. . .
CHAPTER V--FOREST NOTES 1875-6
ON THE PLAIN
Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of
the Gatinais, where they border with the wooded hills of
Fontainebleau. Here and there a few grey rocks creep out of the
forest as if to sun themselves. Here and there a few apple-trees
stand together on a knoll. The quaint, undignified tartan of a
myriad small fields dies out into the distance; the strips blend
and disappear; and the dead flat lies forth open and empty, with no
accident save perhaps a thin line of trees or faint church spire
against the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in spite of
pettiness in the near details, the impression becomes more solemn
and vast towards evening. The sun goes down, a swollen orange, as
it were into the sea. A blue-clad peasant rides home, with a
harrow smoking behind him among the dry clods. Another still works
with his wife in their little strip. An immense shadow fills the
plain; these people stand in it up to their shoulders; and their
heads, as they stoop over their work and rise again, are relieved
from time to time against the golden sky.
These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means
overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical
representative of the serf of yore, and think not so much of
present times, which may be prosperous enough, as of the old days
when the peasant was taxed beyond possibility of payment, and
lived, in Michelet's image, like a hare between two furrows.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169