The fountain proper the source of all these distributed waters is the prettiest thing in the world,a reduced copy of Vaucluse.It gushes up at the foot of the Mont Cavalier,at a point where that eminence rises with a certain clifflike effect,and,like other springs in the same circumstances,appears to issue from the rock with a sort of quivering stillness.Itrudged up the Mont Cavalier,it is a matter of five minutes,and having committed this cockneyism enhanced it presently by another.I ascended the stupid Tour Magne,the mysterious structure I mentioned a moment ago.The only feature of this dateless tube,except the inevitable collection of photographs to which you are introduced by the doorkeeper,is the view you enjoy from its summit.This view is,of course,remarkably fine,but I am ashamed to say Ihave not the smallest recollection of it;for while Ilooked into the brilliant spaces of the air I seemed still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman baths,the image,disastrously confused and vague,of a vanished world.This world,however,has left at Nimes a far more considerable memento than a few old stones covered with watermoss.The Roman arena is the rival of those of Verona and of Arles;at a respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum.It is a small Colosseum,if I may be allowed the expression,and is in a much better preservation than the great circus at Rome.This is especially true of the external walls,with their arches,pillars,cornices.I must add that one should not speak of preservation,in regard to the arena at Nimes,without speaking also of repair.
After the great ruin ceased to be despoiled,it began to be protected,and most of its wounds have been dressed with new material.These matters concern the archaeologist;and I felt here,as I felt afterwards at Arles,that one of the profane,in the presence of such a monument,can only admire and hold his tongue.The great impression,on the whole,is an impression of wonder that so much should have survived.What remains at Nimes,after all dilapidation is estimated,is astounding.I spent an hour in the Arenes on that same sweet Sunday morning,as Icame back from the Roman baths,and saw that the corridors,the vaults,the staircases,the external casing,are still virtually there.Many of these parts are wanting in the Colosseum,whose sublimity of size,however,can afford to dispense with detail.The seats at Nimes,like those at Verona,have been largely renewed;not that this mattered much,as I lounged on the cool surface of one of them,and admired the mighty concavity of the place and the elliptical skyline,broken by uneven blocks and forming the rim of the monstrous cup,a cup that had been filled with horrors.And yet I made my reflections;I said to myself that though a Roman arena is one of the most impressive of the works of man,it has a touch of that same stupidity which I ventured to discover in the Pont du Gard.It is brutal;it is monotonous;it is not at all exquisite.The Arenes at Nimes were arranged for a bullfight,a form of recreation that,as I was informed,is much dans les habitudes Nimoises,and very common throughout Provence,where (still according to my information)it is the usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon.At Arles and Nimes it has a characteristic setting,but in the villages the patrons of the game make a circle of carts and barrels,on which the spectators perch themselves.I was surprised at the prevalence,in mild Provence,of the Iberian vice,and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at Nimes and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done.The bulls are rarely killed,and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of the term,being domestic and motherly cows.Such an entertainment of course does not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which I spoke of as wanting.The exquisite at Nimes is mainly represented by the famous Maison Carree.
The first impression you receive from this delicate little building,as you stand before it,is that you have already seen it many times.Photographs,engravings,models,medals,have placed it definitely in your eye,so that from the sentiment with which you regard it curiosity and surprise are almost completely,and perhaps deplorably,absent.Admiration remains,however,admiration of a familiar and even slightly patronizing kind.The Maison Carree does not overwhelm you;you can conceive it.It is not one of the great sensations of the antique art;but it is perfectly felicitous,and,in spite of having been put to all sorts of incongruous uses,marvellously preserved.Its slender columns,its delicate proportions,its charming compactness,seemed to bring one nearer to the century that built it than the great superpositions of arenas and bridges,and give it the interest that vibrates from one age to another when the note of taste is struck.
If anything were needed to make this little toytemple a happy production,the service would be rendered by the secondrate boulevard that conducts to it,adorned with inferior cafes and tobaccoshops.Here,in a respectable recess,surrounded by vulgar habitations,and with the theatre,of a classic pretension,opposite,stands the small "square house,"so called because it is much longer than it is broad.I saw it first in the evening,in the vague moonlight,which made it look as if it were cast in bronze.Stendhal says,justly,that it has the shape of a playingcard,and he expresses his admiration for it by the singular wish that an "exact copy"of it should be erected in Paris.
He even goes so far as to say that in the year 1880this tribute will have been rendered to its charms;nothing would be more simple,to his mind,than to "have"in that city "le Pantheon de Rome,quelques temples de Grece."Stendhal found it amusing to write in the character of a commisvoyageur,and sometimes it occurs to his reader that he really was one.
