There was a truce in the field

(an excerpt from THE LONG HABIT OF LIVING, p. 286)

CHAPTER XVI.

                There was a truce in the field, I noticed, as I walked alone over the expansive embankment high above the Canal de Cadenet.  I looked out over the rocky fields bordered by more fertile stretches of high plain and clumps of trees and farmhouses, and detected a break in the business of nature.  I stepped quietly from the tall grass and wandered over to a row of elms and, looking down the hill, saw very close to me Father Revenant and Georges Ebert.  Although I was shielded by the elm grove and by subsequent patches of jasmine bushes and scattered, exiled grapevines swaying in a warm breeze, I could still see and hear them perfectly.

               

Revenant sat on a three-legged stool facing a flimsy easel, on which was placed a small, white water-color board.  He dipped a brush into water, then paint, and made slow, careful strokes on the white paper.  Ebert leaned back, absorbing the view, a foot resting on the picnic basket that lay between them.  Two umbrellas had been propped up so as to give both men some shade.

                I found an area of dried moss and sat down, paying strict attention to what was being said.  I wouldn't normally spy on people, but I couldn't resist listening to them, two men who have listened so much to Owen.  They spoke in French, and so I offer the translation.

                "You don't think the river has any significance?" Revenant asked.

                "Albert," Ebert sighed, "this is getting me bored."

                "I was hoping that Your Literariness would enhance my theory," snapped Revenant, hurt.

                "You know how I feel about those things," said Ebert.  "Everybody in the world has a critical theory."

                "You could at least humor me," said the priest.  "I don't see a Nobel hanging in your living room."

                "Freedom from the Archbishop has taken on a whole new dimension for you, hasn’t it?”

                "What do you mean, ‘freedom from the Archbishop’?  I know no such freedom.  He's a sore tooth, I tell you.  I'll rot by the seaside, unclothed, unloved, forgotten."

                He turned full on Ebert and smiled brightly:

                "Why?  Have you noticed something?"

                "Yes, since Avignon, you have a new sense of duty," said Ebert.

                "Duty?" replied Revenant.

                "I'm afraid you don't understand me."

                "What do you know of duty?" Revenant interrupted.  "Besides, those kinds of questions are...what?  …café talk.  I hate café talk."

                "You hate café talk, I hate theories," responded Ebert.

                He waited for Revenant to continue.  I waited for Revenant to continue.

                "Well...?  What can you tell me about your new duty in life?"

                "What about the river?" asked Revenant.

                "Forget the river," said Ebert.

                "Why?  I'm not an intellectual weasel or some other tree-thing."

                "I didn't say you were," replied the novelist.

                "I don't know if you're naturally rude or if you've picked it up from your doctor.  You weren't this way when we were kids."

                "Albert," said Georges.

                "Why don't you ask your American friend about duty," said Revenant.  "It's crippled him."

                "He's your friend, too," added Ebert.

                Moments passed in silence.  I thanked God that I forgot to put on cologne or after shave before leaving the house, like I usually do, being a fanatic about such things.  I was upwind of them, and they would've caught a trace of it in the air.  It was a peculiar sensibility I'd begun to acquire, not necessarily thinking like an animal but definitely falling into a more organic and less synthetic frame of mind when it came to extra-personal hygiene.  I think it had something to do with the wine, or with Sarah's cooking, or the air and all its pollen, its dried leaves, or the dusty pickup when the mistral blew, or even the ripening fruit from the orchards all around Cadenet.