LOW LIFE IN NORMANDY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 6 November 1890, Page 35

LOW LIFE IN NORMANDY.

Women Working in the Hay Fields -Nova Experience of an American "X oung Worn* •• . Bbtwebn the walls of Mobma> ' v, Jnlyl_B.— l dale this "Between the "•■ ," because the walls were the first to imp> « me in Normandy and will be the last. Everybody lives behind a wall here, and a* you walk along the roads, with a high stone fence on either hand, they peep at you through a hole in their walls as if you wem a bandit, or they wert prisoners, envious of such freedom as you have in a walled roadway.

lam an American young woman. I may be living here a year hence or I may be living somewhere else to-morrow. lam not sight-seeing. I am simply living in Normandy. I came hither to rest and I am resting in a .'Norman peasant's house, where after all I suffer I am seeing more sights worth recording than any ancient city or village of Normandy has to show. I have a mind to mention some of them.

Down the road, not 100 ft away, comes a woman leading a patient little donkey dragging a funny little two-heeled cart. The woman wears a blue apron over a grey woollen gown that only comes to where the tops of her boots would be— did she have any boots. Instead she wears everlasting wooden shoes at a franc per pair, with no superfluities in the way of hosiery. Id lieu of stockings she stuffs whisps of straw compactly into her shoes. The only clean-look-ing thing about her is her cap— and that looks as though it had always been clean, just as the rest of her and her belongings look as though they had always been dirty. She is a very old woman — that is, she looks very old, though she may be quite young. The donkeys and the women throuehout all the region convey to me the same impression of extreme age. I will ask her : " Quel age avez-vous, Victorine ? " " Quatre - vingtdeux I " (82 years). I was not deceived. She has covered the distance between us while I have been writing, and has been unharnessing the little beast these last 30 seconds. She does not talk to it. She does not work gaily, but energetically even after her 13 hours' work in the field ; but there is weariness in her energy.

SOMETHING INOONGBUOUS.

The only thing unusual or out of keeping is myself. An American is incongruous in any scene in Normandy. So be sure I am effacing myself as much as my sft 9£in will permit. lam ocenpying as small a space in the doorway as I can, and my ink is ou the ground, close up to the sill, as I write on my knees ; but I feel aggressively new and prosperous. There is no tonic for the poor American like poorer Normandy.

The woman, Victorine, is now tethering the donkey on the stubble in the oatfield where a part of the grain has been cut. She will come in presently and make her cabbage soup and galette de sarazzn — and Mademoiselle's, for I, too, am eating cabbage soup. The bouse I know to be scrupulously clean, though it looks like Victorine, grimy and time-soiled. I know the cabbage soup to be clean, for I myself have washed the cabbage and put on the water, after rewasbing the already clean iron pot; and jet it will look when done about the complexion of Victorine and hergown, the cart, the donkey, and the stone wall. The tint is an allpervading one.

To-night I would like some canvasback duck, a comfortable salad, and som; other things, but I am going to eat cabbage soup and some {/alette de sarazin. It is nourishing and wholesome enough, and some day I shall so appreciate terrapin by contrast.

Victorine'g house was built 400 years ago. Until one knows the Norman peasant one has not known a true representative of absolute ignorance. The native calls it innocence, but the native is mistaken. It is ignorance, a density unparalleled. The mildest stranger creates a panic. It was many days before I could create sufficient confidence in the mind of this hard-working Victorine to induce her to let me.into her house.

CLOSING A BARGAIN.

I started wrong in my effort to gain her good will. I offered her sfr a day for the privilege of eating cabbage soup in her company, and sleeping in the marvellous bed in the next room. I argued that sfr would gain the confidence of a woman whose dally income was lfr. At first stupefaction seized her, at last royal indignation. I have never experienced anything so hurried as her oration in reply. I went away, and two days after we struck a bargain at 2fr.

I have never been able to understand what the leathery little old woman's indignation was about, for she takes all she can get as soon as she becomes acquainted without ever betraying surprise.

At sunrise this morning I lay in bed watching Victorine through the open door, scrubbing her floor with a rag hitched to a flat board, nailed to a long handle. A hundred years from now these dense people will scrub

floors with a rag and a stick, beating their clothes and washing them in the stream, just as they have been doing ever since they had floors to scrub and slothes to wash.

Last night Victorine told me confidentially that she was shortly to take a holiday — my 2fr per day making such extravagance possible — when she was going to walk to La Deliverande, 50 miles away.

To-day, Victorine and I have been haying. I held the donkey. For more than 35 years Victorine has made hay in season without my assistance, but I finally convinced her that no matter what experience had taught her, I was essential to the success of tha business.

Indeed the old woman no longer protests. Astonishment has now become a habit with her, and either the effect of habit or the satisfaction caused by innovations has rendered much objection on her part out of the question.

The sun was hot at noon. We began haying and restraining the donkey at 4 in the morning, and I, too, felt a desire stealing upon me to lie down in the hay and sleep for an hour.

These peasants infuse vigour into all their interests in life— all except their intelligence. They wash their clothes, make their hay, scold their donkeys, eat their meats; pray and make love with a certain monotonous vigour which exhausts an onlooker.