This is the place for a promenade at
all hours of the day. Children climb the trunks to fetch down a few
remaining cones or break off dried branches as fuel. A sportsman told me
that several of them lose their lives every year at this adventure. What
was he doing here, with a gun? Waiting for a hare, he said. They always
wait for hares. There are none!
Then a poor thin woman, dressed in black and gathering the prickly
stalks of gorse for firewood, began to converse with me, reasonably
enough at first. All of a sudden her language changed into a burning
torrent of insanity, with wild gesticulations. She was the Queen of the
country, she avowed, the rightful Queen, and they had robbed her of all
her children, every one of them, and all her jewels. I agreed--what else
could one do? Being in the combustible stage, she went over the argument
again and again, her eyes fiercely flashing. Nothing could stop the flow
of her words. I was right glad when another woman came to my rescue and
pushed her along, as you would a calf, saying:
"You go home now, it's getting dark, run along!--yes, yes! you're the
Queen right enough--she was in the asylum, Sir, for three months and
then they let her out, the fools--of course you are, everybody knows
that! But you really mustn't annoy this gentleman any more--her husband
and son were both killed in the war, that's what started it--we'll fetch
them tomorrow at the palace, all those things, and the children, only
don't talk so much--they thought she was cured, but just hark at
her!--va bene, it's all yours, only get along--she'll be back there in a
day or two, won't she?--really, you are chattering much too much, for a
Queen; va bene, va bene, va bene--"
A sad little incident, under the pines.
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