CANNES

Cannes harbor the next noon was so crowded that we had to anchor in the roadstead. Hundred-foot yachts there are as common as baby carriages in Central Park, and the traffic problems are very similar to those clogging Times Square. As you look at the forest of masts, you have the feeling that the population explosion of this century has spread to shipyards and that perhaps the anti-conception pill which is being offered to the prolific mothers of India might profitably be peddled at ship chandlers’ shops as well. In the middle of all that teak and polished brass you get the feeling that just about everybody in Europe owns a yacht, if not two, and you are assailed by the false but heavy conviction that the era of unlimited prosperity for the common man has arrived, decked out in nautical caps and yacht club flags. As the mere temporary lessee of a ship, you have the uncomfortable sensation of being a representative of the genteel poor, a disappointing specimen who, clumsily, was not on the spot when the wave of the future came along and carried everybody else to opulence.

It was here that I realized for the first time that the Captain and his family, who had produced a black cat with a bad temper and a caged canary with a good one, were giving our fair white ship an extra touch of hominess, a kind of semi-detached, laundry-bedecked South Kensingtonness, hard to discern at first but finally magically overwhelming. It was in Cannes, too, that we made our first fruitless search for a replacement for the faulty gas-burner in our refrigerator. Second beat of the tom-tom in the dark jungle.

The chief attraction of Cannes during the season is, as far as I have been able to make out, that it is enormously crowded. It has the same glorious sunshine, of course, as the rest of the coast, but the beaches are derisively narrow and the costs are cynically high. It is only the presence of more of his fellow men than can be comfortably accommodated in the area that brings the eager holiday maker to this seething city. Most writers tend to deplore crowds, since one of the main reasons for anyone to become a writer is the desire to be alone a good part of the time. But this year I found something optimistic about this turbulent congregation of French, Germans, English, Danes, Swiss, Dutch, Italians, Belgians, Venezuelans, and Americans on the thin rind of beach in front of the great hotels. Here are people who love their fellow men, and love them so well that they come from all quarters of the world to spend their precious three weeks of holiday cemented solidly in among them. On the beach at Cannes, you would get no vote of war against anybody.

We had to go ashore to deliver large packets of money to the ship’s agent who had arranged our cruise. He is riding high these days, of course, and only deplores the fact that harbors are not being built quickly enough to accommodate all his clients. There is a feeling that Greece, with its innumerable islands and endless miles of coastline and a shrewd harbor-building program supported by the tourist authorities, will soon take the play away from the traditional ports of the Mediterranean. While the agent was counting my money, a blond young Englishman in impeccable white shirt, shorts, and knee-length socks, came into the office to tell the agent that if anybody was looking for an expert captain, he was on tap. He looked anxious and shifty, and with his pre-war white elegance reminded me a little of passages of Lord Jim and made me wonder what failure of nerve or integrity had put him on the beach at this booming season.

On the quay outside the office my wife called out a name and, when the lady in front of us turned around, snapped her picture. It was a friend of ours from Paris, but the expression on her face as she found herself caught by the camera lens was not friendly. “For God’s sake,” she said, “don’t print that. I’m not supposed to be here.” Some twelve feet away we now noticed a gentleman, hovering uncertainly and trying to look unconnected to anybody. We promised not to print the picture and to this day have loyally kept that promise, although the lady looked charming in slacks and a wide straw hat and the light was perfect.