We went out; the whole village was in the streets, as a great gust of wind cleared the sky, which radiantly lit up the red roofs, still wet with rain. We arrived in time to see the procession on its way back. It took a whole hour to go past. There was an endless line of hooded, white, blue, and grey penitents, sisterhoods of young, veiled girls; and gold flowered, pink banners, great faded, wooden saints carried shoulder high by four men. There was pottery saints coloured like idols with big bouquets in their hands, copes, monstrances, green velvet canopies, crucifixes framed in white silk; and everything waving in the wind, in the candle light and the sunlight, amongst the Psalms, the litanies, with the bells ringing a full peal. Once the procession was over and the saints put back into their chapels, we went to see the bulls and then went on the open air games. There were men wrestling, the hop, skip and jump, and games of strangle the cat, and pig in the middle, and all the rest of the fun events of the Provencal fairs.... Night was falling by the time we got back to Maillane. A huge bonfire had been lit in the square, in front of the café where Mistral and his friend Zidore were having a party that night... The farandole started up. Paper cut-out lanterns lit up everywhere in the shadows; the young people took their places; and soon, after a trill on the tambourines, a wild, boisterous, round dance started up around the fire. It was a dance that would last all through the night. * * * * * After supper, and too tired to keep going, we went into Mistral's modest peasant's bedroom, with two double beds. The walls are bare, and the ceiling beams are visible.... Four years ago, after the academy had given the author of _Mireille_ a prize worth three thousand francs, Madame Mistral had an idea: --Why don't we wallpaper your bedroom and put a ceiling in? she said to her son. --Oh, no! replied Mistral.... That's poet's money that is, and not to be touched. And so the bedroom stayed strictly bare; but as long as the poet's money lasted, anyone needy, knocking on Mistral's door, has always found his purse open.... I had brought the notebook with _Calendal_ into the bedroom to read to myself a passage of it before going to sleep. Mistral chose the episode about the pottery. Here it is, in brief: It is during a meal, somewhere or another. A magnificent Moustier's crockery service is brought out and placed onto the table. At the bottom of every plate, there is a Provencal scene, painted in blue on the enamel. The whole history of the land is represented on them. Each plate of this beautiful crockery has its own verse and the love in those descriptions just has to be seen. There are just so many simple but clever little poems, done with all the charm of the rural idylls of Theocritus.