It has a charm, nevertheless, which comes partly from its soft, bright
yellow color, partly from a certain elegance of shape, of expression; and
on that well-washed Sunday morning, with its brilliant tone, surrounded by
its circle of thin poplars, with the green country lying beyond it and a
low blue horizon showing through its empty portals, it made, very
sufficiently, a picture that hangs itself to one of the lateral hooks of
the memory. I can take down the modest composition, and place it before me
as I write. I see the shallow, shining puddles in the hard, fair French
road; the pale blue sky, diluted by days of rain; the disgarnished
autumnal fields; the mild sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure
in sabots, with a bundle under its arm, advancing along the "chaussee;"
and in the middle I see the little ochre-colored monument, which, in spite
of its antiquity, looks bright and gay, as everything must look in France
of a fresh Sunday morning.
It is true that this was not exactly the appearance of the Roman theater,
which lies on the other side of the town; a fact that did not prevent me
from making my way to it in less than five minutes, through a succession
of little streets concerning which I have no observations to record.
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