite natural, and for myself, I’m only astonished that the Christ on the cross facing the pulpit isn’t costumed as a torero.”
Meanwhile, we arrived at the tombs of the English officers killed in 1836 during the defense of San Sebastian against Carlist troops.21 Mr. Little took off his hat, and I did the same.
“Thank you, my dear Monsieur Le Bref,” he said, shaking my hand effusively, “for that mark of respect for the memory of my unfortunate compatriots.”
“Thank you, thank you, my dear sir,” he said, wiping his cheeks, which were bathed in tears.
The patriotic commotion that he had just experienced, I experienced in my turn when we reached the citadel so heroically defended in 1813 by the French against the English and the Portuguese.
“Monsieur Little,” I exclaimed, “about sixty years ago, a French general, General Rey, after having defended this citadel heroically against your compatriots, was obliged to capitulate, the city being destroyed, but he emerged from here with a carbine on his shoulder.22 You will permit me, will you not, to evoke his noble memory?”
“And I join with you in honoring him,” replied Mr. Little.
“Ho, yes,” added Mrs. Little, addressing a small confirmatory nod of the head to me.
There is no doubt that the amity that was beginning to unite me with Mr. and Mrs. Little was strongly cemented by that double homage, rendered with the same sincere emotion, by me to England and him to France.
IV
At Burgos, the city made up like a café-concert singer, I had a specimen of the truly touching tenderness that Mr. and Mrs. Little experienced for one another.
It was at the Municipal Palace, where we had gone to see the remains of El Cid and Chimène,23 preciously conserved in a chest, and which consisted, as one might imagine, of wretched dusty bones.
A middle-aged woman, whom I assumed to be the doorkeeper of the place, was charged with showing them to us. When she had opened the chest, divided into two compartments, she indicated that pitiful debris to us with a proud gesture.
Immediately, however, Mr. Little, carried away by I know not what interior demon, plunged a hand recklessly into the chest and brought out of one of the compartments a tibia belonging to the Cid, and from the other, a humerus belong to Chimène; then, having knocked them together before Mrs. Little’s eyes, he aid to her in English, with a deep sigh:
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