I was beginning to ask myself in no cheerful mood whether the map had not
deceived me as to the whereabouts of St. Bazile, when, to my relief, I
heard a church bell ringing not very far down the stream. It was the
angelus. How often has this clear, solemn, heart-touching, and consoling
sound been to me what a familiar beacon is to the doubting mariner! Only
wanderers in desolate places know the sentiment that it carries through the
evening air. More welcome than ever before did it seem in this black gorge.
I pushed on, and presently the gloomy walls widened out. Turning a bend
of the torrent, I stood in a glow of ruddy light that streamed from the
yawning mouth of an open-air oven that had recently been filled with dry
broom and kindled for the night's baking. Here was a fresh delight, for
there is nothing more cheering, more full of homely sentiment in the dusk,
than the view of such a blazing oven.

This, then, was the village of St. Bazile de la Roche, to give its full
name. It could scarcely have boasted a hundred houses. There was one
miserable little inn, kept by a widow. There I had to pass the night,
unless I preferred a cave or a mossy bed under a tree. The poor woman
managed to find a piece of veal, which she cooked for me. It seemed to be
my lot now to eat no meat but veal. As I sat down to this dish and a bottle
of wine, two men at another table were eating boiled potatoes, without
plates, and drinking water. The contrast made me uncomfortable. There is
some reason in the selfishness that avoids the sights and sounds and all
suggestions of other people's poverty and pain; but those who take such
base care of themselves never know human life. I could not offer these
men wine without running the risk of a refusal, but it was different with
regard to a little hump-backed postman who came in to gossip. Half a litre
of wine that, at my wish, was set before him made him exceedingly cheerful.
He told me that he walked about twenty miles a day on the hillsides and
in the ravines, and I suppose his pay was the same as that of other rural