...of an artist

Several times destroyed and rebuilt, a victim of countless vicissitudes, the village church holds little interest today, save to situate the original edifice. It nevertheless reassembles, in a very different order, the sum of its forerunner's parts, and for this reason certain tourists find a secret charm in its walls, as if, imprisoned in the current monument, the earlier architecture might reveal itself to a sufficiently erudite gaze.
On the other hand, the traveler will be amply rewarded by a visit to a house on the town square, inhabited for seven or eight years at the turn of the century by one Albert Crucis. This latter had claimed the title of painter, and indeed - as the traveler might, if he wishes, verify for himself - the oils, watercolours, and drawings produced by his hand show a first-rate command of that craft. Nevertheless, though interested enough in the province to engage in frequent excursions and recurrent tete-a-tetes with the aged locals in the cafe, all evidence suggests that he never found full acceptance in these parts. The silence in which he veiled his past and the illness that compelled him to retire to these relative heights gave rise, in the community, to numerous hypotheses. Perhaps "Albert Crucis" was nothing more than a pseudonym; and so, false names being commonplace among artists, he began, late in life, to cultivate a talent of his youth, by way of justification. In hushed tones, some ascribed him a criminal past, or (owing to his occasional visits from friends, hastily dubbed "envoys") revolutionary aspirations; others defended him. Some claimed the broad, sinuous scarf in whose folds he swaddled his neck, excessively announcing his illness, rendered its reality dubious. One evening, nevertheless, a team of medics spirited the invalid away, with a wealth of precautions. It was later learned that Albert Crucis had bequeathed to the village certain of his works, along with his house, in which the former would be gathered to constitute a museum.

[Place Names: A Brief Guide to Travels in the Book, Ricardou, J.]