She leaps down a deep crevice, and her clients follow her. She directs them to gird round their brows the leaves of the mandrake, the gruesome plant of human contours that shrieks aloud when its roots are torn out of the ground.
Tavèn tells them that it is the blest plant of her master-in-magic Nostradamus. The astrologer and magician lived at St. Remy, and so was within easy reach of his famous pupil.
Then the witch urges further descent into the depths, crying,
"Children, all regions exquisite and bright Are but through woeful purgatory neared"--
a saying suggesting an idea of philosophic significance.
Indeed, the whole fantastic story seems to have more meaning in it than is ostensibly claimed, and contains many hints of the deeper reaches of experience.
[Illustration: LES BAUX FROM LEVEL OF THE TOWN. _By E. M. Synge._]
As Tavèn and her charges penetrate further into these wilds, a blast of wind and a "pack of elves shriek through the crypt," which is full of wailing.
Tavèn warns her scared visitors to keep on their "charmed crowns," and to be undismayed by the huge apparition that they see in the dusk: la Lavandière, "whose throne is on Ventoux," where she makes rain and lightning.
The whole dark factory of Evil is shown to the adventurers. They are told how, on the last three days of February and the first three of March, the tombs all open and the tapers kindle, and
"the drowsy dead In ghastly order bend their knees to pray."
A phantom priest performs mass and the church bells ring themselves of their own accord.
But one can hear the bells of Les Baux ringing thus on wild March days and nights!
In the Grotto, Tavèn looses the "swarms of ill," and they rush forth and hold a sort of Carnival, with wizards from Varigoule, in the Luberon range, and ghouls from Fanfarigoule on the Crau.
And in the midst of this appalling Desert of Stones, where the wild thyme makes here and there a fragrant carpet, this mad company dances the farandole.
It was with a pleasant human sense of comfort and cheer that we found ourselves once more driving through the streets of St. Remy. Quieter now than ever these little streets in the dusk, so that we could almost hear the falling of the great yellow leaves of the plane-trees, softly, occasionally, in the avenues. Quite from the other end of the tiny town we could catch the rumble of the homing omnibus, bringing its last freight of passengers from the station, or more likely returning empty, to earn its rest in the outhouse behind the hotel--happy, simple omnibus, without a care in the world!