The Pillars of Hercules

In the watery morning light I saw a profusion of almond blossoms. But I would have noticed them without the suggestion of Van Gogh; there was no subtlety. It was an explosion of flowers, the trees frothing with blossoms. The cherry blossoms of early spring in London and on Cape Cod always indicated to me that winter was almost over, and there is something magical about their appearing before the trees were in leaf.

Walking towards the river, a man—American—asked me directions to the railway station. He was Jim, from Connecticut, relieved to be in Arles after a harrowing trip—so he said—through Portugal and Spain.

“I hated Spain. I almost got robbed in Madrid.”

He was a recent graduate of Bucknell. Philosophy major.

“Ever heard of Philip Roth? He went to Bucknell,” Jim said. “We had to study him. Everyone at Bucknell reads him. I hated that stuff.”

I asked him whether he was on vacation.

“No. I quit my job. I hate the job market. I worked a little while for Cadbury-Schweppes. They were developing a home soft-drink dispenser. The whole bit. Syrup, gas, water—your own soft drinks on tap. It was like a coffee machine.”

“What were you doing?”

“Test-marketing it.”

“Did it fly?”

“It was a failure. It was too expensive—and who needs it?” He kicked along beside me. “They weren’t open to new ideas, so I quit.”

“I’m sure you did the right thing—and here you are, a free man, seeing the world.”

“What are you doing?”

His lack of interest in writing or reading encouraged me, and so I said, “I’m a publisher.”

“What do you look for in a novel?” he asked suddenly. It was a good question.

“Originality, humor, subtlety. The writing itself. A sense of place. A new way of seeing. Lots of things. I like to believe the things I read.”

I pulled a novel, The Rock Pool, by Cyril Connolly, out of my back pocket and waved it at him.

“This has some of those qualities, but not enough.”

“What’s it about?”

“People going to pieces on the Riviera.”

“Another one of those!”

True enough, I thought. “Do you do any writing?”

“No. I’m planning to go to art school, but at the moment I’m heading for Bratislava.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Supposed to be a pretty nice place.”

With that, he jogged off to the railway station, and I continued strolling through the backstreets of Arles to the river. In many respects this was much the same place that Van Gogh saw; many of the same buildings still stand, the same streets and squares and boulevards. There is a vast Roman arena in the town, a splendid hippodrome the size of a small football stadium, used at certain seasons for bullfights. One series had just been held, another, the Easter Feria (Feria de Paque), was coming soon.

Not far from here, the town of Nîmes was the center of French bullfighting and had been for a decade or so, since the revival of the nauseating—what? recreation? pastime?—you could hardly call it a sport. It had been dying out, but Nîmes’s right-wing backward-looking mayor, Jean Bousquet, provided guidance and enthusiasm. There are three bullfighting festivals a year in Nîmes, one attracting almost a million people. Of course French bullfighting had been denounced by animal-rights activists and foreigners, but nothing encourages the French so much as disapproval, especially from aliens.

“Do you go to the bullfights?” I asked a man walking a dog along the river.

“Sometimes. But you know these special events are to bring in the tourists,” he said. “I prefer football.”

Arles was a small town and it had the two disfigurements of pretty French towns in the provinces, dog merds and graffiti. The sidewalks were so fouled they were almost impassable because of the merds. As for the graffiti, there was something particularly depressing about spray-painted scrawls on the stone of ancient facades. Up your ass, Paris (Paris-t’on cule) and Gilly = a whore and a slut (Gilly = pute et salope) were two of the more picturesque obscenities.

The town had prepared itself for tourists, but on this winter day it looked especially empty: too many brasseries, hotels, gift shops, and stores; in July it would be packed, the people said. But Arles had an off-season friendliness and lack of urgency. The waiters were not surly. One explained the drinks available and laughed with me over the odd names Foetus Whisky, Delirium Tremens Beer (“It’s from Belgium”) and the blue cordial liqueur called “Fun Blue.”

I eavesdropped in Arles, though it annoyed me when people were talking and I could not understand them, because of the intrusive background music or other voices. It was like looking at something interesting while someone intruded on my line of vision. I felt stifled and frustrated.

Some of the snippets tantalized me:

A man said, “Let’s do in Italy what we did in France, back at the hotel—”