He bought a small house and field, removed his books, and established himself. Since then Vaucluse has been often visited for his sake; and he who was enchanted by its loneliness and beauty, has described, in letters and verses, with fond and glowing expressions, the charm that it possessed for him. The valley is narrow, as its name testifies--shut in by high and craggy hills; the river Sorgue traverses its depth; and on one side, a vast cavern in the precipitous rock presents itself, from which the fountain flows, that is the source of the river. Within the cave, the shadows are black as night; the hills are clothed by umbrageous trees, under whose shadow the tender grass, starred by innumerable flowers, offers agreeable repose. The murmur of the torrent is perennial: that, and the song of the birds, are the only sounds heard. Such was the retreat that the poet chose. He saw none but the peasants who took care of his house and tended his little farm. The only woman near was the hard-working wife of the peasant, old and withered. No sounds of music visited his ears: he heard, instead, the carolling of the birds, and the brawling waters. Often he remained in silence from morning till night, wandering among the hills while the sun was yet low; and taking refuge, during the heat of the day, in his shady garden, which, sloping down towards the Sorgue, was terminated on one side by inaccessible rocks. At night, after performing his clerical duties (for he was canon of Lombes), he rambled among the hills; often entering, at midnight, the cavern, whose gloom, even during the day, struck the soul with awe. The peasantry about him were poor and hard-working. His food was usually black bread; and he was so abstemious, that the servant he brought with him from Avignon quitted him, unable to endure the solitude and privations of his retreat. He was then waited on by the neighbouring cottager, a fisherman, whose life had been spent among fountains and rivers, deriving his subsistence from the rocks. "To call this man faithful," says Petrarch, "is a tame expression: he was fidelity itself." Without being able to read, he revered and cherished the books his master loved; and, all rude and illiterate, his pious regard for the poet raised him almost to the rank of a friend. His wife was yet more rustic. Her skin was burned by the sun till it resembled nothing human. She was humble, faithful, and laborious; passing her life in the fields, working under the noonday sun; while the evening was dedicated to indoor labour. She never complained, nor ever showed any mark of discontent. She slept on straw: her food was the coarsest black bread; her drink water, in which she mingled a little wine, as sour as vinegar.