She thought that the
criers must have been chosen for their resonant voices, and in her mind
she pictured faces to match, dark and ruddy, with great southern eyes;
for now the train was booming toward Provence: and though Mary began to
be drowsy, she held herself awake on purpose to hear "Avignon" shouted
through the night.
Very early, almost before it was light, she arose noiselessly, bathed as
well as she could, and dressed, so as to be able to look out at
Marseilles. Miss Wardropp was asleep, and as the train slowed into the
big station in the pale glimmer of the winter morning, Mary walked to
the end of the car. The stop would be twenty minutes, and as the train
gave its last jerk Mary jumped on to the platform.
The sky was of a faint, milky blue, like the blue that moves under the
white cloud in a moonstone, and the first far down ray of morning sun,
coming up with the balmy wind from still, secret places where the youth
of the world slept, shimmered golden as a buttercup held under the
pearly chin of a child. This was only Marseilles, but already the smell
of the south was in the air, the scent of warm salt sea, of eucalyptus
logs burning, and pine trees and invisible orange groves. On the
platform, osier baskets packed full of flowers sent out wafts of
perfume; and as Mary stood gazing over the heads of the crowd at the
lightening sky, she thought the dawn rushed up the east like a
torchbearer, bringing good news. Just for a moment she forgot everybody,
and could have sung for joy of life--a feeling new to her, though
something deep down in herself had whispered that it was there and she
might know it if she would.
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