Despite yourself you watch her constantly. And despite yourself you speculate about her all the time. Who can she be? Where does she come from? Where is she going? Despite yourself again, you start to draft a little novel about her. She’s pretty. She looks lovely. Happy the man who … Maybe she is the woman of your dreams, the woman made for you alone. Maybe your life would be one long and exquisite pleasure with this woman at your side.

Equally keen is the resentment you feel as you watch her alight at the gate of some house in the country. A man is there waiting for her with two children and two maids. He lifts her into his arms, kisses her and sets her on her feet. She leans down to hold the little ones who are stretching out their arms to her. She strokes them tenderly and they set off together down a drive while the maids pick up all the parcels thrown down by the driver. Gone for ever! Goodbye! You’ll never see her again, never in your life. Goodbye to the young woman who has spent the entire night at your side. Still you do not know her. Never did you speak. And yet you are sad to see her go. Goodbye!

Oh the countless travellers’ tales I could tell you! Some sad, some happy, so many … !

I was in the Auvergne once, wandering on foot around those friendly, familiar French peaks of ours which are neither too high nor too difficult to negotiate. I had climbed Sancy1 and was in a little inn near a pilgrim chapel called Notre-Dame-de-Vassiviére2 when I noticed, sitting by herself at the far end of the dining room, a slightly eccentric, certainly odd-looking elderly woman. She must have been at least seventy and was tall, austere and angular, with white hair drawn into old-fashioned wings at the temples. She was dressed in the casual manner of the English lady traveller, that’s to say with no regard at all for style, and was eating an omelette with which she was drinking water. There was something quite extraordinary about her. Her eyes were full of pain and she looked like someone whom life had treated rather badly. I kept looking at her in spite of myself, wondering who she might be, what sort of life she led and why she was wandering about these mountains entirely alone.

She paid and rose to leave, fixing about her shoulders an unusual little shawl, the ends of which now dangled over her arms. From a corner she picked up a walking stick covered with place-names in poker-work, and with a stiff yet purposeful stride walked out. A guide was waiting for her at the door. They moved off and I watched them descend the valley along a path marked by tall wooden crosses. She was taller than her companion and seemed to move more quickly than he did.