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第22章

an inland voyage-第22章

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stent with mental brilliancy; not exactly profitable in a  money point of view; but very calm; golden; and incurious; and one  that sets a man superior to alarms。  It may be best figured by  supposing yourself to get dead drunk; and yet keep sober to enjoy  it。  I have a notion that open…air labourers must spend a large  portion of their days in this ecstatic stupor; which explains their  high composure and endurance。  A pity to go to the expense of  laudanum; when here is a better paradise for nothing!

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage; take it all  in all。  It was the farthest piece of travel accomplished。  Indeed;  it lies so far from beaten paths of language; that I despair of  getting the reader into sympathy with the smiling; complacent  idiocy of my condition; when ideas came and went like motes in a  sunbeam; when trees and church spires along the bank surged up;  from time to time into my notice; like solid objects through a  rolling cloudland; when the rhythmical swish of boat and paddle in  the water became a cradle…song to lull my thoughts asleep; when a  piece of mud on the deck was sometimes an intolerable eyesore; and  sometimes quite a companion for me; and the object of pleased  consideration; … and all the time; with the river running and the  shores changing upon either hand; I kept counting my strokes and  forgetting the hundreds; the happiest animal in France。



DOWN THE OISE:  CHURCH INTERIORS



WE made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont Sainte Maxence。  I  was abroad a little after six the next morning。  The air was  biting; and smelt of frost。  In an open place a score of women  wrangled together over the day's market; and the noise of their  negotiation sounded thin and querulous like that of sparrows on a  winter's morning。  The rare passengers blew into their hands; and  shuffled in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog。  The streets  were full of icy shadow; although the chimneys were smoking  overhead in golden sunshine。  If you wake early enough at this  season of the year; you may get up in December to break your fast  in June。

I found my way to the church; for there is always something to see  about a church; whether living worshippers or dead men's tombs; you  find there the deadliest earnest; and the hollowest deceit; and  even where it is not a piece of history; it will be certain to leak  out some contemporary gossip。  It was scarcely so cold in the  church as it was without; but it looked colder。  The white nave was  positively arctic to the eye; and the tawdriness of a continental  altar looked more forlorn than usual in the solitude and the bleak  air。  Two priests sat in the chancel; reading and waiting  penitents; and out in the nave; one very old woman was engaged in  her devotions。  It was a wonder how she was able to pass her beads  when healthy young people were breathing in their palms and  slapping their chest; but though this concerned me; I was yet more  dispirited by the nature of her exercises。  She went from chair to  chair; from altar to altar; circumnavigating the church。  To each  shrine she dedicated an equal number of beads and an equal length  of time。  Like a prudent capitalist with a somewhat cynical view of  the commercial prospect; she desired to place her supplications in  a great variety of heavenly securities。  She would risk nothing on  the credit of any single intercessor。  Out of the whole company of  saints and angels; not one but was to suppose himself her champion  elect against the Great Assize!  I could only think of it as a  dull; transparent jugglery; based upon unconscious unbelief。

She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than bone and  parchment; curiously put together。  Her eyes; with which she  interrogated mine; were vacant of sense。  It depends on what you  call seeing; whether you might not call her blind。  Perhaps she had  known love:  perhaps borne children; suckled them and given them  pet names。  But now that was all gone by; and had left her neither  happier nor wiser; and the best she could do with her mornings was  to come up here into the cold church and juggle for a slice of  heaven。  It was not without a gulp that I escaped into the streets  and the keen morning air。  Morning? why; how tired of it she would  be before night! and if she did not sleep; how then?  It is  fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly to justify  our lives at the bar of threescore years and ten; fortunate that  such a number are knocked opportunely on the head in what they call  the flower of their years; and go away to suffer for their follies  in private somewhere else。  Otherwise; between sick children and  discontented old folk; we might be put out of all conceit of life。

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day's paddle:   the old devotee stuck in my throat sorely。  But I was soon in the  seventh heaven of stupidity; and knew nothing but that somebody was  paddling a canoe; while I was counting his strokes and forgetting  the hundreds。  I used sometimes to be afraid I should remember the  hundreds; which would have made a toil of a pleasure; but the  terror was chimerical; they went out of my mind by enchantment; and  I knew no more than the man in the moon about my only occupation。

At Creil; where we stopped to lunch; we left the canoes in another  floating lavatory; which; as it was high noon; was packed with  washerwomen; red…handed and loud…voiced; and they and their broad  jokes are about all I remember of the place。  I could look up my  history…books; if you were very anxious; and tell you a date or  two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars。  But I  prefer to mention a girls' boarding…school; which had an interest  for us because it was a girls' boarding…school; and because we  imagined we had rather an interest for it。  At least … there were  the girls about the garden; and here were we on the river; and  there was more than one handkerchief waved as we went by。  It  caused quite a stir in my heart; and yet how we should have wearied  and despised each other; these girls and I; if we had been  introduced at a croquet…party!  But this is a fashion I love:  to  kiss the hand or wave a handkerchief to people I shall never see  again; to play with possibility; and knock in a peg for fancy to  hang upon。  It gives the traveller a jog; reminds him that he is  not a traveller everywhere; and that his journey is no more than a  siesta by the way on the real march of life。

The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the inside; splashed  with gaudy lights from the windows; and picked out with medallions  of the Dolorous Way。  But there was one oddity; in the way of an EX  VOTO; which pleased me hugely:  a faithful model of a canal boat;  swung from the vault; with a written aspiration that God should  conduct the SAINT NICOLAS of Creil to a good haven。  The thing was  neatly executed; and would have made the delight of a party of boys  on the water…side。  But what tickled me was the gravity of the  peril to be conjured。  You might hang up the model of a sea…going  ship; and welcome:  one that is to plough a furrow round the world;  and visit the tropic or the frosty poles; runs dangers that are  well worth a candle and a mass。  But the SAINT NICOLAS of Creil;  which was to be tugged for some ten years by patient draught… horses; in a weedy canal; with the poplars chattering overhead; and  the skipper whistling at the tiller; which was to do all its  errands in green inland places; and never get out of sight of a  village belfry in all its cruising; why; you would have thought if  anything could be done without the intervention of Providence; it  would be that!  But perhaps the skipper was a humorist:  or perhaps  a prophet; reminding people of the seriousness of life by this  preposterous token。

At Creil; as at Noyon; Saint Joseph seemed a favourite saint on the  score of punctuality。  Day and hour can be specified; and grateful  people do not fail to specify them on a votive tablet; when prayers  have been punctually and neatly answered。  Whenever time is a  consideration; Saint Joseph is the proper intermediary。  I took a  sort of pleasure in observing 

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