well-shaped foot in the sand, covered at intervals by a shallow wave
that gradually washed away the mark.
The last kiss of the sea upon her feet, to which a bit of sparkling
sand clung, delighted her. She laughed at the water, played with it,
avoiding it sometimes with a sudden leap, and sometimes going forward
to meet it, teasing it.
She fancied that she could see, in the undulating folds of the
wavelets, the tame snakes which she sometimes charmed with the notes
of a flute, and which would thereupon come to her and twine about her
arms and neck, and which were at that moment waiting for her, lying on
their bed of wool at the bottom of their box in her wagon.
She had already ceased to think of Renaud. She was always swayed by
the dominating thought of the moment, never feeling regret or remorse
for what was past,--having no power of foresight, except by flashes,
at such times as passion and self-interest bade her exert it. Her
reflection was but momentary, by fits and starts, so to speak; and
her depth, her power, the mystery that surrounded her, were due to her
having no heart, and, consequently, no conscience.
The men and women who approached her might hope or fear something at
her hands, imagine that she had determined upon this or that course,
and try to defeat her plan; but she never had any plan, which fact led
them astray beforehand.
She routed her enemies and triumphed over them, first of all, by
indifference; and then she would abruptly cast aside her indolence,
like an animal, at the bidding of a passion or a whim, and would still
render naught every means of defence--her attack, her decisions, her
clever wiles, being always spontaneous, born of circumstances as they
presented themselves.
No: she made no plans beforehand, in cold blood; she never concocted
any complicated scheme; but she could, at need, invent one on the spur
of the moment and carry it out instantly, at a breath,--or perhaps she
would begin to execute it in frantic haste, and abandon it almost
immediately from sheer _ennui_, to think no more of it until the day
that some burst of passion should suddenly bring it back to her mind.
She was like a spider spinning its whole web in the twinkling of an
eye to catch the fly on the wing; or she would spin the first thread
only, and forget it until something happened to remind her to spin a
second.
Thus constituted, she was at the same time better and worse than
other women, because she was more changeable than the surface of the
water,--because she was of the color of the moment.
Being a fatalist, the gipsy said to herself that whatever is to
happen, happens, and she had never taken the trouble to devise a
scheme of revenge. She would simply utter a threat, knowing well that
the terror inspired by a prediction is the first calamity that
prepares the way for others, by disturbing the mind and heart and
judgment. And then, something always goes wrong in the course of a
year, collaborating, so to speak, with the sorcerer, and attributed by
the victim to the "evil spell" cast upon him. It is upon him, in
reality, because he believes that it is. In short, if opportunity
offered, she would assist the mischievous propensities of fate, with a
word, a gesture, a trifle--and, if opportunity did offer, it was
because it was decreed long ages ago, written in the book of destiny
that so it should be!
A true creature of instinct, the gipsy had no other secret than that
she had none.
She followed her impulses, satisfied her desire for revenge, her love
or her hate, without stopping to consider anything or anybody; and,
like the wild beast, she, a human being, became an object of dread to
civilized people, as nature itself is. Such creatures are implacable.
The gipsy loved life, and lived as animals live, without reflection.
It was the paltry yet profound mystery of the sphinx repeated. Her
actions were those of a brute, not far removed from the lower types of
mankind, notwithstanding her lovely human face, in which the eyes,
like Pan's, not clear, seemed veiled with falsehood because they were
veiled to their own sight with their own lack of knowledge, their
uncertainty and suspense. Look at the eyes of a goat or a heifer. They
are as deep as Bestiality, cunning and strong, cowering in the shadow
of the sacred wood. Life longs to live. It is lying in ambush there.
It is sure of her and bides its time. The human beast not only has
more craft than the fox or tiger, but has the power of speech as well.
Nothing is more horrible than words without a conscience.
After all, Zinzara was always sincere, although she never appeared so,
because her versatility placed her from moment to moment in
contradiction with herself.
The caress and the wound that one received from her in rapid
succession did not prove that she had feigned love or hate. She did,
in fact, love and hate by turns, from moment to moment, or rather,
without loving or hating, she acted in accordance with her own fancy,
sincere in her contradictions--and very artlessly withal.
She bore some resemblance to the ape, as it sits among the branches,
softly rocking its little one in its arms with an almost human air,
then suddenly relaxes its hold and lets its offspring fall, forgotten,
to the ground, in order to pluck a fruit that hangs near by.
She was a personage of importance in her own eyes, and she saw nobody
but herself at all times and under all circumstances.
The gipsy was formidable, as a spirit concealed in an element whose
slave it should be. She had the force of a thunderbolt, of an
earthquake, of any fatal occurrence impossible to foresee or to ward
off.
The viper is not evil-minded. He does not prepare his own venom. He
finds it all prepared. Disturb him, and he bites before he makes up
his mind to do it.
Like the cramp-fish or the electric eel, the gipsy could discharge a
fatal current of electricity as soon as you approached her,--by virtue
of the very necessity of existence. It might happen to her also to
indulge in the sport of exerting her malignant power around her, for
no reason, simply to watch its effects, because it was her day and her
hour, her whim.
She had the same means of defence and amusement.
It was not in her nature to be malignant. It simply was not necessary
for her to think of you, that was all. As a matter of fact, a man was
fortunate if she did not look at him.
Although born of a race that holds chastity in high esteem, she was
not chaste; not that she loved debauchery above everything else, but
she used it as a means of domination,--the more unfailing because she
made little account of it. Always superior, in her coldness, to the
passion she inspired, it was in that more than all else that she
really felt herself a queen, a sorceress--aye, a goddess, by favor of
the devil! The caress of the water in which she bathed afforded her
more pleasure than it afforded others. She was like the female plant
of the _lambrusque_, which is fertilized by the wind.
Like the mares of Camargue, that often assemble on the shore to
breathe the fresh sea air,--when she opened her lips to the salty
breeze, on those fine May evenings, she was happier than any man's
kiss could make her. The wandering spirit of her race breathed upon
her lips, in the air, with the freedom of the boundless waste--a vague
hope, vain and unending.
Being thus constituted, she knew that she exercised a disturbing
influence upon others, and that she was herself protected by something
that relieved her of responsibility. That thought filled her with
pride. There was a reflection of that pride in her smile. There was
also the constant remembrance of the sensations she had experienced,
known to her alone, and a certain number of men, who knew nothing of
one another.
Their ignorance, which was her work, also made her smile. And that
smile was a mixture of irony and contempt. She knew her own strength
and their weakness. So she was always smiling.
With no other policy than this, she reigned over her nomadic tribe,
changing her favorite, like a genuine queen, as chance or her own
impulses willed, but giving each one of them to believe that he was
the only man she had ever really loved, even if he were not her first
lover.
To deceive the _zingari_--that was a notable triumph for a _zingara_!
Among the fifteen or twenty children in her party, there was a young
dauphin, the queen's offspring; but since he had left her breast, she
had bestowed no more care upon him than the bitch bestows upon her
puppy some day to become her mate.
When she came near her camping-ground, excited by her recent contact
with the waves and the salt, which, as it dried upon her, pressed
against her soft, velvety flesh, the gipsy, tingling with warmth in
every vein, cast a sidelong glance at one of the male members of the
tribe, a young man with a bronzed skin and thin, curly beard.
And, in the darkness,--when they had eaten the soup cooked in the
kettle that hung from three stakes in the open air,--the _zingaro_
glided to the _zingara's_ side.
At that very moment, by her fault, two human beings were suffering in
the inmost recesses of their consciences, where Livette and Renaud
were gazing at each other with eyes in which there was no look of
recognition.
The betrothed lovers, her victims, were struggling under the evil
spell cast upon them by her glance, at the moment that that glance
seemed to grow tender in response to that with which her lover
enveloped her, on the edge of the ditch, beneath the feeble light of
the stars.
Renaud at that moment was dreaming that he had seen the naked gipsy
again and triumphed over her, and was asking himself, at the memory of
that robust, youthful form, if she were not a virgin, even though a
child of the high-road; recalling confusedly a strange, overpowering,
absolute passion, the triumphal possession of a new being, a heifer
hitherto wild and vicious, even to the bulls; of a mare that had never
known bit or saddle, and had maintained a rebellious attitude in
presence of the stallion.
Renaud was dreaming all that, but Renaud no longer existed for
Zinzara.
Zinzara, just at that moment, in the dew-drenched grass, was writhing
about like the legendary conger-eel, that comes out of the sea to
abandon itself to the labyrinthine caresses of the reptiles on the
shore.
Two days Livette waited, wondering what was taking place. Weary at
last of seeking without finding, she set out for Saintes-Maries on the
morning of the third day.
"There," she thought, "I may, perhaps, hear some news."
Her father saddled an honest old horse for her use.
"You must go to Tonin the fisherman's at noon," said he, "and eat your
_bouille-abaisse_. Send him word, when you arrive, with a good-day
from me."
Livette, as she rode along, looked about her at the peaceful green
fields, joyous and bright in the light that fell from the sky and the
light that rose on all sides from the water.
The gnats danced merrily in the sunbeams. When the gnats dance, they
furnish the music for the ball with their wings, and on calm days
there is a sound like the strumming of a guitar on the golden strings
of light over all the plain. There were also in the air long, slender
threads,--the "threads of the Virgin," or gossamer,--come from no one
knows where, which waved gently to and fro, as if some of the fragile
strings of the invisible instrument on which the little musicians of
the air perform, being broken, had become visible, and were floating
away at the pleasure of a breath.
It may be that those threads came from a long distance. It may be that
the toiling spiders who patiently spun them lived in the forests of
the Moors, in Esterel. A breath of air had taken them up very gently,
and now they were on their travels.
Livette watched them floating quietly by, and thought of a tale her
grandmother had told her. According to the grandmother, the threads
came from the cloaks spread to the wind as sails by the three holy
women. The wind, as it filled them, had unravelled them a little, very
carefully; and the slender threads, taken long ago from the woof of
the miraculous cloaks, hover forever above the sands of Camargue,
where stands the church of the holy women.--Above the strand they
hover night and day, as so many tokens of God's blessing; but they are
rarely visible, and if, by chance, on a fine day, you do see them, it
means that some great good fortune is in store for you.
In the transparent azure of the morning sky Livette's heart clung to
each of the passing threads; but the child tried in vain to acquire
confidence,--her heart was too heavy to remain long attached to the
fleeting things. She was afraid, poor child, and felt influences at
work against her that she could not see.
Alas! while the golden threads floated over her head, the black spider
was weaving his web somewhere about, to catch her like a fly.
Still musing, Livette rode on, and could distinguish at last, far
before her, the swallows and martins soaring above the steeple. They
were so far away you would have said they were swarms of gnats. And
with the swallows and martins were numberless sea-mews. This host of
wings, large and small, now dark as seen from below, now bright and
gleaming as seen from above, turned and twirled and gyrated in
countless intricate, interlacing circles. Instinct with the spirit of
the spring-time and the morning, they were frolicking in the fresh,
clear air.
It occurred to Livette to ride by the public spring in quest of
news, for it was the hour when the women and maidens of
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer go thither to procure their daily supply of
water.
As she entered the village, she noticed the gipsy camp at her right
hand, but turned her head.
At that moment, she met two women on their way to the spring, walking
steadily between the two bars, the ends of which they held in their
hands, and from which, exactly in the middle, the water-jug was
suspended by its two ears.
"It is just the time for the spring," said Livette to herself, and she
followed them at a foot-pace.
"Good-day, mademoiselle," the women said as they passed, for the
pretty maiden of the Chateau d'Avignon was known to everybody.
There was as yet no one at the spring. The two women waited, and
Livette with them.
"How do you happen to be riding about so early, mademoiselle? Are you
looking for some one?"
"I am out for a ride," said Livette, "and as it's the time for drawing
water, I thought I would stop here a moment. My friends will surely
come sooner or later."
No more was said, and Livette, having nothing else to do, looked
closely for the first time at the carved stone escutcheon in the
centre of the high arched wall above the spring. It is the town crest,
and it is needless to say that it includes a boat, a boat without mast
or oars, in which the two Maries--Jacobe and Salome--are standing.
"I have often wondered," said Livette, "why they put only the figures
of two holy women in the boat. For haven't our mothers always told us
there were three of them? Were there three or not?"
"Certainly there were three, my pretty innocent," said the older of
the two women, "but Sara was the servant, and no honor is due to her."
"If the third was Saint Sara, then there were not three Marys, eh? But
I have always heard it said that the Magdalen was there, and that she
went away from here and died at Sainte-Baume."
"Yes, so she was, and many others besides! Lazarus was in the boat,
too, but when they were once on shore, every one went his own way:
Magdalen went to Baume, and the two Maries and Sara remained with us.
That was when a spring came out of the sand, by the favor of our Lord.
When they built the church, they walled in the spring in the centre of
it."
"Faith, they would have done well to leave the spring outside the
church!"
"Why so? is the water spoiled by it?"
"It's only good on the fete-day."
"After so many years! And there's so little of it!"
"We ought to have asked the saints to make it pure and abundant. If we
had all set about it with our prayers, they would have done it for
us."
"One miracle more or less!"
"The miracles, my dear, are only for strangers."
"And that is just what we need, neighbor. If it wasn't so, you see,
strangers wouldn't come any more--and without them what would the
country live on? poor we! Where are our harvests? Where are our wheat
and our grain, good people, tell me that? If it wasn't for the saints,
this would be a cursed country! One fete-day a year, and the
pilgrims--God bless them!--fill our purses for us."
"Miracle days are only too few and far between. We ought to have two
fete-days a year!"
"What are you saying, you foolish woman? Two fete-days a year! Mother
of God! That would mean death to pilgrimages. To keep the custom
going, everything must be just as it is and nothing change at all. Our
men know that well enough. Remember the visit the Archbishop of Aix
and those great ladies paid us twenty years ago."
And once more the story was told of the visit of the Archbishop of Aix
to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer twenty or thirty years before.
On a certain 24th of May the archbishop arrived at Saintes-Maries with
several elderly ladies of the nobility of Aix. But it so happened that
that 24th of May was the evening of the 25th! Anybody may be
mistaken!--So that, instead of being lowered at four o'clock, the
reliquaries were raised again on that day, and when monseigneur
entered the church with his fair companions, it was good-by, saints!
They had already been hoisted up at the end of their ropes to the
lofty chapel, amid the singing of canticles.
"Oh! well!" said the archbishop to the cure, "they must come down
again for us."
The cure was about to obey, but a rumor of what was going on had
already spread through the village!--Ah! bless my soul, what a
commotion!
"What!" said the old villagers. "They would lower the reliquaries on
some other day than the 24th, would they? Why, if it is such a simple
thing and can be done so often, why do you make the poor devils from
every corner of Provence and all the rest of the world come hurrying
to us on a special day? No, no, it would be the ruin of the country,
that is certain!"
To make a long story short, the people of Saintes-Maries took their
guns, and under arms, in the church itself, compelled the prince of
the Church to respect the sovereign will of the people of the town.
And they did very well, for rarity is the quality by virtue of which
miracles retain their value.
One of the women having told this anecdote, which was perfectly well
known to them all, they began, as soon as she had finished, to make up
for their long silence by loud talk, vying with one another in their
approval of the villagers' revolt against the bishops, who would have
abused the good-will of the two Maries.
"We are very lucky, all the same," said one of the old women, "to have
a good well with good stone walls instead of the brackish spring the
saints had to get their drinking-water from. I can remember the time
when we got our water from the _pousaraque_ (artificial pond), as the
people on our farms do to-day. The Rhone water that was brought into
them through the canals was always so thick and muddy you could cut it
with a knife!"
"Bah! it had time enough to settle in our jars."
"It is funny, though, to be so hard up for water in such a wet
country!" said a young woman who had just arrived. "This water is a
nuisance! Saint Sara, the servant, ought to have known from experience
that a woman has enough work to do at home without wasting her time
waiting in front of closed spigots. Saint Sara, protect us, and make
them turn on the water!"
The women began to laugh.
Almost all the housekeepers of Saintes-Maries had assembled by this
time. A last group arrived upon the scene. Some carried jars, without
handles, upon their heads, balancing them by a graceful swaying of the
whole body. With their hands upon their hips, they themselves were not
unlike living amphorae. Others, having one jug upon the head, carried
another in each hand--the stout _dourgue_, with handle and mouth;
others had wooden pails, others, glass jars, each having selected a
larger or smaller vessel, according to the necessities of her
household.
"What sort of a pot have you there, Felicite?"
Whereat there was a general laugh.
She to whom the question was directed, replied:
"I broke my jug, poor me! And, as I had to have some water, I took an
old thing I found that has always been standing behind the door at our
house since I can remember. If it will hold water, it will do for me
to-day, my dear!"
"Take it to monsieur le cure for his library; it's an antique, and is
worth money!"
Felicite had, in fact, come to the spring with a genuine Roman
amphora, found in the sandy bed of the Rhone--a jar two thousand years
old and hardly chipped!
Each family at Saintes-Maries is entitled to one or two jars of water
each day, according to the number of its members.--The water had not
begun to flow.
Livette, sitting upon her horse, thoughtful and sad amid the chatter,
was still awaiting her friends.
"What were you saying just now?" asked some late comers.
And having been informed, each one of them proceeded to expound her
ideas upon the subject of the saints and Sara the bondwoman, paying no
heed to what the others were saying--so that the jabbering of the
women and girls seemed like a _Ramadan_ of magpies and jays assembled
in one of the isolated clumps of pines so often seen in Camargue.
"I would like to know if it's fair," cried one of the women, "not to
put in Saint Sara's portrait, too! A saint's a saint, and where
there's a saint there isn't any servant!"
"The saints aren't proud! and Saint Sara cares mighty little whether
her picture's there or not!"
"She may not care, but it was an insult to her!"
"Oh!" said another, "good King Rene and the Pope knew what they were
doing when they arranged things so. Sara was Pontius Pilate's wife,
and she was the one who advised her husband to wash his hands of the
heathens' crime!"
A murmur of reproof ran from mouth to mouth among the gossips.
"Ah! here's old Rosine, she'll set us right."
Motionless upon her horse Livette listened vaguely. She was
absent-minded, yet interested.
When old Rosine, who was very deaf, had finally been made to
understand what was wanted of her, and that she was expected to give
her views concerning Sara the bondwoman, she began:
"Ah! my children, God knows his own, and Sara was a great saint, for
sure----"
Here Rosine crossed herself, and was at once imitated by all the old
women.
"But," added Rosine, "Sara was a heathen woman from Egypt, and not a
Jewess of Judea; and the heathens, you see, come a long way after the
Jews in the world's esteem. Don't you see that the Jews are scattered
all over the world, but they stay everywhere, and become masters by
force of avarice. That is their way of being blessed by their Lord.
But the heathens of Egypt, on the contrary, are wanderers and poor,
although they are thieves, and more scattered and more accursed than
the Jews. Well, you see, my children, Saint Sara is their saint, the
saint of the Egyptian heathens! She wasn't a very good Catholic saint,
to pay the boatman for her passage by a sight of her naked body--with
the indifference of an old sinner, I fancy! So it is right that she
should come after the two Marys, for there are different ranks in
heaven. And that is why Saint Sara's bones are not between the boards
of the great shrine in the church, but under the glass of the little
shrine in the crypt--or the cellar, you might say. The cellar is a
good enough place--under the feet of Christians--for miserable
gipsies! And it is right that it should be so."
"What Rosine says is true!" cried one of the women. "These frequent
visits of the gipsies are the ruin of the country. When our pilgrims
come, rich and poor, do you suppose they like to find all these
scamps, who are so clever at stealing folks' handkerchiefs and purses,
settled here before them? Don't you suppose that drives people away
from us? How many there are who would like to come, but don't care to
compromise themselves by being found in such company!"