uld see, the white, blistering road, was turning to
clouds of dust between olive groves and small oaks, under a great,
silver, hazy sun which filled the whole sky. Not a trace of shade, not
a whisper of wind. Nothing except the shimmering of the hot air and the
strident cry of the cicadas' incessant din, deafening, hurried, and
seeming to harmonise with the immense luminous shimmering.... I had
walked for two hours in this desert in the middle of nowhere, when
suddenly a group of white houses emerged from the dust cloud in the
road in front of me. They were known as the Saint-Vincent coaching
inns: five or six farms with long red roofed barns; and a dried up
watering hole in a would-be oasis of spindly fig trees. At the end of
the village, two large inns faced each other across the road.

There was something striking about these inns and their strange
setting. On one side, there was a large, new building, full of life and
buzzing with activity. All the doors were ajar; a coach was in front,
from which the steaming horses were being unhitched. The disembarked
passengers were hurriedly drinking in the partial shade by the walls.
There was a courtyard strewn with mules and wagons, and the wagoners
were lying down under the outhouses waiting to feel cool. Inside there
was the jumbled sound of shouting, swearing, fists banging on the
tables, glasses clinking, billiard balls rattling, lemonade corks
popping, and above all that racket, a joyful voice, bursting with song
loud enough to shake the windows:

The lovely Margoton,
Just as soon as night was day,
Took her little silver can,
To the river made her away....

... The inn on the other side was silent and looked completely
abandoned. There was grass under the gate, broken blinds, and a branch
of dead holly on the door; all that was left of an old decoration. The
entrance steps were supported by stones from the road.... It was so
poor and pitiful, that it was a real act of charity to stop there at
all, even for a drink.

* * * * *

As I went in, I saw a long gloomy, deserted room, with daylight,
bursting in through three large, curtainless, windows, which just made
it look even more deserted and gloomy. There were some unsteady tables,
with dust-covered glasses long abandoned on them. There was also a
broken billiard table which held out its six pockets like begging
bowls, a yellow couch, and an old bar, all slumbering on in the heavy,
unheal