In the graceful pleasure-gardens behind the Pope’s ancient palace in Avignon stands a bench from which one can overlook the Rhone, the flowery banks of the Durance, hills and fields, and a part of the town.
One October afternoon two Danish ladies were seated on this bench, Mrs. Fonss, a widow, and her daughter Elixir.
Although they had been here several days and were already familiar with the view before them, they nevertheless sat there and marveled that this was the way the Provence looked.
And this really was the Provence! A clayey river with flakes of muddy sand, and endless shores of stone-gray gravel; pale-brown fields without a blade of grass, pale-brown slopes, pale-brown hills and dust-colored roads, and here and there near the white houses, groups of black trees, absolutely black bushes and trees.
