Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone. Angus B. Reach
à coucher." Accordingly, he led me to a barn close to his wine-cellars. The place was littered deep with clean, fresh straw. Here and there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while all round, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, hung by straps and strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and other baggage of the labourers. On one side, two or three swarthy young women were playfully pushing each other aside, so as to get at a morsel of cracked mirror stuck against the wall—their long hair hanging down in black elf-locks, in the preliminary stage of its arrangement.
"That is the ladies' side," said my cicerone, pointing to the girls; "and that"—extending his other hand—"is the gentlemen's side."
"And so they all sleep here together?"
"Every night. I find shelter and straw; any other accommodation they must procure for themselves."
"Rather unruly, I should suppose?"
"Not a bit. They are too tired to do anything but sleep. They go off, sir, like dormice."
"Oh, sil plait à Mossieu!" put in one of the damsels. "The chief of the band does the police." (Fait la gen-d'armerie.)
"Certainly—certainly," said the proprietor; "the gentlemen lie here, with their heads to the wall; the ladies there; and the chef de la bande stretches himself all along between them."
"A sort of living frontier?"
"Truly; and he allows no nonsense."
"Il est meme éxcessivement severe," interpolated the same young lady.
"He need be," replied her employer. "He allows no loud speaking—no joking; and as there are no candles, no light, why, they can do nothing better than go quietly to sleep, if it were only in self-defence."
One word more about the vintage. The reader will easily conceive that it is on the smaller properties, where the wine is intended, not so much for commerce as for household use, that the vintage partakes most of the festival nature. In the large and first-class vineyards the process goes on under rigid superintendence, and is as much as possible made a cold matter of business. He who wishes to see the vintages of books and poems—the laughing, joking, singing festivals amid the vines, which we are accustomed to consider the harvests of the grape—must betake him to the multitudinous patches of peasant property, in which neighbour helps neighbour to gather in the crop, and upon which whole families labour merrily together, as much for the amusement of the thing, and from good neighbourly feeling, as in consideration of francs and sous. Here, of course, there is no tight discipline observed, nor is there any absolute necessity for that continuous, close scrutiny into the state of the grapes—all of them hard or rotten, going slap-dash into the cuvier—which, in the case of the more precious vintages, forms no small check upon a general state of careless jollity. Every one eats as much fruit as he pleases, and rests when he is tired. On such occasions it is that you hear to the best advantage the joyous songs and choruses of the vintage—many of these last being very pretty bits of melody, generally sung by the women and girls, in shrill treble unison, and caught up and continued from one part of the field to another.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.