PLATE THIRTY-FIVE — Poppies
I DID LIE in the meadow in the penetrating Provençal sun, and I did drink teas brewed from herbs picked that morning by my children, and I even lay in baths redolent of branches of fresh thyme . . . I let the hot sun and the meadow smells soothe me.
. . . One day we came in from the country with some sprays of almond blossoms . . . There was much talk about the unseasonable warmth, the great freeze of February 2 . . . ah, the dead olive trees, the almonds, the live oaks . . . and then the freeze of last April 30, which took two-thirds or three-quarters or five-eighths of the wine this year . . .
And then we went into the hotel and divided our branches . . . Anne put one branch in her room, and I stuck the other two in a jar of deep blue anemones by my desk. In the last bright light coming over the yellow and rose tiles of the rooftops, it seemed probably the most beautiful posy of my life.
I thought I should mention this in my invisible notes on the secret map . . .
PLATE THIRTY-SIX — Lavender
PLATE THIRTY-SEVEN — Mas de Bonnet de la Roche
All the windows of the simple pleasant house were wide open, a wonderful feeling for us after the winter in a hotel, and the walls were white plaster and the good furniture was dark with age and shining with wax, and the floors were of red square tiles. In other words, it was the kind of Provençal mas that I most love.
PLATE THIRTY-EIGHT — Window, Mas de Bonnet de la Roche