Day Twenty-Two: Martin Guerre Returned Here
There is a bird outside that sounds exactly like a loud, insistently distressed guinea pig. (Or there is a loud, insistently distressed guinea pig roosting in a nearby tree).
This morning, I headed off to the subterranean river ride at Labouiche, but alas, I was the only person there and Monsieur was desolee, but canceled the run. Having spent the interval reading many informative placards about the myriad varieties of friendly, clean, helpful bats that live in the cavern, I was quite gracious about it.
Instead, I turned northwards in search of Artigat, where Martin Guerre returned to... And looking by far the most ravishing landscape I've yet seen, I could definitely follow his line of reasoning. A gently billowing sea of grass, rising and falling in pungent swells to the horizon, where some straitlaced poplars hold the ridges like sentries no one remembered to relieve. On the verges, wildflowers so delicate you can hardly see them separate, only perceive them as a silvering, or a rusty rose film over the common grass. The Pyrenees are drawn in smoke on the farthest line of sight, ready to dissolve at a breath. Ohmyyes. If I'd know of anyone missing a thirty-something brown-eyed woman, I'd of been on their doorstep, crying, "Maman! Papa!"
Descended to planet earth, stopped at the Relais to partake of a modest lunch -- thick potato-and-leek soup, cucumber salad and -- what else -- goat cheese. Went up to St. Lizier to tour semi-celebrated cathedral in the afternoon, but found it rather frou-frou and uninteresting. Whopping great gilt Pietas and hothouse bouquets -- you could see the same a hundred places.
Coming across St. Lizier's cemetery on the way down, I stopped, not having had a good graveyard crawl in a while. French cemeteries are of such tackiness that they go beyond tackiness to a state that I don't have words to describe. So I will describe objects -- rusty grim Christ-twisted-in-agony-on-the-crosses, bushels of plastic flowers (though not entirely lacking fresh flowers -- live pansies in terra cotta planters are refreshing) -- shiny salt-and-pepper granite monuments laden with "souvenirs," little black marble knick-knacks saying "A notre ami," "Regrets" "A mon parrain, je ne oublierais rien," propped up like so many collectors plates ("The Franklin Mint cannot guarantee that all tacky graveyard mementos will appreciate in value, but a 1975 copy of our Lady of Sorrows in a shaky snow globe has recently sold for $500."). Porcelain flower arrangements, hideously shiny. Saddest sight -- a very old grave, so old you couldn't read the stone, with a little fence surrounding, but an empty space beside within. Who do you suppose he/she was waiting for, and why didn't they come?
By this time my sinuses were in a complete uproar, and having only two precious antihistamine tablets to see me through until tomorrow when the pharmacy opens -- I came back and closed myself off from the elements temporarily.
