Gordon - Two Vagabonds In Languedoc

TWO VAGABONDS IN
LANGUEDOC

Here is an attempt to make a portrait, or rather a collective portrait, like one of those pictured by an old Flemish master. Here is a portrait of the French village of Janac in Upper Languedoc

Part painting in prose, part delightful narrative, this book is filled with clever observations, memorable characters and the authors' own paintings and drawings. It will prove irresistible to anyone interested in the culture of the French village.

THE KEGAN PAUL
TRAVELLERS SERIES

A Journey Through Persia and Turkish Armenia Gerald Reitlinger
A Summer in Touraine Frederic Lees
George Sand & Frederick Chopin in Majorca George Sand
A Woman in the Balkans Winifred Gordon
Adventure in Hawaii and Tahiti Edward T. Perkins
Alexandria: The Ancient and Modern Town E. Breccia
Autobiography of a Chinese Girl Hsieh Ping-Ying
Two Vagabonds in Languedoc Jan Gordon and Cora J. Gordon
Burma R. Talbot Kelly
Chinese Pictures J. F. Bishop
Egypt and Nubia J. A. St. John
Fifty Years in Maoriland James T. Pinfold
In Hawaii with Jack London Jack London
In Stevenson's Samoa Marie Fraser
Island Nights' Entertainments Robert Louis Stevenson
Man and Animals in the New Hebrides John R. Baker
Mongolia N. Prejevalsky
My Consulate in Samoa William B. Churchward
News from Tartary Peter Fleming
Oceania Frank Fox
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan Isabella Lucy Bird
Old Touraine Theodore Andrea Cook
The Discovery of Tahiti George Robertson
The French Riviera Pierre Devoluy and Pierre Borel
The Golden Chersonese Isabella Lucy Bird
The Heart of the Orient Michael Myers Shoemaker
The Riviera Hugh Macmillan
The Romance of Treasure Trove Charles R. Beard
To Lhasa in Disguise William Montgomery McGovern
Treasure of Ophir C. E. V. Craufurd
A Year Amongst the Persians Edward Granville Browne
Constantinople and Istanbul Old and New H. G. Dwight
Tahiti George Calderon
Cruise of the Snark Jack London
In the South Seas Robert Louis Stevenson
Six Months in Hawaii Isabella Bird
Korea and Her Neighbours Isabella Bird
Strolling Through Istanbul H. Sumner-Boyd and J. Freely
Camp Life and Sport in Dalmatia and the Herzegovina Anonymous
Quest for Sheba Norman Stone Pearn and Vernon Barlow
An English Consul in Siam W. A. R. Wood
South Sea Idyls Charles Warren Stoddard
Hawaii: The Past, Present and Future of its Island-Kingdom Gerald Manly Hopkins

TWO VAGABONDS
IN LANGUEDOC

BY
JAN & CORA J. GORDON

First published in 2005 by
Kegan Paul Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Kegan Paul, 2005

All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electric, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN: 0-7103-1008-0
ISBN: 978-0-710-31008-8 (hbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applied for.

TO

HERMINE AND FRITZ VANDERPYL

IN RECOGNITION OF OUR LONG
STANDING FRIENDSHIP

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE OLD CHTEAU AND THE VILLAGE STREET

TWO VAGABONDS IN LANGUEDOC

TWO VAGABONDS IN LANGUEDOC

H ERE is an attempt to make a portrait, or rather a collective portrait, like one of those pictured corporations by an old Flemish master. Here is a portrait of the French village of Janac in Upper Languedoc, taken from the door of the Htel Sestrol. You will perceive in the centre the figures of Monsieur and Madame Sestrol and their son Raymond ; grouped about them are the baker, the blacksmith, the shoemaker, the picier-cobbler, the ex-American soldier, the mad priest, the garde champtre, the juge de paix, etc., fading into a mass of villagers and peasantry, some suggested, others merely indicated. The picture, admittedly, suffers from the disadvantages of the portraitit is seen from one angle only and in one lighting.

Our friend Boanerges, well-known art critic and gastronomer of Paris, has the queer hobby of collecting himself in facsimile from the hands of all his painter friends. These portraits he hangs regimented in his study, a dozen presentments overlook the original at his work : a dozen Boanerges frown ; smile ; look indifferent, self-satisfied, absorbed or reflective upon the Boanerges who is grumbling over his manuscript. Of these many portraits all resemble the original, yet none are like each other : they are as the many facets of a jewel, each has its own peculiar glint, none have the same glint, yet all are of the same jewel.

We submit this book to such limitations of portrait work. It is seen at an angle, it has only one lighting, it gives, we hope, at least one glint of the jewel, and it includes little which was behind us or out of sight. Humble jog-trotters we have attempted no simultanism. Yet we feel that, admitted the defects of portraiture, a truth may be obtained by one steady look from one chosen angle in some ways as truthful as may be a more comprehensive presentation such as a fully moulded bust.

If this book can but bring the reader a little into an easier contact with the fascinating genius of the French village we shall be content.

A modern poetess, of Hampstead we believe, opened her plaintive lament with the line : I have no physical need of a chair. So might we borrow or transpose her verse into : We have no physical need of an alarum-clock.

We can despise that assemblage of wheels and springs which may keep you awake with its monotonous beating of the passage of timethe tom-tom of eternitybut which, come morning, may forget to awaken you, if you yourself have forgotten to wind the hammer spring. We have no need of such an implement. Our alarum-clock is spontaneous and natural ; it works without forethought on our part, indeed, the less the forethought the more sure the action. Nor has our alarum-clock the drawbacks of a mechanical one. It does not arouse us with abrupt and horrid jangle, startling us from some sweet unconcluded dream, introducing the day with cacophony. No. Our clock merges sleep into wakefulness, gradating our dream for us as slumber steals from the mind. Nor can our clock be shut off with the aggravated hand of a snoozer impatient to resume the futile attempt of restringing dream jewels which the broken thread of sleep has scattered. Our awakener operates gently but remorselessly, first drawing away slumber as the veils are taken from a Moslem bride ; then, however, rousing us moment by moment into true wakefulness, nay, into sheer muscular activity, the only solution of which is to get up. Not only is sleep banished but the wakefulness is firmly enthroned in the mind's high places and so no remedy is there for it ; up we must get.