The Pont du Gard Inn
The Pont du Gard Inn A small roadside inn is located midway between Beaucaire and Bellegarde, slightly nearer to Beaucaire, on the left side of the post road with its back to the Rhône. A sheet of tin depicting the Pont du Gard creaks and flaps in the wind at its entrance. The inn also has a modest garden on the side opposite the main entrance, reserved for guests.
The Barren Surroundings
The Barren Surroundings The garden contains a few sickly olive and fig trees with withered, dusty foliage, struggling against the harsh climate. A scanty supply of garlic, tomatoes, and eschalots grows between the shrubs, and a lone tall pine stands like a forgotten sentinel in one corner. All trees bend in the direction of the Mistral wind. The surrounding plain resembles a dusty lake, scattered with sparse wheat stalks, each serving as a perch for a strident grasshopper, creating an Egyptian scene.
The Inn’s Decline
The Inn’s Decline For about seven or eight years, the tavern has been kept by a man and his wife with two servants, a chambermaid named Trinette and a hostler called Pecaud. A new canal between Beaucaire and Aiguemortes has revolutionized transportation, substituting boats for carts and stagecoaches. This canal, situated between the Rhône and the depleted post road, not a hundred steps from the inn, has inflicted daily misery and is fast accomplishing the ruin of the unfortunate innkeeper.
Caderousse the Innkeeper
Caderousse the Innkeeper The innkeeper is a tall, strong, bony man of forty to fifty-five years old, a perfect specimen of southern native stock. He has dark, sparkling, deep-set eyes, a hooked nose, and white teeth like a carnivorous animal. His thick, curly hair and beard show only a few silvery threads despite his age. His dark complexion has darkened further from standing at his doorstep from morning to evening under the burning sun, his head wrapped in a red handkerchief Spanish-muleteer style. This man is Gaspard Caderousse, an old acquaintance.
La Carconte
La Carconte Caderousse’s wife, born Madeleine Radelle, is pale, meagre, and sickly-looking, hailing from the neighborhood of Arles. Though she once shared in the proverbial beauty of Arlesian women, that beauty has withered beneath the slow fever prevalent among dwellers by the Aiguemortes ponds and Camargue marshes. She spends most of her time in her second-floor chamber, shivering in her chair or stretched languid on her bed, while Caderousse keeps his daily watch at the door to avoid her ceaseless invectives against fate. To her complaints, he calmly responds, “Hush, La Carconte. It is God’s pleasure that things should be so.”
The Nickname
The Nickname The sobriquet “La Carconte” was bestowed upon Madeleine Radelle because she was born in a village so named, situated between Salon and Lambesc. Following the local custom of giving everyone a distinctive appellation, her husband replaced her sweet, euphonious name of Madeleine with this nickname, which his rude guttural speech could more easily pronounce.
Former Splendor
Former Splendor Despite his affected resignation, the innkeeper writhes under the double misery of losing customers and profits to the canal and enduring his wife’s constant murmurs. In his prosperous days, Caderousse and his wife were spectators at every festivity, he in a picturesque southern costume resembling both Catalan and Andalusian styles, and she in the charming Arlesian fashion borrowed from Greece and Arabia. Gradually, watch-chains, necklaces, parti-colored scarves, embroidered bodices, velvet vests, worked stockings, striped gaiters, and silver buckles all disappeared. Unable to appear in his pristine splendor, Caderousse has given up participation in such vanities, though envy fills him as he hears mirth and music from the joyous revellers reaching his miserable hostelry.
The Arrival of the Priest
The Arrival of the Priest Caderousse is at his observation post when his wife’s shrill voice summons him indoors, and he grumbling mounts to her chamber, leaving the entrance door wide open as an invitation to any traveler. The deserted road stretches like a Sahara at midday when a dim outline appears from the direction of Bellegarde: a man and horse moving in perfect understanding. The horse is of Hungarian breed, ambling easily, while its rider is a priest dressed in black with a three-cornered hat, advancing despite the noonday sun. At the Pont du Gard, the horse stops, the priest dismounts, secures his steed by the bridle to a handle projecting from a half-fallen door, wipes his brow with a red cotton handkerchief, and strikes the door thrice with his iron-shod stick.
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