LA BOUILLE

The steamer leaves the Quai de Paris every afternoon at two. Most days it is crowded. The War does not hinder women and the ineligible and les blessÉs from taking their pleasure down the lovely Seine. Why should it? People should in war-time look to the efficiency of civilians as well as of soldiers. It is as profitable, to this end, that the Seine pleasure-boats should run as that the London theatres should keep open under the darkened anti-Zeppelin sky.

It's women who crowd the boat, with their sons and their younger brothers. There's also a leavening of handsome women who go down for purposes not considered virtuous by the British. There are many soldiers—en permission, with powers of enjoyment equal to those of the Tommy who shouts to the liftmaid in the Tube: "Hurry up, miss! I've only got ten days!" These fellows from the trenches, with their women hanging upon them, are prepared to compress much into their leave. There are a few wanting limbs, who are not on leave.

The boat races down the pool of Rouen through the gauntlet of colliers, timber-ships, supply-ships, multitudinous barges, and swinging cranes. Once past the island, the commercial river-side is done with, and the journey proceeds through some of the most exquisitely beautiful hill-country in Normandy. Rouennaise merchants have grown fat on the trade of decades of peace, and have built their maisons on the grand scale on the slopes of the Dieppedale and Roumare ForÊts. The forests clothing this Seine Valley are famed through all Europe for growth and colour. The maisons lie buried in their depths, thrusting up their towers and high gables. The slim Seine Islands are thick with groves, and mansions stand in the midst of them too. And for many miles down the right bank under the chalk ridge the houses stand trim in their orchards on the river's brink. Their little summer-houses overlook the road, seated and cushioned; and the old people sit there looking on the river, watching the youngsters play and the old men and the soldiers fishing from the wall.

These banks are castled, too, like the Rhine. The potentates of Normandy chose the heights of this river basin from all the rest of Normandy, for reasons that are obvious. Apart from the elevation of these hills, the beauty of the sites is something to aspire to live in the midst of. Many of these old seats are crumbling. Some are so strongly built they will last for ever. All were built by men with some force of personality. Famous amongst them is the fine old castle of Robert le Diable, the rough parent of William the Conqueror. It's the oldest, and half decayed, but its strong points are still reared up there on the hill-brow.

You move on under these noble hills, broken rarely by a timbered valley. There is nothing sombre aboard. Whatever the French can or cannot do, they can talk—gratefully and incessantly. The Norman tongue, however unintelligible, is incredibly pleasing in the mouths of its women. It is as free from harshness as the landscape. And the prattle of the children is music which a river orchestra would defile.

The beautiful La Bouille is the objective of most passengers. Untrammelled is the word for this little town. The women are fresh; the men are simple; the houses straggle quaintly and cleanly along the front; and the white walls and the gables climb in an unsophisticated fashion up the wooded hills beside the white, winding road. There is a Place set out by the landing-stage, lined with cafÉs under the trees. The river-men in their wide pantalons and loose corduroy blouses sip wine with their women; their children romp in the centre of the square. You will be nobly entertained if you do no more than sit there and call for refreshment to the red-cheeked waitress. But you will probably not be content without wandering up the hill-road after an hour at the tables. And if you do not grow envious of the youths who sit on the bank with company by that road-side, you are more than human. In Normandy love-making there is nothing embarrassed, but an unforced give and take that is not traditionally reputed to lie along the path of true love. Whether this is true love or not (and it probably isn't), it looks quite as delicious, and it sufficeth them. One wonders whether, after all, they are due to demand much more. The girl looks at you frankly from the midst of it, as who should say: "And why do not you, in this land of sweet sunlight, fulfil, too, the law of your existence?"

From almost every house, as you ascend, some houri smiles a half-welcome at you and would not be greatly confused or displeased if you took it for a whole, and, entering, made yourself at home.

At the hilltop you'll come on the old Maison brÛlÉe, with a cafÉ in the recess, and much merry company. If you stay there as long as you want to, you'll miss the last boat to Rouen. So you quit drinking-in the Seine beauty revelling below you up and down the river basin, and saunter back to the steamer. All the town is there to see her leave. Everyone smiles and "waves" and says Come again in no uncertain pantomime. And all the journey back in the soft evening you say you will.