Little by little the tension of their senses weakens, a lassitude comes to them with the need of sleep—and they would sleep there, under this winter rain, if the place were not so dangerous.

Itchoua then consults in a low voice, in Basque language, the two eldest, and they decide to do a bold thing. Since the others are not coming, well! so much the worse, they will go alone, carry to the house over there, the smuggled boxes. It is risking terribly, but the idea is in their heads and nothing can stop them.

"You," says Itchoua to Ramuntcho, in his manner which admits of no discussion, "you shall be the one to watch the bark, since you have never been in the path that we are taking; you shall tie it to the bottom, but not too solidly, do you hear? We must be ready to run if the carbineers arrive."

So they go, all the others, their shoulders bent under the heavy loads, the rustling, hardly perceptible, of their march is lost at once on the quay which is so deserted and so black, in the midst of the monotonous dripping of the rain. And Ramuntcho, who has remained alone, crouches at the bottom of the skiff to be less visible becomes immovable again, under the incessant sprinkling of the rain, which falls now regular and tranquil.

They are late, the comrades—and by degrees, in this inactivity and this silence, an irresistible numbness comes to him, almost a sleep.

But now a long form, more sombre than all that is sombre, passes by him, passes very quickly,—always in this same absolute silence which is the characteristic of these nocturnal undertakings: one of the large Spanish barks!—Yet, thinks he, since all are at anchor, since this one has no sails nor oars—then, what?—It is I, myself, who am passing!—and he has understood: his skiff was too lightly tied, and the current, which is very rapid here, is dragging him:—and he is very far away, going toward the mouth of the Bidassoa, toward the breakers, toward the sea—

An anxiety has taken hold of him, almost an anguish—What will he do?—What complicates everything is that he must act without a cry of appeal, without a word, for, all along this coast, which seems to be the land of emptiness and of darkness, there are carbineers, placed in an interminable cordon and watching Spain every night as if it were a forbidden land—He tries with one of the long oars to push the bottom in order to return backward;—but there is no more bottom; he feels only the inconsistency of the fleeting and black water, he is already in the profound pass—Then, let him row, in spite of everything, and so much for the worse—!

With great trouble, his forehead perspiring, he brings back alone against the current the heavy bark, worried, at every stroke of the oar, by the small, disclosing grating that a fine ear over there might so well perceive. And then, one can see nothing more, through the rain grown thicker and which confuses the eyes; it is dark, dark as in the bowels of the earth where the devil lives. He recognizes no longer the point of departure where the others must be waiting for him, whose ruin he has perhaps caused; he hesitates, he waits, the ear extended, the arteries beating, and he hooks himself, for a moment's reflection, to one of the large barks of Spain—Something approaches then, gliding with infinite precaution on the surface of the water, hardly stirred: a human shadow, one would think, a silhouette standing:—a smuggler, surely, since he makes so little noise! They divine each other, and, thank God! it is Arrochkoa; Arrochkoa, who has untied a frail, Spanish skiff to meet him—So, their junction is accomplished and they are probably saved all, once more!

But Arrochkoa, in meeting him, utters in a wicked voice, in a voice tightened by his young, feline teeth, one of those series of insults which call for immediate answer and sound like an invitation to fight. It is so unexpected that Ramuntcho's stupor at first immobilizes him, retards the rush of blood to his head. Is this really what his friend has just said and in such a tone of undeniable insult?—

"You said?"

"Well!" replies Arrochkoa, somewhat softened and on his guard, observing in the darkness Ramuntcho's attitudes. "Well! you had us almost caught, awkward fellow that you are!—"

The silhouettes of the others appear in another bark.

"They are there," he continues. "Let us go near them!"

And Ramuntcho takes his oarsman's seat with temples heated by anger, with trembling hands—no—he is Gracieuse's brother; all would be lost if Ramuntcho fought with him; because of her he will bend the head and say nothing.

Now their bark runs away by force of oars, carrying them all; the trick has been played. It was time; two Spanish voices vibrate on the black shore: two carbineers, who were sleeping in their cloaks and whom the noise has awakened!—And they begin to hail this flying, beaconless bark, not perceived so much as suspected, lost at once in the universal, nocturnal confusion.

"Too late, friends," laughs Itchoua, while rowing to the uttermost. "Hail at your ease now and let the devil answer you!"

The current also helps them; they go into the thick obscurity with the rapidity of fishes.

There! Now they are in French waters, in safety, not far, doubtless, from the slime of the banks.

"Let us stop to breathe a little," proposes Itchoua.

And they raise their oars, halting, wet with perspiration and with rain. They are immovable again under the cold shower, which they do not seem to feel. There is heard in the vast silence only the breathing of chests, little by little quieted, the little music of drops of water falling and their light rippling. But suddenly, from this bark which was so quiet, and which had no other importance than that of a shadow hardly real in the midst of so much night, a cry rises, superacute, terrifying: it fills the emptiness and rents the far-off distances—It has come from those elevated notes which belong ordinarily to women only, but with something hoarse and powerful that indicates rather the savage male; it has the bite of the voice of jackals and it preserves, nevertheless, something human which makes one shiver the more; one waits with a sort of anguish for its end, and it is long, long, it is oppressive by its inexplicable length—It had begun like a stag's bell of agony and now it is achieved and it dies in a sort of laughter, sinister and burlesque, like the laughter of lunatics—

However, around the man who has just cried thus in the front of the bark, none of the others is astonished, none budges. And, after a few seconds of silent peace, a new cry, similar to the first, starts from the rear, replying to it and passing through the same phases,—which are of a tradition infinitely ancient.

And it is simply the "irrintzina", the great Basque cry which has been transmitted with fidelity from the depth of the abyss of ages to the men of our day, and which constitutes one of the strange characteristics of that race whose origins are enveloped in mystery. It resembles the cry of a being of certain tribes of redskins in the forests of America; at night, it gives the notion and the unfathomable fright of primitive ages, when, in the midst of the solitudes of the old world, men with monkey throats howled.

This cry is given at festivals, or for calls of persons at night in the mountains, and especially to celebrate some joy, some unexpected good fortune, a miraculous hunt or a happy catch of fish in the rivers.

And they are amused, the smugglers, at this game of the ancestors; they give their voices to glorify the success of their undertaking, they yell, from the physical necessity to be compensated for their silence of a moment ago.

But Ramuntcho remains mute and without a smile. This sudden savagery chills him, although he has known it for a long time; it plunges him into dreams that worry and do not explain themselves.

And then, he has felt to-night once more how uncertain and changing is his only support in the world, the support of that Arrochkoa on whom he should be able to count as on a brother; audacity and success at the ball-game will return that support to him, doubtless, but a moment of weakness, nothing, may at any moment make him lose it. Then it seems to him that the hope of his life has no longer a basis, that all vanishes like an unstable chimera.



CHAPTER IX.

It was New Year's eve.

All the day had endured that sombre sky which is so often the sky of the Basque country—and which harmonizes well with the harsh mountains, with the roar of the sea, wicked, in the depths of the Bay of Biscay.

In the twilight of this last day of the year, at the hour when the fires retain the men around the hearths scattered in the country, at the hour when home is desirable and delicious, Ramuntcho and his mother were preparing to sit at the supper table, when there was a discreet knock at the door.

The man who was coming to them from the night of the exterior, at the first aspect seemed unknown to them; only when he told his name (Jose Bidegarray, of Hasparitz) they recalled the sailor who had gone several years ago to America.

"Here," he said, after accepting a chair, "here is the message which I have been asked to bring to you. Once, at Rosario in Uruguay, as I was talking on the docks with several other Basque immigrants there, a man, who might have been fifty years old, having heard me speak of Etchezar, came to me.

"'Do you come from Etchezar?' he asked.

"'No,' I replied, 'but I come from Hasparitz, which is not far from Etchezar.'

"Then he put questions to me about all your family. I said:

"'The old people are dead, the elder brother was killed in smuggling, the second has disappeared in America; there remain only Franchita and her son, Ramuntcho, a handsome young fellow who must be about eighteen years old today.'

"He was thinking deeply while he was listening to me.

"'Well,' he said at last, 'since you are going back there, you will say good-day to them for Ignacio.'

"And after offering a drink to me he went away—"

Franchita had risen, trembling and paler than ever. Ignacio, the most adventurous in the family, her brother who had disappeared for ten years without sending any news—!

How was he? What face? Dressed how?—Did he seem happy, at least, or was he poorly dressed?

"Oh!" replied the sailor, "he looked well, in spite of his gray hair; as for his costume, he appeared to be a man of means, with a beautiful gold chain on his belt."

And that was all he could say, with this naive and rude good-day of which he was the bearer; on the subject of the exile he knew no more and perhaps, until she died, Franchita would learn nothing more of that brother, almost non-existing, like a phantom.

Then, when he had emptied a glass of cider, he went on his road, the strange messenger, who was going to his village. Then, they sat at table without speaking, the mother and the son: she, the silent Franchita, absent minded, with tears shining in her eyes; he, worried also, but in a different manner, by the thought of that uncle living in adventures over there.

When he ceased to be a child, when Ramuntcho began to desert from school, to wish to follow the smugglers in the mountain, Franchita would say to him:

"Anyway, you take after your uncle Ignacio, we shall never make anything of you!—"

And it was true that he took after his uncle Ignacio, that he was fascinated by all the things that are dangerous, unknown and far-off—

To-night, therefore, if she did not talk to her son of the message which had just been transmitted to them, the reason was she divined his meditation on America and was afraid of his answers. Besides, among country people, the little profound and intimate dramas are played without words, with misunderstandings that are never cleared up, with phrases only guessed at and with obstinate silence.

But, as they were finishing their meal, they heard a chorus of young and gay voices, coming near, accompanied by a drum, the boys of Etchezar, coming for Ramuntcho to bring him with them in their parade with music around the village, following the custom of New Year's eve, to go into every house, drink in it a glass of cider and give a joyous serenade to an old time tune.

And Ramuntcho, forgetting Uruguay and the mysterious uncle, became a child again, in the pleasure of following them and of singing with them along the obscure roads, enraptured especially by the thought that they would go to the house of the Detcharry family and that he would see again, for an instant, Gracieuse.



CHAPTER X.

The changeable month of March had arrived, and with it the intoxication of spring, joyful for the young, sad for those who are declining.

And Gracieuse had commenced again to sit, in the twilight of the lengthened days, on the stone bench in front of her door.

Oh! the old stone benches, around the houses, made, in the past ages, for the reveries of the soft evenings and for the eternally similar conversations of lovers—!

Gracieuse's house was very ancient, like most houses in that Basque country, where, less than elsewhere, the years change the things.—It had two stories; a large projecting roof in a steep slope; walls like a fortress which were whitewashed every summer; very small windows, with settings of cut granite and green blinds. Above the front door, a granite lintel bore an inscription in relief; words complicated and long which, to French eyes resembled nothing known. It said: "May the Holy Virgin bless this home, built in the year 1630 by Peter Detcharry, beadle, and his wife Damasa Irribarne, of the village of Istaritz." A small garden two yards wide, surrounded by a low wall so that one could see the passers-by, separated the house from the road; there was a beautiful rose-laurel, extending its southern foliage above the evening bench, and there were yuccas, a palm tree, and enormous bunches of those hortensias which are giants here, in this land of shade, in this lukewarm climate, so often enveloped by clouds. In the rear was a badly closed orchard which rolled down to an abandoned path, favorable to escalades of lovers.

What mornings radiant with light there were in that spring, and what tranquil, pink evenings!

After a week of full moon which kept the fields till day-light blue with rays, and when the band of Itchoua ceased to work,—so clear was their habitual domain, so illuminated were the grand, vaporous backgrounds of the Pyrenees and of Spain—the frontier fraud was resumed more ardently, as soon as the thinned crescent had become discreet and early setting. Then, in these beautiful times, smuggling by night was exquisite; a trade of solitude and of meditation when the mind of the naive and very pardonable defrauders was elevated unconsciously in the contemplation of the sky and of the darkness animated by stars—as it happens to the mind of the sea folk watching, on the nocturnal march of vessels, and as it happened formerly to the mind of the shepherds in antique Chaldea.

It was favorable also and tempting for lovers, that tepid period which followed the full moon of March, for it was dark everywhere around the houses, dark in all the paths domed with trees,—and very dark, behind the Detcharry orchard, on the abandoned path where nobody ever passed.

Gracieuse lived more and more on her bench in front of her door.

It was here that she was seated, as every year, to receive and look at the carnival dancers: those groups of young boys and of young girls of Spain or of France, who, every spring, organize themselves for several days in a wandering band, and, all dressed in the same pink or white colors, traverse the frontier village, dancing the fandango in front of houses, with castanets—

She stayed later and later in this place which she liked, under the shelter of the rose-laurel coming into bloom, and sometimes even, she came out noiselessly through the window, like a little, sly fox, to breathe there at length, after her mother had gone to bed. Ramuntcho knew this and, every night, the thought of that bench troubled his sleep.



CHAPTER XI.

One clear April morning, they were walking to the church, Gracieuse and Ramuntcho. She, with an air half grave, half mocking, with a particular and very odd air, leading him there to make him do a penance which she had ordered.

In the holy enclosure, the flowerbeds of the tombs were coming into bloom again, as also the rose bushes on the walls. Once more the new saps were awakening above the long sleep of the dead. They went in together, through the lower door, into the empty church, where the old "benoite" in a black mantilla was alone, dusting the altars.

When Gracieuse had given to Ramuntcho the holy water and they had made their signs of the cross, she led him through the sonorous nave, paved with funereal stones, to a strange image on the wall, in a shady corner, under the men's tribunes.

It was a painting, impregnated with ancient mysticism, representing the figure of Jesus with eyes closed, forehead bloody, expression lamentable and dead; the head seemed to be cut off, separated from the body, and placed there on a gray linen cloth. Above, were written the long Litanies of the Holy Face, which have been composed, as everybody knows, to be recited in penance by repentant blasphemers. The day before, Ramuntcho, in anger, had sworn in an ugly manner: a quite unimaginable string of words, wherein the sacraments and the most saintly things were mingled with the horns of the devil and other villainous things still more frightful. That is why the necessity for a penance had impressed itself on the mind of Gracieuse.

"Come, my Ramuntcho," she recommended, as she walked away, "omit nothing of what you must say."

She left him then in front of the Holy Face, beginning to murmur his litanies in a low voice, and went to the good woman and helped her to change the water of the white Easter daisies in front of the altar of the Virgin.

But when the languorous evening returned, and Gracieuse was seated in the darkness meditating on her stone bench, a young human form started up suddenly near her; someone who had come in sandals, without making more noise than the silk owls make in the air, from the rear of the garden doubtless, after some scaling, and who stood there, straight, his waistcoat thrown over one shoulder: the one to whom were addressed all her tender emotions on earth, the one who incarnated the ardent dream of her heart and of her senses—

"Ramuntcho!" she said. "Oh! how you frightened me. Where did you come from at such an hour? What do you want? Why did you come?"

"Why did I come? In my turn, to order you to do penance," he replied, laughing.

"No, tell the truth, what is the matter, what are you coming to do?"

"To see you, only! That is what I come to do—What will you have! We never see each other!—Your mother keeps me at a distance more and more every day. I cannot live in that way.—We are not doing any harm, after all, since we are to be married! And you know, I could come every night, if you like, without anybody suspecting it—"

"Oh! no!—Oh! do not do that ever, I beg of you—"

They talked for an instant, and so low, so low, with more silence than words, as if they were afraid to wake up the birds in their nests. They recognized no longer the sound of their voices, so changed and so trembling they were, as if they had committed some delicious and damnable crime, by doing nothing but staying near each other, in the grand, caressing mystery of that night of April, which was hatching around them so many ascents of saps, so many germinations and so many loves—

He had not even dared to sit at her side; he remained standing, ready to run under the branches at the least alarm, like a nocturnal prowler.

However, when he prepared to go, it was she who asked, hesitating, and in a manner to be hardly heard:

"And—you will come back to-morrow?"

Then, under his growing mustache, he smiled at this sudden change of mind and he replied:

"Yes, surely.—To-morrow and every night.—Every night when we shall not have to work in Spain.—I will come—"



CHAPTER XII.

Ramuntcho's lodging place was, in the house of his mother and above the stable, a room neatly whitewashed; he had there his bed, always clean and white, but where smuggling gave him few hours for sleep. Books of travel or cosmography, which the cure of the parish lent to him, posed on his table—unexpected in this house. The portraits, framed, of different saints, ornamented the walls, and several pelota-players' gloves were hanging from the beams of the ceiling, long gloves of wicker and of leather which seemed rather implements of hunting or fishing.

Franchita, at her return to her country, had bought back this house, which was that of her deceased parents, with a part of the sum given to her by the stranger at the birth of her son. She had invested the rest; then she worked at making gowns or at ironing linen for the people of Etchezar, and rented, to farmers of land near by, two lower rooms, with the stable where they placed their cows and their sheep.

Different familiar, musical sounds rocked Ramuntcho in his bed. First, the constant roar of a near-by torrent; then, at times, songs of nightingales, salutes to the dawn of divers birds. And, in this spring especially, the cows, his neighbors, excited doubtless by the smell of new-mown hay, moved all night, were agitated in dreams, making their bells tintillate continually.

Often, after the long expeditions at night, he regained his sleep in the afternoon, extended in the shade in some corner of moss and grass. Like the other smugglers, he was not an early riser for a village boy, and he woke up sometimes long after daybreak, when already, between the disjointed planks of his flooring, rays of a vivid and gay light came from the stable below, the door of which remained open always to the rising sun after the departure of the cattle to their pastures. Then, he went to his window, pushed open the little, old blinds made of massive chestnut wood painted in olive, and leaned on his elbows, placed on the sill of the thick wall, to look at the clouds or at the sun of the new morning.

What he saw, around his house, was green, green, magnificently green, as are in the spring all the corners of that land of shade and of rain. The ferns which, in the autumn, have so warm a rusty color, were now, in this April, in the glory of their greenest freshness and covered the slopes of the mountains as with an immense carpet of curly wool, where foxglove flowers made pink spots. In a ravine, the torrent roared under branches. Above, groups of oaks and of beeches clung to the slopes, alternating with prairies; then, above this tranquil Eden, toward the sky, ascended the grand, denuded peak of the Gizune, sovereign hill of the region of the clouds. And one perceived also, in the background, the church and the houses—that village of Etchezar, solitary and perched high on one of the Pyrenean cliffs, far from everything, far from the lines of communication which have revolutionized and spoiled the lowlands of the shores; sheltered from curiosity, from the profanation of strangers, and living still its Basque life of other days.

Ramuntcho's awakenings were impregnated, at this window, with peace and humble serenity. They were full of joy, his awakenings of a man engaged, since he had the assurance of meeting Gracieuse at night at the promised place. The vague anxieties, the undefined sadness, which accompanied in him formerly the daily return of his thoughts, had fled for a time, dispelled by the reminiscence and the expectation of these meetings; his life was all changed; as soon as his eyes were opened he had the impression of a mystery and of an immense enchantment, enveloping him in the midst of this verdure and of these April flowers. And this peace of spring, thus seen every morning, seemed to him every time a new thing, very different from what it had been in the previous years, infinitely sweet to his heart and voluptuous to his flesh, having unfathomable and ravishing depths.



CHAPTER XIII.

It is Easter night, after the village bells have ceased to mingle in the air so many holy vibrations that came from Spain and from France.

Seated on the bank of the Bidassoa, Ramuntcho and Florentino watch the arrival of a bark. A great silence now, and the bells sleep. The tepid twilight has been prolonged and, in breathing, one feels the approach of summer.

As soon as the night falls, it must appear from the coast of Spain, the smuggling bark, bringing the very prohibited phosphorus. And, without its touching the shore, they must go to get that merchandise, by advancing on foot in the bed of the river, with long, pointed sticks in their hands, in order to assume, if perchance they were caught, airs of people fishing innocently for "platuches."

The water of the Bidassoa is to-night an immovable and clear mirror, a little more luminous than the sky, and in this mirror, are reproduced, upside down, all the constellations, the entire Spanish mountain, carved in so sombre a silhouette in the tranquil atmosphere. Summer, summer, one has more and more the consciousness of its approach, so limpid and soft are the first signs of night, so much lukewarm langour is scattered over this corner of the world, where the smugglers silently manoeuvre.

But this estuary, which separates the two countries, seems in this moment to Ramuntcho more melancholy than usual, more closed and more walled-in in front of him by these black mountains, at the feet of which hardly shine, here and there, two or three uncertain lights. Then, he is seized again by his desire to know what there is beyond, and further still.—Oh! to go elsewhere!—To escape, at least for a time, from the oppressiveness of that land—so loved, however!—Before death, to escape the oppressiveness of this existence, ever similar and without egress. To try something else, to get out of here, to travel, to know things—!

Then, while watching the far-off, terrestrial distances where the bark will appear, he raises his eyes from time to time toward what happens above, in the infinite, looks at the new moon, the crescent of which, as thin as a line, lowers and will disappear soon; looks at the stars, the slow and regulated march of which he has observed, as have all the people of his trade, during so many nocturnal hours; is troubled in the depth of his mind by the proportions and the inconceivable distances of these things.—

In his village of Etchezar, the old priest who had taught him the catechism, interested by his young, lively intelligence, has lent books to him, has continued with him conversations on a thousand subjects, and, on the subject of the planets, has given to him the notion of movements and of immensities, has half opened before his eyes the grand abyss of space and duration. Then, in his mind, innate doubts, frights and despairs that slumbered, all that his father had bequeathed to him as a sombre inheritance, all these things have taken a black form which stands before him. Under the great sky of night, his Basque faith has commenced to weaken. His mind is no longer simple enough to accept blindly dogmas and observances, and, as all becomes incoherence and disorder in his young head, so strangely prepared, the course of which nobody is leading, he does not know that it is wise to submit, with confidence in spite of everything, to the venerable and consecrated formulas, behind which is hidden perhaps all that we may ever see of the unknowable truths.

Therefore, these bells of Easter which the year before had filled him with a religious and soft sentiment, this time had seemed to him to be a music sad and almost vain. And now that they have just hushed, he listens with undefined sadness to the powerful noise, almost incessant since the creation, that the breakers of the Bay of Biscay make and which, in the peaceful nights, may be heard in the distance behind the mountains.

But his floating dream changes again.—Now the estuary, which has become quite dark and where one may no longer see the mass of human habitations, seems to him, little by little, to become different; then, strange suddenly, as if some mystery were to be accomplished in it; he perceives only the great, abrupt lines of it, which are almost eternal, and he is surprised to think confusedly of times more ancient, of an unprecise and obscure antiquity.—The Spirit of the old ages, which comes out of the soil at times in the calm nights, in the hours when sleep the beings that trouble us in the day-time, the Spirit of the old ages is beginning, doubtless, to soar in the air around him; Ramuntcho does not define this well, for his sense of an artist and of a seer, that no education has refined, has remained rudimentary; but he has the notion and the worry of it.—In his head, there is still and always a chaos, which seeks perpetually to disentangle itself and never succeeds.—However, when the two enlarged and reddened horns of the moon fall slowly behind the mountain, always black, the aspect of things takes, for an inappreciable instant, one knows not what ferocious and primitive airs; then, a dying impression of original epochs which had remained, one knows not where in space, takes for Ramuntcho a precise form in a sudden manner, and troubles him until he shivers. He dreams, even without wishing it, of those men of the forests who lived here in the ages, in the uncalculated and dark ages, because, suddenly, from a point distant from the shore, a long Basque cry rises from the darkness in a lugubrious falsetto, an "irrintzina," the only thing in this country with which he never could become entirely familiar. But a great mocking noise occurs in the distance, the crash of iron, whistles: a train from Paris to Madrid, which is passing over there, behind them, in the black of the French shore. And the Spirit of the old ages folds its wings made of shade and vanishes. Silence returns: but after the passage of this stupid and rapid thing, the Spirit which has fled reappears no more—

At last, the bark which Ramuntcho awaited with Florentino appears, hardly perceptible for other eyes than theirs, a little, gray form which leaves behind it slight ripples on this mirror which is of the color of the sky at night and wherein stars are reflected upside down. It is the well-selected hour, the hour when the customs officers watch badly; the hour also when the view is dimmer, when the last reflections of the sun and those of the crescent of the moon have gone out, and the eyes of men are not yet accustomed to darkness.

Then to get the prohibited phosphorus, they take their long fishing sticks, and go into the water silently.



CHAPTER XIV.

There was a grand ball-game arranged for the following Sunday at Erribiague, a far-distant village, near the tall mountains. Ramuntcho, Arrochkoa and Florentino were to play against three celebrated ones of Spain; they were to practice that evening, limber their arms on the square of Etchezar, and Gracieuse, with other little girls of her age, had taken seats on the granite benches to look at them. The girls, all pretty; with elegant airs in their pale colored waists cut in accordance with the most recent vagary of the season. And they were laughing, these little girls, they were laughing! They were laughing because they had begun laughing, without knowing why. Nothing, a word of their old Basque tongue, without any appropriateness, by one of them, and there they were all in spasms of laughter.—This country is truly one of the corners of the world where the laughter of girls breaks out most easily, ringing like clear crystal, ringing youthfulness and fresh throats.

Arrochkoa had been there for a long time, with the wicker glove at his arm, throwing alone the pelota which, from time to time, children picked up for him. But Ramuntcho, Florentino, what were they thinking of? How late they were! They came at last, their foreheads wet with perspiration, their walk heavy and embarrassed. And, while the little, laughing girls questioned them, in that mocking tone which girls, when they are in a troupe, assume ordinarily to interpellate boys, these smiled, and each one struck his chest which gave a metallic sound.—Through paths of the Gizune, they had returned on foot from Spain, heavy with copper coin bearing the effigy of the gentle, little King Alfonso XIII. A new trick of the smugglers: for Itchoua's account, they had exchanged over there with profit, a big sum of money for this debased coin, destined to be circulated at par at the coming fairs, in different villages of the Landes where Spanish cents are current. They were bringing, in their pockets, in their shirts, some forty kilos of copper. They made all this fall like rain on the antique granite of the benches, at the feet of the amused girls, asking them to keep and count it for them; then, after wiping their foreheads and puffing a little, they began to play and to jump, being light now and lighter than ordinarily, their overload being disposed of.

Except three or four children of the school who ran like young cats after the lost pelotas, there were only the girls, seated in a group on the lowest one of these deserted steps, the old, reddish stones of which bore at this moment their herbs and their flowers of April. Calico gowns, clear white or pink waists, they were all the gaiety of this solemnly sad place. Beside Gracieuse was Pantchika Dargaignaratz, another fifteen year old blonde, who was engaged to Arrochkoa and would soon marry him, for he, being the son of a widow, had not to serve in the army. And, criticizing the players, placing in lines on the granite rows of piled-up copper cents, they laughed, they whispered, in their chanted accent, with ends of syllables in "rra" or in "rrik," making the "r's" roll so sharply that one would have thought every instant sparrows were beating their wings in their mouths.

They also, the boys, were laughing, and they came frequently, under the pretext of resting, to sit among the girls. These troubled and intimidated them three times more than the public, because they mocked so!

Ramuntcho learned from his little betrothed something which he would not have dared to hope for: she had obtained her mother's permission to go to that festival of Erribiague, see the ball-game and visit that country, which she did not know. It was agreed that she should go in a carriage, with Pantchika and Madame Dargaignaratz; and they would meet over there; perhaps it would be possible to return all together.

During the two weeks since their evening meetings had begun, this was the first time when he had had the opportunity to talk to her thus in the day-time and before the others—and their manner was different, more ceremonious apparently, with, beneath it, a very suave mystery. It was a long time, also, since he had seen her so well and so near in the daylight: she was growing more beautiful that spring; she was pretty, pretty!—Her bust had become rounder and her waist thinner; her manner gained, day by day, an elegant suppleness. She resembled her brother still, she had the same regular features, the same perfect oval of the face; but the difference in their eyes went on increasing: while those of Arrochkoa, of a blue green shade which seemed fleeting, avoided the glances of others, hers, on the contrary, black pupils and lashes, dilated themselves to look at you fixedly. Ramuntcho had seen eyes like these in no other person; he adored the frank tenderness of them and also their anxious and profound questioning. Long before he had become a man and accessible to the trickery of the senses, those eyes had caught, of his little, childish mind, all that was best and purest in it.—And now around such eyes, the grand Transformer, enigmatic and sovereign, had placed a beauty of flesh which irresistibly called his flesh to a supreme communion.—

They were made very inattentive to their game, the players, by the group of little girls, of white and pink waists, and they laughed themselves at not playing so well as usual. Above them, occupying only a small corner of the old, granite amphitheatre, ascended rows of empty benches in ruins; then, the houses of Etchezar, so peacefully isolated from the rest of the world; then, in fine, the obscure, encumbering mass of the Gizune, filling up the sky and mingling with thick clouds asleep on its sides. Clouds immovable, inoffensive and without a threat of rain; clouds of spring, which were of a turtle-dove color and which seemed tepid, like the air of that evening. And, in a rent, much less elevated than the summit predominating over this entire site, a round moon began to silver as the day declined.

They played, in the beautiful twilight, until the hour when the first bats appeared, until the hour when the flying pelota could hardly be seen in the air. Perhaps they felt, unconsciously, that the moment was rare and might not be regained: then, as much as possible, they should prolong it—

And at last, they went together to take to Itchoua his Spanish coins. In two lots, they had been placed in two thick, reddish towels which a boy and a girl held at each end, and they walked in cadence, singing the tune of "The Linen Weaver."

How long, clear and soft was that twilight of April!—There were roses and all sorts of flowers in front of the walls of the venerable, white houses with brown or green blinds. Jessamine, honeysuckle and linden filled the air with fragrance. For Gracieuse and Ramuntcho, it was one of those exquisite hours which later, in the anguishing sadness of awakenings, one recalls with a regret at once heart-breaking and charming.

Oh! who shall say why there are on earth evenings of spring, and eyes so pretty to look at, and smiles of young girls, and breaths of perfumes which gardens exhale when the nights of April fall, and all this delicious cajoling of life, since it is all to end ironically in separation, in decrepitude and in death—



CHAPTER XV.

The next day, Friday, was organized the departure for this village where the festival was to take place on the following Sunday. It is situated very far, in a shady region, at the turn of a deep gorge, at the foot of very high summits. Arrochkoa was born there and he had spent there the first months of his life, in the time when his father lived there as a brigadier of the French customs; but he had left too early to have retained the least memory of it.

In the little Detcharry carriage, Gracieuse, Pantchita and, with a long whip in her hand, Madame Dargaignaratz, her mother, who is to drive, leave together at the noon angelus to go over there directly by the mountain route.

Ramuntcho, Arrochkoa and Florentino, who have to settle smuggling affairs at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, go by a roundabout way which will bring them to Erribiague at night, on the train which goes from Bayonne to Burguetta. To-day, all three are heedless and happy; Basque caps never appeared above more joyful faces.

The night is falling when they penetrate, by this little train of Burguetta, into the quiet, interior country. The carriages are full of a gay crowd, a spring evening crowd, returning from some festival, young girls with silk kerchiefs around their necks, young men wearing woolen caps; all are singing, laughing and kissing. In spite of the invading obscurity one may still distinguish the hedges, white with hawthorn, the woods white with acacia flowers; into the open carriages penetrates a fragrance at once violent and suave, which the country exhales. And on all this white bloom of April, which the night little by little effaces, the train throws in passing a furrow of joy, the refrain of some old song of Navarre, sung and resung infinitely by these girls and these boys, in the noise of the wheels and of the steam—

Erribiague! At the doors, this name, which makes all three start, is cried. The singing band had already stepped out, leaving them almost alone in the train, which had become silent. High mountains had made the night very thick—and the three were almost sleeping.

Astounded, they jump down, in the midst of an obscurity which even their smugglers' eyes cannot pierce. Stars above hardly shine, so encumbered is the sky by the overhanging summits.

"Where is the village?" they ask of a man who is there alone to receive them.

"Three miles from here on the right."

They begin to distinguish the gray trail of a road, suddenly lost in the heart of the shade. And in the grand silence, in the humid coolness of these valleys full of darkness, they walk without talking, their gaiety somewhat darkened by the black majesty of the peaks that guard the frontier here.

They come, at last, to an old, curved bridge over a torrent; then, to the sleeping village which no light indicates. And the inn, where shines a lamp, is near by, leaning on the mountain, its base in the roaring water.

The young men are led into their little rooms which have an air of cleanliness in spite of their extreme oldness: very low, crushed by their enormous beams, and bearing on their whitewashed walls images of the Christ, the Virgin and the saints.

Then, they go down to the supper tables, where are seated two or three old men in old time costume: white belt, black blouse, very short, with a thousand pleats. And Arrochkoa, vain of his parentage, hastens to ask them if they have not known Detcharry, who was here a brigadier of the customs eighteen years ago.

One of the old men scans his face:

"Ah! you are his son, I would bet! You look like him! Detcharry, do I remember Detcharry!—He took from me two hundred lots of merchandise!—That does not matter, here is my hand, even if you are his son!"

And the old defrauder, who was the chief of a great band, without rancor, with effusion, presses Arrochkoa's two hands.

Detcharry has remained famous at Erribiague for his stratagems, his ambuscades, his captures of contraband goods, out of which came, later, his income that Dolores and her children enjoy.

And Arrochkoa assumes a proud air, while Ramuntcho lowers his head, feeling that he is of a lower condition, having no father.

"Are you not in the customhouse, as your deceased father was?" continued the old man in a bantering tone.

"Oh, no, not exactly.—Quite the reverse, even—"

"Oh, well! I understand!—Then, shake once more—and it's a sort of revenge on Detcharry for me, to know that his son has gone into smuggling like us!—"

They send for cider and they drink together, while the old men tell again the exploits and the tricks of former times, all the ancient tales of nights in the mountains; they speak a variety of Basque different from that of Etchezar, the village where the language is preserved more clearly articulated, more incisive, more pure, perhaps. Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa are surprised by this accent of the high land, which softens the words and which chants them; those white-haired story tellers seem to them almost strangers, whose talk is a series of monotonous stanzas, repeated infinitely as in the antique songs expressive of sorrow. And, as soon as they cease talking, the slight sounds in the sleep of the country come from peaceful and fresh darkness. The crickets chirp; one hears the torrent bubbling at the base of the inn; one hears the dripping of springs from the terrible, overhanging summits, carpeted with thick foliage.—It sleeps, the very small village, crouched and hidden in the hollow of a ravine, and one has the impression that the night here is a night blacker than elsewhere and more mysterious.

"In truth," concludes the old chief, "the customhouse and smuggling, at bottom, resemble each other; it is a game where the smartest wins, is it not? I will even say that, in my own opinion, an officer of customs, clever and bold, a customs officer like your father, for example, is as worthy as any of us!"

After this, the hostess having come to say that it was time to put out the lamp—the last lamp still lit in the village—they go away, the old defrauders. Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa go up to their rooms, lie down and sleep, always in the chirp of the crickets, always in the sound of fresh waters that run or that fall. And Ramuntcho, as in his house at Etchezar, hears vaguely during his sleep the tinkling of bells, attached to the necks of cows moving in a dream, under him, in the stable.



CHAPTER XVI.

Now they open, to the beautiful April morning, the shutters of their narrow windows, pierced like portholes in the thickness of the very old wall.

And suddenly, it is a flood of light that dazzles their eyes. Outside, the spring is resplendent. Never had they seen, before this, summits so high and so near. But along the slopes full of leaves, along the mountains decked with trees, the sun descends to radiate in this valley on the whiteness of the village, on the kalsomine of the ancient houses with green shutters.

Both awakened with veins full of youth and hearts full of joy. They have formed the project this morning to go into the country, to the house of Madame Dargaignaratz's cousins, and see the two little girls, who must have arrived the night before in the carriage, Gracieuse and Pantchika.—After a glance at the ball-game square, where they shall return to practice in the afternoon, they go on their way through small paths, magnificently green, hidden in the depths of the valleys, skirting the cool torrents. The foxglove flowers start everywhere like long, pink rockets above the light and infinite mass of ferns.

It is at a long distance, it seems, that house of the Olhagarray cousins, and they stop from time to time to ask the way from shepherds, or they knock at the doors of solitary houses, here and there, under the cover of branches. They had never seen Basque houses so old nor so primitive, under the shade of chestnut trees so tall.

The ravines through which they advance are strangely enclosed. Higher than all these woods of oaks and of beeches, which seem as if suspended above, appear ferocious, denuded summits, a zone abrupt and bald, sombre brown, making points in the violent blue of the sky. But here, underneath, is the sheltered and mossy region, green and deep, which the sun never burns and where April has hidden its luxury, freshly superb.

And they also, the two who are passing through these paths of foxglove and of fern, participate in this splendor of spring.

Little by little, in their enjoyment at being there, and under the influence of this ageless place, the old instincts to hunt and to destroy are lighted in the depths of their minds. Arrochkoa, excited, leaps from right to left, from left to right, breaks, uproots grasses and flowers; troubles about everything that moves in the green foliage, about the lizards that might be caught, about the birds that might be taken out of their nests, and about the beautiful trout swimming in the water; he jumps, he leaps; he wishes he had fishing lines, sticks, guns; truly he reveals his savagery in the bloom of his robust eighteen years.—Ramuntcho calms himself quickly; after breaking a few branches, plucking a few flowers, he begins to meditate; and he thinks—

Here they are stopped now at a cross-road where no human habitation is visible. Around them are gorges full of shade wherein grand oaks grow thickly, and above, everywhere, a piling up of mountains, of a reddish color burned by the sun. There is nowhere an indication of the new times; there is an absolute silence, something like the peace of the primitive epochs. Lifting their heads toward the brown peaks, they perceive at a long distance persons walking on invisible paths, pushing before them donkeys of smugglers: as small as insects at such a distance, are these silent passers-by on the flank of the gigantic mountain; Basques of other times, almost confused, as one looks at them from this place, with this reddish earth from which they came—and where they are to return, after having lived like their ancestors without a suspicion of the things of our times, of the events of other places—

They take off their caps, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, to wipe their foreheads; it is so warm in these gorges and they have run so much, jumped so much, that their entire bodies are in a perspiration. They are enjoying themselves, but they would like to come, nevertheless, near the two little, blonde girls who are waiting for them. But of whom shall they ask their way now, since there is no one?

"Ave Maria," cries at them from the thickness of the branches an old, rough voice.

And the salutation is prolonged by a string of words spoken in a rapid decrescendo, quick; quick; a Basque prayer rattled breathlessly, begun very loudly, then dying at the finish. And an old beggar comes out of the fern, all earthy, all hairy, all gray, bent on his stick like a man of the woods.

"Yes," says Arrochkoa, putting his hand in his pocket, "but you must take us to the Olhagarray house."

"The Olhagarray house," replies the old man. "I have come from it, my children, and you are near it."

In truth, how had they failed to see, at a hundred steps further, that black gable among branches of chestnut trees?

At a point where sluices rustle, it is bathed by a torrent, that Olhagarray house, antique and large, among antique chestnut trees. Around, the red soil is denuded and furrowed by the waters of the mountain; enormous roots are interlaced in it like monstrous gray serpents; and the entire place, overhung on all sides by the Pyrenean masses, is rude and tragic.

But two young girls are there, seated in the shade; with blonde hair and elegant little pink waists; astonishing little fairies, very modern in the midst of the ferocious and old scenes.—They rise, with cries of joy, to meet the visitors.

It would have been better, evidently, to enter the house and salute the old people. But the boys say to themselves that they have not been seen coming, and they prefer to sit near their sweethearts, by the side of the brook, on the gigantic roots. And, as if by chance, the two couples manage not to bother one another, to remain hidden from one another by rocks, by branches.

There then, they talk at length in a low voice, Arrochkoa with Pantchika, Ramuntcho with Gracieuse. What can they be saying, talking so much and so quickly?

Although their accent is less chanted than that of the highland, which astonished them yesterday, one would think they were speaking scanned stanzas, in a sort of music, infinitely soft, where the voices of the boys seem voices of children.

What are they saying to one another, talking so much and so quickly, beside this torrent, in this harsh ravine, under the heavy sun of noon? What they are saying has not much sense; it is a sort of murmur special to lovers, something like the special song of the swallows at nesting time. It is childish, a tissue of incoherences and repetitions. No, what they are saying has not much sense—unless it be what is most sublime in the world, the most profound and truest things which may be expressed by terrestrial words.—It means nothing, unless it be the eternal and marvellous hymn for which alone has been created the language of men and beasts, and in comparison with which all is empty, miserable and vain.

The heat is stifling in the depth of that gorge, so shut in from all sides; in spite of the shade of the chestnut trees, the rays, that the leaves sift, burn still. And this bare earth, of a reddish color, the extreme oldness of this nearby house, the antiquity of these trees, give to the surroundings, while the lovers talk, aspects somewhat harsh and hostile.

Ramuntcho has never seen his little friend made so pink by the sun: on her cheeks, there is the beautiful, red blood which flushes the skin, the fine and transparent skin; she is pink as the foxglove flowers.

Flies, mosquitoes buzz in their ears. Now Gracieuse has been bitten on the chin, almost on the mouth, and she tries to touch it with the end of her tongue, to bite the place with the upper teeth. And Ramuntcho, who looks at this too closely, feels suddenly a langour, to divert himself from which he stretches himself like one trying to awake.

She begins again, the little girl, her lip still itching—and he again stretches his arms, throwing his chest backward.

"What is the matter, Ramuntcho, and why do you stretch yourself like a cat?—"

But when, for the third time, Gracieuse bites the same place, and shows again the little tip of her tongue, he bends over, vanquished by the irresistible giddiness, and bites also, takes in his mouth, like a beautiful red fruit which one fears to crush, the fresh lip which the mosquito has bitten—

A silence of fright and of delight, during which both shiver, she as much as he; she trembling also, in all her limbs, for having felt the contact of the growing black mustache.

"You are not angry, tell me?"

"No, my Ramuntcho.—Oh, I am not angry, no—"

Then he begins again, quite frantic, and in this languid and warm air, they exchange for the first time in their lives, the long kisses of lovers—



CHAPTER XVII.

The next day, Sunday, they went together religiously to hear one of the masses of the clear morning, in order to return to Etchezar the same day, immediately after the grand ball-game. It was this return, much more than the game, that interested Gracieuse and Ramuntcho, for it was their hope that Pantchika and her mother would remain at Erribiague while they would go, pressed against each other, in the very small carriage of the Detcharry family, under the indulgent and slight watchfulness of Arrochkoa, five or six hours of travel, all three alone, on the spring roads, under the new foliage, with amusing halts in unknown villages—

At eleven o'clock in the morning, on that beautiful Sunday, the square was encumbered by mountaineers come from all the summits, from all the savage, surrounding hamlets. It was an international match, three players of France against three of Spain, and, in the crowd of lookers-on, the Spanish Basques were more numerous; there were large sombreros, waistcoats and gaiters of the olden time.

The judges of the two nations, designated by chance, saluted each other with a superannuated politeness, and the match began, in profound silence, under an oppressive sun which annoyed the players, in spite of their caps, pulled down over their eyes.

Ramuntcho soon, and after him Arrochkoa, were acclaimed as victors. And people looked at the two little strangers, so attentive, in the first row, so pretty also with their elegant pink waists, and people said: "They are the sweethearts of the two good players." Then Gracieuse, who heard everything, felt proud of Ramuntcho.

Noon. They had been playing for almost an hour. The old wall, with its summit curved like a cupola, was cracking from dryness and from heat, under its paint of yellow ochre. The grand Pyrenean masses, nearer here than at Etchezar, more crushing and more high, dominated from everywhere these little, human groups, moving in a deep fold of their sides. And the sun fell straight on the heavy caps of the men, on the bare heads of the women, heating the brains, increasing enthusiasm. The passionate crowd yelled, and the pelotas were flying, when, softly, the angelus began to ring. Then an old man, all wrinkled, all burned, who was waiting for this signal, put his mouth to the clarion—his old clarion of a Zouave in Africa—and rang the call to rest. And all, the women who were seated rose; all the caps fell, uncovering hair black, blonde or white, and the entire people made the sign of the cross, while the players, with chests and foreheads streaming with perspiration, stopped in the heat of the game and stood in meditation with heads bent—

At two o'clock, the game having come to an end gloriously for the French, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho went in their little wagon, accompanied and acclaimed by all the young men of Erribiague; then Gracieuse sat between the two, and they started for their long, charming trip, their pockets full of the gold which they had earned, intoxicated by their joy, by the noise and by the sunlight.

And Ramuntcho, who retained the taste of yesterday's kiss, felt like shouting to them: "This little girl who is so pretty, as you see, is mine! Her lips are mine, I had them yesterday and will take them again to-night!"

They started and at once found silence again, in the shaded valleys bordered by foxglove and ferns—

To roll for hours on the small Pyrenean roads, to change places almost every day, to traverse the Basque country, to go from one village to another, called here by a festival, there by an adventure on the frontier—this was now Ramuntcho's life, the errant life which the ball-game made for him in the day-time and smuggling in the night-time.

Ascents, descents, in the midst of a monotonous display of verdure. Woods of oaks and of beeches, almost inviolate, and remaining as they were in the quiet centuries.—When he passed by some antique house, hidden in these solitudes of trees, he stopped to enjoy reading, above the door, the traditional legend inscribed in the granite: "Ave Maria! in the year 1600, or in the year 1500, such a one, from such a village, has built this house, to live in it with such a one, his wife."

Very far from all human habitation, in a corner of a ravine, where it was warmer than elsewhere, sheltered from all breezes, they met a peddler of holy images, who was wiping his forehead. He had set down his basket, full of those colored prints with gilt frames that represent saints with Euskarian legends, and with which the Basques like to adorn their old rooms with white walls. And he was there, exhausted from fatigue and heat, as if wrecked in the ferns, at a turn of those little, mountain routes which run solitary under oaks.

Gracieuse came down and bought a Holy Virgin.

"Later," she said to Ramuntcho, "we shall put it in our house as a souvenir—"

And the image, dazzling in its gold frame, went with them under the long, green vaults—

They went out of their path, for they wished to pass by a certain valley of the Cherry-trees, not in the hope of finding cherries in it, in April, but to show to Gracieuse the place, which is renowned in the entire Basque country.

It was almost five o'clock, the sun was already low, when they reached there. It was a shaded and calm region, where the spring twilight descended like a caress on the magnificence of the April foliage. The air was cool and suave, fragrant with hay, with acacia. Mountains—very high, especially toward the north, to make the climate there softer, surrounded it on all sides, investing it with a melancholy mystery of closed Edens.

And, when the cherry-trees appeared, they were a gay surprise, they were already red.

There was nobody on these paths, above which the grand cherry-trees extended like a roof, their branches dripping with coral.

Here and there were some summer houses, still uninhabited, some deserted gardens, invaded by the tall grass and the rose bushes.

Then, they made their horse walk; then, each one in his turn, transferring the reins and standing in the wagon, amused himself by eating these cherries from the trees while passing by them and without stopping. Afterward, they placed bouquets of them in their buttonholes, they culled branches of them to deck the horse's head, the harness and the lantern. The equipage seemed ornamented for some festival of youth and of joy—

"Now let us hurry," said Gracieuse. "If only it be light enough, at least, when we reach Etchezar, for people to see us pass, ornamented as we are!"

As for Ramuntcho, he thought of the meeting place in the evening, of the kiss which he would dare to repeat, similar to that of yesterday, taking Gracieuse's lip between his lips like a cherry—



CHAPTER XVIII.

May! The grass ascends, ascends from everywhere like a sumptuous carpet, like silky velvet, emanating spontaneously from the earth.

In order to sprinkle this region of the Basques, which remains humid and green all summer like a sort of warmer Brittany, the errant vapors on the Bay of Biscay assemble all in this depth of gulf, stop at the Pyrenean summits and melt into rain. Long showers fall, which are somewhat deceptive, but after which the soil smells of new flowers and hay.

In the fields, along the roads, the grasses quickly thicken; all the ledges of the paths are as if padded by the magnificent thickness of the bent grass; everywhere is a profusion of gigantic Easter daisies, of buttercups with tall stems, and of very large, pink mallows like those of Algeria.

And, in the long, tepid twilights, pale iris or blue ashes in color, every night the bells of the month of Mary resound for a long time in the air, under the mass of the clouds hooked to the flanks of the mountains.

During the month of May, with the little group of black nuns, with discreet babble, with puerile and lifeless laughter, Gracieuse, at all hours, went to church. Hastening their steps under the frequent showers, they went together through the graveyard, full of roses; together, always together, the little clandestine betrothed, in light colored gowns, and the nuns, with long, mourning veils; during the day they brought bouquets of white flowers, daisies and sheafs of tall lilies; at night they came to sing, in the nave still more sonorous than in the day-time, the softly joyful canticles of the Virgin Mary:

"Ave, Queen of the Angels! Star of the Sea, ave!—"

Oh, the whiteness of the lilies lighted by the tapers, their white petals and their yellow pollen in gold dust! Oh, their fragrance in the gardens or in the church, during the twilights of spring!

And as soon as Gracieuse entered there, at night, in the dying ring of the bells—leaving the pale half-light of the graveyard full of roses for the starry night of the wax tapers which reigned already in the church, quitting the odor of hay and of roses for that of incense and of the tall, cut lilies, passing from the lukewarm and living air outside to that heavy and sepulchral cold that centuries amass in old sanctuaries—a particular calm came at once to her mind, a pacifying of all her desires, a renunciation of all her terrestrial joys. Then, when she had knelt, when the first canticles had taken their flight under the vault, infinitely sonorous, little by little she fell into an ecstasy, a state of dreaming, a visionary state which confused, white apparitions traversed: whiteness, whiteness everywhere; lilies, thousands of sheafs of lilies, and white wings, shivers of white wings of angels—

Oh! to remain for a long time in that state, to forget all things, and to feel herself pure, sanctified and immaculate, under that glance, ineffably fascinating and soft, under that glance, irresistibly appealing, which the Holy Virgin, in long white vestments, let fall from the height of the tabernacle—!

But, when she went outside, when the night of spring re-enveloped her with tepid breezes of life, the memory of the meeting which she had promised the day before, the day before as well as every day, chased like the wind of a storm the visions of the church. In the expectation of Ramuntcho, in the expectation of the odor of his hair, of the touch of his mustache, of the taste of his lips, she felt near faltering, like one wounded, among the strange companions who accompanied her, among the peaceful and spectral black nuns.

And when the hour had come, in spite of all her resolutions she was there, anxious and ardent, listening to the least noise, her heart beating if a branch of the garden moved in the night—tortured by the least tardiness of the beloved one.

He came always with his same silent step of a rover at night, his waistcoat on his shoulder, with as much precaution and artifice as for the most dangerous act of smuggling.

In the rainy nights, so frequent in the Basque spring-time, she remained in her room on the first floor, and he sat on the sill of the open window, not trying to go in, not having the permission to do so. And they stayed there, she inside, he outside, their arms laced, their heads touching each other, the cheek of one resting on the cheek of the other.

When the weather was beautiful, she jumped over this low window-sill to wait for him outside, and their long meetings, almost without words, occurred on the garden bench. Between them there were not even those continual whisperings familiar to lovers; no, there were rather silences. At first they did not dare to talk, for fear of being discovered, for the least murmurs of voices at night are heard. And then, as nothing new threatened their lives, what need had they to talk? What could they have said which would have been better than the long contact of their joined hands and of their heads resting against each other?

The possibility of being surprised kept them often on the alert, in an anxiety which made more delicious afterward the moments when they forgot themselves more, their confidence having returned.—Nobody frightened them as much as Arrochkoa, a smart, nocturnal prowler himself, and always so well-informed about the goings and comings of Ramuntcho—In spite of his indulgence, what would he do, if he discovered them?—

Oh, the old stone benches, under branches, in front of the doors of isolated houses, when fall the lukewarm nights of spring!—Theirs was a real lovers' hiding place, and there was for them, every night, a music, for, in all the stones of the neighbors' wall lived those singing tree-toads, beasts of the south, which, as soon as night fell, gave from moment to moment a little, brief note, discreet, odd, having the tone of a crystal bell and of a child's throat. Something similar might be produced by touching here and there, without ever resting on them, the scales of an organ with a celestial voice. There were tree-toads everywhere, responding to one another in different tones; even those which were under their bench, close by them, reassured by their immobility, sang also from time to time; then that little sound, brusque and soft, so near, made them start and smile. All the exquisite, surrounding obscurity was animated by that music, which continued in the distance, in the mystery of the leaves and of the stones, in the depths of all the small, black holes of rocks or walls; it seemed like chivies in miniature, or rather, a sort of frail concert somewhat mocking—oh! not very mocking, and without any maliciousness—led timidly by inoffensive gnomes. And this made the night more living and more loving—

After the intoxicated audacities of the first nights, fright took a stronger hold of them, and, when one of them had something special to say, one led the other by the hand without talking; this meant that they had to walk softly, softly, like marauding cats, to an alley behind the house where they could talk without fear.

"Where shall we live, Gracieuse?" asked Ramuntcho one night.

"At your house, I had thought."

"Ah! yes, so thought I—only I thought it would make you sad to be so far from the parish, from the church and the square—"

"Oh—with you, I could find anything sad?—"

"Then, we would send away those who live on the first floor and take the large room which opens on the road to Hasparitz—"

It was an increased joy for him to know that Gracieuse would accept his house, to be sure that she would bring the radiance of her presence into that old, beloved home, and that they would make their nest there for life—



CHAPTER XIX.

Here come the long, pale twilights of June, somewhat veiled like those of May, less uncertain, however, and more tepid still. In the gardens, the rose-laurel which is beginning to bloom in profusion is becoming already magnificently pink. At the end of each work day, the good folks sit outside, in front of their doors, to look at the night falling—the night which soon confuses, under the vaults of the plane-trees, their groups assembled for benevolent rest. And a tranquil melancholy descends over villages, in those interminable evenings—

For Ramuntcho, this is the epoch when smuggling becomes a trade almost without trouble, with charming hours, marching toward summits through spring clouds; crossing ravines, wandering in lands of springs and of wild fig-trees; sleeping, waiting for the agreed hour, with carbineers who are accomplices, on carpets of mint and pinks.—The good odor of plants impregnated his clothes, his waistcoat which he never wore, but used as a pillow or a blanket—and Gracieuse would say to him at night: "I know where you went last night, for you smell of mint of the mountain above Mendizpi"—or: "You smell of absinthe of the Subernoa morass."

Gracieuse regretted the month of Mary, the offices of the Virgin in the nave, decked with white flowers. In the twilights without rain, with the sisters and some older pupils of their class, she sat under the porch of the church, against the low wall of the graveyard from which the view plunges into the valleys beneath. There they talked, or played the childish games in which nuns indulge.

There were also long and strange meditations, meditations to which the fall of day, the proximity of the church, of the tombs and of their flowers, gave soon a serenity detached from material things and as if free from all alliance with the senses. In her first mystic dreams as a little girl,—inspired especially by the pompous rites of the cult, by the voice of the organ, the white bouquets, the thousand flames of the wax tapers—only images appeared to her—very radiant images, it is true: altars resting on mists, golden tabernacles where music vibrated and where fell grand flights of angels. But those visions gave place now to ideas: she caught a glimpse of that peace and that supreme renunciation which the certainty of an endless celestial life gives; she conceived, in a manner more elevated than formerly, the melancholy joy of abandoning everything in order to become an impersonal part of that entirety of nuns, white, or blue, or black, who, from the innumerable convents of earth, make ascend toward heaven an immense and perpetual intercession for the sins of the world—

However, as soon as night had fallen quite, the course of her thoughts came down every evening fatally toward intoxicating and mortal things. Her wait, her feverish wait, began, more impatient from moment to moment. She felt anxious that her cold companions with black veils should return into the sepulchre of their convent and that she should be alone in her room, free at last, in the house fallen asleep, ready to open her window and listen to the slight noise of Ramuntcho's footsteps.

The kiss of lovers, the kiss on the lips, was now a thing possessed and of which they had not the strength to deprive themselves. And they prolonged it a great deal, not wishing, through charming scruples, to accord more to each other.

Anyway, if the intoxication which they gave to each other thus was a little too carnal, there was between them that absolute tenderness, infinite, unique, by which all things are elevated and purified.



CHAPTER XX.

Ramuntcho, that evening, had come to the meeting place earlier than usual—with more hesitation also in his walk, for one risks, on these June evenings, to find girls belated along the paths, or boys behind the hedges on love expeditions.

And by chance she was already alone, looking outside, without waiting for him, however.

At once she noticed his agitated demeanor and guessed that something new had happened. Not daring to come too near, he made a sign to her to come quickly, jump over the window-sill, and meet him in the obscure alley where they talked without fear. Then, as soon as she was near him, in the nocturnal shade of the trees, he put his arm around her waist and announced to her, brusquely, the great piece of news which, since the morning, troubled his young head and that of Franchita, his mother.

"Uncle Ignacio has written."

"True? Uncle Ignacio!"

She knew that that adventurous uncle, that American uncle, who had disappeared for so many years, had never thought until now of sending more than a strange good-day by a passing sailor.

"Yes! And he says that he has property there, which requires attention, large prairies, herds of horses; that he has no children, that if I wish to go and live near him with a gentle Basque girl married to me here, he would be glad to adopt both of us.—Oh! I think mother will come also.—So, if you wish.—We could marry now.—You know they marry people as young as we, it is allowed.—Now that I am to be adopted by my uncle and I shall have a real situation in life, your mother will consent, I think.—And as for military service, we shall not care for that, shall we?—"

They sat on the mossy rocks, their heads somewhat dizzy, troubled by the approach and the unforeseen temptation of happiness. So, it would not be in an uncertain future, after his term as a soldier, it would be almost at once; in two months, in one month, perhaps, that communion of their minds and of their flesh, so ardently desired and now so forbidden, might be accomplished without sin, honestly in the eyes of all, permitted and blessed.—Oh! they had never looked at this so closely.—And they pressed against each other their foreheads, made heavy by too many thoughts, fatigued suddenly by a sort of too delicious delirium.—Around them, the odor of the flowers of June ascended from the earth, filling the night with an immense suavity. And, as if there were not enough scattered fragrance, the jessamine, the honeysuckle on the walls exhaled from moment to moment, in intermittent puffs, the excess of their perfume; one would have thought that hands swung in silence censers in the darkness, for some hidden festival, for some enchantment magnificent and secret.

There are often and everywhere very mysterious enchantments like this, emanating from nature itself, commanded by one knows not what sovereign will with unfathomable designs, to deceive us all, on the road to death—

"You do not reply, Gracieuse, you say nothing to me—"

He could see that she was intoxicated also, like him, and yet he divined by her manner of remaining mute so long, that shadows were amassing over his charming and beautiful dream.

"But," she asked at last, "your naturalization papers. You have received them, have you not?"

"Yes, they arrived last week, you know very well, and it was you who said that I should apply for them—"

"Then you are a Frenchman to-day.—Then, if you do not do your military service you are a deserter."

"Yes.—A deserter, no; but refractory, I think it is called.—It isn't better, since one cannot come back.—I was not thinking of that—"

How she was tortured now to have caused this thought, to have impelled him herself to this act which made soar over his hardly seen joy a threat so black! Oh, a deserter, he, her Ramuntcho! That is, banished forever from the dear, Basque country!—And this departure for America becomes suddenly frightfully grave, solemn, similar to a death, since he could not possibly return!—Then, what was there to be done?—

Now they were anxious and mute, each one preferring to submit to the will of the other, and waiting, with equal fright, for the decision which should be taken, to go or to remain. From the depths of their two young hearts ascended, little by little, a similar distress, poisoning the happiness offered over there, in that America from which they would never return.—And the little, nocturnal censers of jessamine, of honeysuckle, of linden, continued to throw into the air exquisite puffs to intoxicate them; the darkness that enveloped them seemed more and more caressing and soft; in the silence of the village and of the country, the tree-toads gave, from moment to moment, their little flute-note, which seemed a very discreet love call, under the velvet of the moss; and, through the black lace of the foliage, in the serenity of a June sky which one thought forever unalterable, they saw scintillate, like a simple and gentle dust of phosphorus, the terrifying multitude of the worlds.

The curfew began to ring, however, at the church. The sound of that bell, at night especially, was for them something unique on earth. At this moment, it was something like a voice bringing, in their indecision, its advice, its counsel, decisive and tender. Mute still, they listened to it with an increasing emotion, of an intensity till then unknown, the brown head of the one leaning on the brown head of the other. It said, the advising voice, the dear, protecting voice: "No, do not go forever; the far-off lands are made for the time of youth; but you must be able to return to Etchezar: it is here that you must grow old and die; nowhere in the world could you sleep as in this graveyard around the church, where one may, even when lying under the earth, hear me ring again—" They yielded more and more to the voice of the bell, the two children whose minds were religious and primitive. And Ramuntcho felt on his cheek a tear of Gracieuse:

"No," he said at last, "I will not desert; I think that I would not have the courage to do it—"

"I thought the same thing as you, my Ramuntcho," she said. "No, let us not do that. I was waiting for you to say it—"

Then he realized that he also was crying, like her—

The die was cast, they would permit to pass by happiness which was within their reach, almost under their hands; they would postpone everything to a future uncertain and so far off—!

And now, in the sadness, in the meditation of the great decision which they had taken, they communicated to each other what seemed best for them to do:

"We might," she said, "write a pretty letter to your uncle Ignacio; write to him that you accept, that you will come with a great deal of pleasure immediately after your military service; you might even add, if you wish, that the one who is engaged to you thanks him and will be ready to follow you; but that decidedly you cannot desert."

"And why should you not talk to your mother now, Gatchutcha, only to know what she would think?—Because now, you understand, I am not as I was, an abandoned child—" Slight steps behind them, in the path—and above the wall, the silhouette of a young man who had come on the tips of his sandals, as if to spy upon them!

"Go, escape, my Ramuntcho, we will meet to-morrow evening!—"

In half a second, there was nobody: he was hidden in a bush, she had fled into her room.

Ended was their grave interview! Ended until when? Until to-morrow or until always?—On their farewells, abrupt or prolonged, frightened or peaceful, every time, every night, weighed the same uncertainty of their meeting again—



CHAPTER XXI.

The bell of Etchezar, the same dear, old bell, that of the tranquil curfew, that of the festivals and that of the agonies, rang joyously in the beautiful sun of June. The village was decorated with white cloths, white embroideries, and the procession of the Fete-Dieu passed slowly, on a green strewing of fennel seed and of reeds cut from the marshes.

The mountains seemed near and sombre, somewhat ferocious in their brown tones, above this white parade of little girls marching on a carpet of cut leaves and grass.

All the old banners of the church were there, illuminated by that sun which they had known for centuries but which they see only once or twice a year, on the consecrated days.

The large one, that of the Virgin, in white silk embroidered with pale gold, was borne by Gracieuse, who walked in white dress, her eyes lost in a mystic dream. Behind the young girls, came the women, all the women of the village, wearing black veils, including Dolores and Franchita, the two enemies. Men, numerous enough, closed this cortege, tapers in their hands, heads uncovered—but there were especially gray hairs, faces with expressions vanquished and resigned, heads of old men.

Gracieuse, holding high the banner of the Virgin, became at this hour one of the Illuminati; she felt as if she were marching, as after death, toward the celestial tabernacles. And when, at instants, the reminiscence of Ramuntcho's lips traversed her dream, she had the impression, in the midst of all this white, of a sharp stain, delicious still. Truly, as her thoughts became more elevated from day to day, what brought her back to him was less her senses, capable in her of being tamed, than true, profound tenderness, the one which resists time and deceptions of the flesh. And this tenderness was augmented by the fact that Ramuntcho was less fortunate than she and more abandoned in life, having had no father—



CHAPTER XXII.

"Well, Gatchutcha, you have at last spoken to your mother of Uncle Ignacio?" asked Ramuntcho, very late, the same night, in the alley of the garden, under rays of the moon.

"Not yet, I have not dared.—How could I explain that I know all these things, since I am supposed not to talk with you ever, and she has forbidden me to do so?—Think, if I were to make her suspicious!—There would be an end to everything, we could not see each other again! I would like better to wait until you left the country, then all would be indifferent to me—"

"It is true!—let us wait, since I am to go."

He was going away, and already they could count the evenings which would be left to them.

Now that they had permitted their immediate happiness to escape, the happiness offered to them in the prairies of America, it seemed preferable to them to hasten the departure of Ramuntcho for the army, in order that he might return sooner. So they had decided that he would enlist in the naval infantry, the only part of the service where one may elect to serve for a period as short as three years. And as they needed, in order to be certain not to be lacking in courage, a precise epoch, considered for a long time in advance, they had fixed the end of September, after the grand series of ball-games.

They contemplated this separation of three years duration with an absolute confidence in the future, so sure they thought they were of each other, and of themselves, and of their imperishable love. But it was, however, an expectation which already filled their hearts strangely; it threw an unforeseen melancholy over things which were ordinarily the most indifferent, on the flight of days, on the least indications of the next season, on the coming into life of certain plants, on the coming into bloom of certain species of flowers, on all that presaged the arrival and the rapid march of their last summer.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Already the fires of St. John have flamed, joyful and red in a clear, blue night, and the Spanish mountain seemed to burn, that night, like a sheaf of straw, so many were the bonfires lighted on its sides. It has begun, the season of light, of heat and of storms, at the end of which Ramuntcho must depart.

And the saps, which in the spring went up so quickly, become languid already in the complete development of the verdure, in the wide bloom of the flowers. And the sun, more and more burning, overheats all the heads covered with Basque caps, excites ardor and passion, causes to rise everywhere, in those Basque villages, ferments of noisy agitation and of pleasure. While, in Spain, begin the grand bull-fights, this is here the epoch of so many ball-games, of so many fandangoes danced in the evening, of so much pining of lovers in the tepid voluptuousness of nights—!

Soon will come the warm splendor of the southern July. The Bay of Biscay has become very blue and the Cantabric coast has for a time put on its fallow colors of Morocco or of Algeria.

With the heavy rains alternates the marvellously beautiful weather which gives to the air absolute limpidities. And there are days also when somewhat distant things are as if eaten by light, powdered with sun dust; then, above the woods and the village of Etchezar, the Gizune, very pointed, becomes more vaporous and more high, and, on the sky, float, to make it appear bluer, very small clouds of a gilded white with a little mother-of-pearl gray in their shades.

And the springs run thinner and rarer under the thickness of the ferns, and, along the routes, go more slowly, driven by half nude men, the ox-carts which a swarm of flies surrounds.

At this season, Ramuntcho, in the day-time, lived his agitated life of a pelotari, running with Arrochkoa from village to village, to organize ball-games and play them.

But, in his eyes, evenings alone existed.

Evenings!—In the odorous and warm darkness of the garden, to be seated very near Gracieuse; to put his arm around her, little by little to draw her to him and hold her against his breast, and remain thus for a long time without saying anything, his chin resting on her hair, breathing the young and healthy scent of her body.

He enervated himself dangerously, Ramuntcho, in these prolonged contacts which she did not prohibit. Anyway, he divined her surrendered enough to him now, and confident enough, to permit everything; but he did not wish to attempt supreme communion, through childish reserve, through respect for his betrothed, through excess and profoundness of love. And it happened to him at times to rise abruptly, to stretch himself—in the manner of a cat, she said, as formerly at Erribiague—when he felt a dangerous thrill and a more imperious temptation to leave life with her in a moment of ineffable death—



CHAPTER XXIV.

Franchita, however, was astonished by the unexplained attitude of her son, who, apparently, never saw Gracieuse and yet never talked of her. Then, while was amassing in her the sadness of his coming departure for military service, she observed him, with her peasant's patience and muteness.

One evening, one of the last evenings, as he was going away, mysterious and in haste, long before the hour of the nocturnal contraband, she straightened before him, her eyes fixed on his:

"Where are you going, my son?"

And seeing him turn his head, blushing and embarrassed, she acquired a sudden certainty:

"It is well, now I know.—Oh! I know!—"

She was moved even more than he, at her discovery of this great secret.—The idea had not even come to her that it was not Gracieuse, that it might be another girl. She was too far-seeing. And her scruples as a Christian were awakened, her conscience was frightened at the evil that they might have done, as rose from the depth of her heart a sentiment of which she was ashamed as if it were a crime, a sort of savage joy.—For, in fine—if their carnal union was accomplished, the future of her son was assured.—She knew her Ramuntcho well enough to know that he would not change his mind and that Gracieuse would never be abandoned by him.

The silence between them was prolonged, she standing before him, barring the way:

"And what have you done together?" she decided to ask. "Tell me the truth, Ramuntcho, what wrong have you done?—"

"What wrong?—Oh! nothing, mother, nothing wrong, I swear to you—"

He replied this without irritation at being questioned, and bearing the look of his mother with eyes of frankness. It was true, and she believed him.

But, as she stayed in front of him, her hand on the door-latch, he said, with dumb violence:

"You are not going to prevent me from going to her, since I shall leave in three days!"

Then, in presence of this young will in revolt, the mother, enclosing in herself the tumult of her contradictory thoughts, lowered her head and, without a word, stood aside to let him pass.



CHAPTER XXV.

It was their last evening, for, the day before yesterday, at the Mayor's office of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he had, with a hand trembling a little, signed his engagement for three years in the Second naval infantry, whose garrison was a military port of the North.

It was their last evening,—and they had said that they would make it longer than usual,—it would last till midnight, Gracieuse had decided: midnight, which in the villages is an unseasonable and black hour, an hour after which, she did not know why, all seemed to the little betrothed graver and guiltier.

In spite of the ardent desire of their senses, the idea had not come to one nor to the other that, during this last meeting, under the oppression of parting, something more might be attempted.

On the contrary, at the instant so full of concentration of their farewell, they felt more chaste still, so eternal was their love.

Less prudent, however, since they had not to care for the morrow, they dared to talk there, on their lovers' bench, as they had never done before. They talked of the future, of a future which was for them very distant, because, at their age, three years seem infinite.

In three years, at his return, she would be twenty; then, if her mother persisted to refuse in an absolute manner, at the end of a year she would use her right of majority, it was between them an agreed and a sworn thing.

The means of correspondence, during the long absence of Ramuntcho, preoccupied them a great deal: between them, everything was so complicated by obstacles and secrets!—Arrochkoa, their only possible intermediary, had promised his help; but he was so changeable, so uncertain!—Oh, if he were to fail!—And then, would he consent to send sealed letters?—If he did not consent there would be no pleasure in writing.—In our time, when communications are easy and constant, there are no more of these complete separations similar to the one which theirs would be; they were to say to each other a very solemn farewell, like the one which the lovers of other days said, the lovers of the days when there were lands without post-offices, and distances that frightened one. The fortunate time when they should see each other again appeared to them situated far off, far off, in the depths of duration; yet, because of the faith which they had in each other, they expected this with a tranquil assurance, as the faithful expect celestial life.

But the least things of their last evening acquired in their minds a singular importance; as this farewell came near, all grew and was exaggerated for them, as happens in the expectation of death. The slight sounds and the aspects of the night seemed to them particular and, in spite of them, were engraving themselves forever in their memory. The song of the crickets had a characteristic which it seemed to them they had never heard before. In the nocturnal sonority, the barking of a watch-dog, coming from some distant farm, made them shiver with a melancholy fright. And Ramuntcho was to carry with him in his exile, to preserve later with a desolate attachment, a certain stem of grass plucked from the garden negligently and with which he had played unconsciously the whole evening.

A phase of their life finished with that day: a lapse of time had occurred, their childhood had passed—

Of recommendations, they had none very long to exchange, so intensely was each one sure of what the other might do during the separation. They had less to say to each other than other engaged people have, because they knew mutually their most intimate thoughts. After the first hour of conversation, they remained hand in hand in grave silence, while were consumed the inexorable minutes of the end.

At midnight, she wished him to go, as she had decided in advance, in her little thoughtful and obstinate head. Therefore, after having embraced each other for a long time, they quitted each other, as if the separation were, at this precise minute, an ineluctable thing which it was impossible to retard. And while she returned to her room with sobs that he heard, he scaled over the wall and, in coming out of the darkness of the foliage, found himself on the deserted road, white with lunar rays. At this first separation, he suffered less than she, because he was going, because it was he that the morrow, full of uncertainty, awaited. While he walked on the road, powdered and clear, the powerful charm of change, of travel, dulled his sensitiveness; almost without any precise thought, he looked at his shadow, which the moon made clear and harsh, marching in front of him. And the great Gizune dominated impassibly everything, with its cold and spectral air, in all this white radiance of midnight.



CHAPTER XXVI.

The parting day, good-byes to friends here and there; joyful wishes of former soldiers returned from the regiment. Since the morning, a sort of intoxication or of fever, and, in front of him, everything unthought-of in life.

Arrochkoa, very amiable on that last day, had offered to drive him in a wagon to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and had arranged to go at sunset, in order to arrive there just in time for the night train.

The night having come, inexorably, Franchita wished to accompany her son to the square, where the Detcharry wagon was waiting for him, and here her face, despite her will, was drawn by sorrow, while he straightened himself, in order to preserve the swagger which becomes recruits going to their regiment:

"Make a little place for me, Arrochkoa," she said abruptly. "I will sit between you to the chapel of Saint-Bitchentcho; I will return on foot—"

And they started at the setting sun, which, on them as on all things, scattered the magnificence of its gold and of its red copper.

After a wood of oaks, the chapel of Saint-Bitchentcho passed, and the mother wished to remain. From one turn to another, postponing every time the great separation, she asked to be driven still farther.