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A Procession Of Umbrellas
by
It was all over in a moment. He did not continue to beam irradiating beatitudes, as the old Ribera and the older Correggio have done for hundreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, tucked the child’s hand into his own, and led her off to her mother.
I kept at my work. For me the incident, delightful as it was, was closed. All I remembered, as I squeezed the contents of another tube on to my palette, was the smile on the face of the priest.
The weather now began to take part in the general agitation. The lazy haze, roused by the joyous sun, had gathered its skirts together and had slipped over the hills. The sun in its turn had been effaced by a big cloud with scalloped edges which had overspread the distant line of the river, blotting out the flashes of silver laughter, and so frightening the little waves that they scurried off to the banks, some even trying to climb up the stone coping out of the way of the rising wind. A cool gust of air, out on a lark, now swept down the path, and, with lance in rest, toppled over my white umbrella. Big drops of rain fell about me, spitting the dust like spent balls. Growls of thunder were heard overhead. One of those rollicking, two-faced thunder-squalls, with the sun on one side and the blackness of the night on the other, was approaching.
The priest had seen it, for he had the child pickaback and was running across the sward. The woman had seen it, too, for she was already collecting her baskets, preparing to follow, and I was not far behind. Before she had reached the edge of the woods I had overtaken her, my traps under my arm, my white umbrella over my head.
“The Chalet Cycle is the nearest,” she volunteered, grasping the situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke.
“Is that where he has taken the child?” I asked, hurriedly.
“No, Monsieur–Susette has gone home. It is only a little way.”
I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on the opening through the trees, the rain pouring from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke through, flooding the wet leaves with dazzling light.
These two, the clouds and the sun, were evidently bent on mischief, frightening little waves and painters and bright-eyed children and good priests who loved them!
II
Do you happen to know the Chalet Cycle?
If you are a staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns–one of your three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o’clock kind of a man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the one farther down the street.
Believe me, a most seductive place is this Chalet Cycle, with its tables set out under the trees!
A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on tete-a-tete tables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big open gateway where everybody can enter and–ah! there is where the danger lies–a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where anybody can escape to the woods by the river–an ever-present refuge in time of trouble and in constant use–more’s the pity–for it is the unexpected that always happens at the Chalet Cycle.