heart-rending cry of the birds of passage, rising above the roar of
the wind and the sound of the river shedding its tears into the
ocean; dominating the mysterious sounds that fill the darkness. How
many times had she heard the cries of cranes and petrels and Egyptian
curlews over the Chateau d'Avignon in the season when the nights are
long, when the sight of the fire rejoices the heart like a living
thing full of promise, when the blackness of death envelops the world.
The birds remind her also of the Christmas evenings, the evenings when
the logs blazing in the huge fire-place and the many lamps seem to
say: "Courage! the night will pass." And it is then that the wheat
shows its green stalk, saying likewise: "Yes, courage! bad weather,
like all other, comes to an end at last."
Livette mused thus, and mechanically raised her eyes to the ceiling,
from which the crocodile was hanging.[7]
Livette did not say to herself that there was, somewhere on the other
side of the great sea, in the same Egypt to which Saint Joseph and the
Virgin Mary fled to protect the Child Jesus from the persecution of
King Herod, a great river, the mighty brother of the Rhone, and that
in the hottest hours of the day, on the islands in the Nile, the
crocodiles crawl in great numbers out upon the overheated sands to
expose their backs to the rays of a sun as hot as any oven.
She did not say to herself that Saint Sara, the swarthy patron saint
of the gipsies, is called by them the Egyptian, and that they water
their gaunt horses in the Nile as well as in the Rhone. She could not
say to herself--because she knew it not--that the Egyptians inherit
from the Hindoos a debased sort of magic, and that it was the same
sort, even more debased without doubt, that gave Zinzara her power.
Nor did Livette know that Zinzara carried in one of the boxes in her
ambulatory house--between a crocodile from the Nile and a sacred ibis,
both found in an Egyptian crypt--the mummy of a young girl, six
thousand years old, whose face, from which the bandages had been
taken, wore a mask of gold. She could conceive no connection between
the ibis of the Nile and yonder creature of the same name killed
within the year on the shore of the Vaccares, but she underwent the
influence of all these mysterious connecting currents to which space
and time are naught.
The lifeless creatures, scattered all about her, lived again by virtue
of the power of retaining their form forever. And fear seized upon
her, for suddenly the mad idea, at once vague and precise, entered her
mind of a resemblance between the profile of the great reptile hanging
from the ceiling and the lower part of the gipsy queen's face.
Livette thought that she must be ill, and rose to go, determined to
wait no longer, but as she put out her hand to the door she uttered a
cry. A centipede was crawling along the key, as lively as you please.
She recoiled, and saw upon the white wall, at about the level of her
head, a _tarente_, that seemed to be watching her with its pale-gray
eyes. The _tarente_ is inoffensive, but Livette knew nothing of that.
It is the Mauritanian _gecko_, which abounds in Provence, a reptile
repugnant to the sight, with gray protuberances on the head and back
like those upon cantaloupe melons. And then the little fellow, the
tiny creature, resembles the crocodile!--Surely, Livette has the
fever.
"What's the matter, my child?"
Monsieur le cure has entered the room. He has a kindly air that
comforts the poor child at once.
He points to a chair. She sits down and dares not say a word. Where
shall she begin?
He urges her.
"Well, my child?"
He closes his eyes, that he may not embarrass her by his glance, which
he knows to be searching. He has left his spectacles up-stairs on his
great book. He closes his eyes; and with compressed lips, presses his
jaws against each other to a sort of rhythm, so that you can see his
temples bulge out and subside like a fish's gills. It is a nervous
affection. His hands are folded on his waist; he clasps his fingers
and plays at making them revolve about one another, mechanically; but
he is keenly attentive. Monsieur le cure loves the souls of his
fellow-men. He knows that they suffer, that life is infinite, and that
they veer about and call to one another in the boundless expanse of
space and time, like birds in a storm. He is reflecting. He is a
kind-hearted priest. He is imbued with the spirit of the Gospel. He
is indulgent. Does he not know that some great saints have been great
sinners? He desires to be kind. He knows how to be.
What can be the matter?
At last, Livette speaks. She tells him everything; the gipsy's first
appearance, her refusal to give her the oil she asked for insolently,
with jeering remarks about extreme unction; then of the ominous spell
she cast upon her, realized even now perhaps; the change in her
Renaud's character, his coldness, his flight; and then, that very
morning, the scene of the snakes; how she had been attracted--partly
by curiosity, no doubt, but also by her conviction that she should
hear something of Renaud. And how she gave her hand to the gipsy to
have her fortune told! That, she had done against her inclination! She
knew that it was wrong. Who would have dared say a moment before that
she would commit such a sin? But she was afraid of seeming cowardly,
not because of what the world would say, but because of _her_, the
gitana, in whose presence she deemed it her duty to display pride and
courage. She felt that she was very hostile to her. She was afraid of
her, and yet, in her despite, she would defy her. She was the stronger
of the two.--At last, she arrives at her most shocking avowal--she is
jealous. A terrible thought has come into her mind; is it possible
that Renaud could----? But no. Did he not, to save her from Rampal,
risk his life by leaping down from a first-floor window the whole
height of the house? To be sure, Rampal had stolen a horse from
Renaud, and Renaud had been looking for him for a long time----
Livette is undone. She has glanced at Monsieur le cure, who, before
replying, is listening to his own thoughts, in order not to be
diverted from the matter in hand. He is still playing with his clasped
fingers, making them revolve about one another.
Around them the swans, the pelican, the red flamingo, the petrel, the
ibis, look on with their eyes of glass imbedded in those heads that
have lived! There they stand, those phantom birds, with wings
outspread and one claw put forward, exactly similar in shape, color,
and plumage to the birds that are soaring above the Nile and the
Ganges, beyond seas, at this moment, and no less like other birds that
lived six thousand years ago.
The reptile on the ceiling, laughing down at them with his numerous
long, sharp teeth, does, in very truth, resemble some one a
little--but whom?
Livette, as she puts the question to herself, suddenly comes to the
conclusion that she is insane, utterly insane, to have had such an
idea! She smiles at it herself. And she seems to _feel_ her smile. She
does feel it. She fancies she can see it!
And at the moment she is conscious of a sensation--and a painful
sensation it is--of being there, in that same room, surrounded by
those creatures and in the presence of a priest--_for the second time
in her life_!
Yes, all her present surroundings _she has seen before_--this that is
happening to her _has happened before_. But the first time was a long
while ago, oh! such a long while! The great reptile on the ceiling
remembers, perhaps. That is why it laughs.--But she has forgotten _all
about it_. Why is she here? She no longer knows even that. She was a
fool to come here!
This Camargue country, you see, is the home of malignant fever. It
rises from the swamps in the sunshine, with fetid odors, exhalations
that disturb the brain and the action of the blood. From the dead
vegetation, from the dead water, bad dreams and fever rise like vapor.
There is an _evil atmosphere_ there; and the _evil eye_ too, thinks
Livette.
But who can say of what the mummy lying in Zinzara's wagon is thinking
all this time--the mummy of which Livette knows nothing, and which is
of the same age as Livette, plus six thousand years? Like Livette, it
has wavy hair, very long, but somewhat faded by time. It was once as
black as jet like that of the women of Arles. The mummy is of the same
age as Livette, plus six thousand years! The gipsies believe that so
long as the dead body retains its shape, something of its spirit
continues to dwell within it. Zinzara affirms that this mummy, which
she procured in Egypt, speaks to her sometimes and tells her things.
Ah! if we should undertake to go to the bottom of the simplest facts,
how they would puzzle us! Our Saracen mares of Camargue, sisters of
Al-Borak, Mahomet's white mare, and the bulls of the Vaccares,
brothers of Apis, sometimes absent-mindedly take into their mouths, in
the heart of the swamps, the long, gently-waving stalk of the
mysterious lotus that lives three lives at once, in the mud with its
root, in the water with its stalk, in the blue air with its flower.
Not without reason do the zingari, descendants of Coudra, flock to the
crypt of the three-storied church, there to adore the shrine of Sara,
Pilate's wife--the Egyptian woman.
Monsieur le cure, who is a profound student, is revolving all these
things confusedly in his mind--with no very clear understanding of
them himself--and pondering them.
Ah! if he could, how quickly he would sweep the island clear of the
gipsy vermin! But he cannot. Tradition forbids. Sara in the crypt is
their saint. There is a mixture of pagan and Christian in the affair,
painful to contemplate certainly, but with which he has no right to
interfere. The essential thing is that the Christian shall triumph
over the pagan, that God shall prevail against Satan--for certain it
is, whatever the gipsies may say, that they are not descended from the
wise king who was a negro and who brought the myrrh to Jesus.
How to protect Livette?
"Do not remain alone with your thoughts, my child. Carry your rosary
always with you, and tell your beads often, not mechanically but with
your whole heart. Confide your sorrows to your good grandmother, whose
Christian sentiments I well know. That simple-minded old woman has a
great heart.
"Avoid the town. Tell your father--who has always done as you wished,
nor has he had reason to repent of so doing--to have an eye to his
house, and never to leave you alone. Avoid Renaud for some little
time; at all events, do not seek him. He must have an opportunity to
read his own heart clearly; we must not--by trying to bring him back
to you--help him to mistake his affection for you, which is not,
perhaps, so deep as it should be. I will speak to him myself when I
have an opportunity. The day after to-morrow is the day of the fete at
Saintes-Maries. Do not fail to be present; bring us that day a heart
filled with faith and with the desire to do what is right. You will
meet many unfortunates there. Turn your eyes toward those who are more
wretched than yourself, and by comparing their lot with yours, you
will see how fortunate you are, who have youth and good health.
"The health of the soul depends upon ourselves. You will save yours.
"You will be the one, on the day of the fete, to sing the solo of
invocation just as the reliquaries descend--I ask you to do it, and,
if need be, I will lay the duty upon you as a penance.
"She who thinks on God and the holy women forgets all earthly ills.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. They who fear shall be
reassured. Blessed are they who weep, for they shall be comforted----"
Monsieur le cure broke off abruptly. He realized, the kind-hearted
man, that his discourse was, by force of habit, degenerating into a
commonplace sermon, and, rising from his chair, he walked quickly
toward the door, bestowing an affectionate tap on the trembling
maiden's cheek with two fingers of the hand that held his snuff-box,
saying to her in a fatherly tone:
"Go, little one; you have a good heart. The wicked can do naught
against us. I will pray for you at Mass. Everybody in the country
loves you. Have no fear, my daughter."
Livette took her leave. The cure, left to himself, sighed. He saw that
Livette was confronted by an ill-defined, strange, diabolical peril,
of the kind that cannot be turned aside, that God alone can avert.
"It is fate," he muttered, employing unthinkingly a word of twofold
signification.[8] "It is fate," he repeated. "Life is a sea of
troubles, and God is mysterious."
XVI
ON THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH
Renaud, after his victory, dismounted for a moment, and, sitting down
beside Bernard, on the shore of the Vaccares, where the cattle and
mares of his drove had resumed their attitude of repose, he set about
reviewing recent events in his mind.
To overturn his projected marriage, to ruin his future for the sake of
the gipsy, for the sake of the unworthy passion that was at work
within him--most assuredly Renaud had no such idea.
When the first fury of his desire was worked off by wild leaps and
bounds, after the fashion of his horse Prince, he found a way to be
reconciled with himself. His rugged honesty was impaired. He would try
to satisfy his passion for the accursed gipsy when occasion offered;
and that, he felt very sure, would do Livette no wrong!
Like a clever casuist, he combated his own instinctively honest
impulses with arguments which he invented with much labor, and then
complacently refined and elaborated, playing tricks upon himself.
Now that he could boast of having fought Rampal on Livette's
account,--omitting in his thoughts the other two reasons he had had
for fighting, namely, his determination to recover the stolen horse
and his desire to display his strength and courage to Zinzara,--he
could return to the Chateau d'Avignon with his head in the air, and
meet his fiancee again as if nothing had happened.
Why, after all, should he be ashamed? Had he not established a fresh
claim to Livette's gratitude and the esteem of her relatives?
He would take poor Blanchet back to her,--Blanchet, of whom she was so
fond,--and he could tell old Audiffret that the stolen horse was once
more browsing, with the drove, on the reed-grass of the estate.
No: after mature reflection, he was sure that there was nothing that
need make him ashamed.
Indeed, when one is not married, is he required to be so absolutely
faithful? And what is a man to do, when things fall in his way?
The eyes see before one has had an opportunity to prevent them! Even
after marriage, can one refrain from being moved by the sight of
youthful loveliness? Can one control the movements of his blood?
Desire is not a sin, and so long as Livette knew nothing, so long as
she did not suffer through him, what reason had he, in all frankness,
for self-reproach?
Nothing had come about by his procurement. He was still determined not
to speak to the gipsy woman--but he would be a great fool not to put
out his hand if the golden peach should offer itself to him
voluntarily.
And the salt breeze that blew across the rushes, arousing the passions
of the wild cattle, rushed through his veins, causing the blood to
rise in sudden flushes to his cheeks.
Of what avail against that breeze, which the heifers inhale with
delight, is the "I will not" of a young man who feels his youth? The
good Lord forgives it in others. "I have been worrying a great deal
over a very small matter of late," thought Renaud. And he sagely
concluded that he would return at once to Saintes-Maries, to set
Livette's mind at rest, as it was his duty to do first of all, without
avoiding or seeking out the other.
Meanwhile, what had Livette been doing?
When she left the cure, almost at the same moment that Renaud was
unhorsing Rampal, Livette had no wish but to take her horse and ride
home at once, without even waiting for dinner.
She felt that she was lost in such close proximity to the ill-omened
gipsies.
Her first thought was that Renaud, if he had overtaken Rampal, whom he
could not fail to master, would go without loss of time to the Chateau
d'Avignon.
But her second thought was that he would return to Saintes-Maries to
make the most of his triumph. She knew Renaud well! He was proud of
his strength and address. He was spoiled by the public at the races,
who applauded with hands and voice, and he loved to hear the "Bravo,
Renaud!"--He would return to the town, yes, he surely would!
He might imagine, indeed, that she, Livette, had remained there, and
return on her account--and a little on the other's account, at the
same time!--Ah! poor child! suspicion was just beginning to creep into
her mind. Just God! suppose that that zingara woman should fascinate
her Renaud!
Livette, having found her horse still tied to the church-wall, sent
him to the stable at the inn and went to the fisherman Tonin's to
share his _bouille-abaisse_.
"You did well, Livette," said Tonin, "you have avoided a sharp squall
of the _mistral_. But I know what I'm talking about; it's nothing but
a squall, and you can go home this afternoon quietly enough. It will
be too hot, if anything. But what's the matter, that you're so
thoughtful?"
Livette heard but little of all that was said at the fisherman's
table, and, after due reflection, returned to Monsieur le cure's after
the meal was at an end.
"Are you still at Saintes-Maries, little one?" he said, with a sad
smile.
"I had a fright, my father----"
Livette sometimes addressed the cure thus, because of the custom in
confession.
"A fright? how was that?"
"Suppose they have fought, who knows what may have happened? _Mon
Dieu!_ chance is uncertain, and that Rampal is so treacherous that
Renaud may be the loser. I would like, with your permission, Monsieur
le cure, to go up on the roof of the church at once; from there I
could see Renaud much sooner if he comes back here."
The happy thought had come to her of watching her betrothed, as he
himself had, that same morning, watched Rampal from the wine-shop
window.
The cure smiled again and good-humoredly took down the keys of the
little staircase that leads to the upper chapel and thence to the
bell-tower.
He left the house, followed by Livette.
At the foot of the great bare wall of the church, so high and cold,--a
veritable rampart with its battlements sharply defined against the
blue of the sky,--the good cure opened the small door.
They ascended the stairs.
When they reached the upper chapel, which is just above the choir of
the church, as we know, the cure said:
"I will remain here, little one, to offer up a prayer to the holy
women; you can go on alone."
But Livette, without replying, knelt devoutly beside the cure for an
instant, before the relics.
The relics were there, behind the ropes coiled about the capstan, by
means of which they were lowered into the church, as the little jug
from which the lips of the faithful drank so eagerly was lowered into
the miraculous well below;--there they were, on the edge of the
opening through which they were launched into space.
Through this window-like opening into the body of the church Livette
could see the chairs systematically arranged below, and, higher up,
the galleries, the pulpit, and the pictures--all well-nigh hidden in
the dark shadow, intersected by two rays of light that darted in, like
arrows, through the narrow loopholes.
Away down, below the gallery at the rear, opposite where she stood,
the chinks in the great square door were marked like fine lines of
fire by the sunshine without.
She gazed for a long moment at the blessed shrines, and conjured them
to turn aside the evil spell that she could feel about her.
And, do what she would, as she gazed at the shrines, which had the
appearance of two coffins laid side by side and welded together,
Livette was conscious that her thoughts became more melancholy than
ever. Had she not seen, year after year, some poor, infirm wretch in
despair lie at full length on cushions in the acute angle formed by
the two lids of the double coffin? And how many of them had been
cured? One in fifty thousand, and only at long intervals?
And yet, what scores of votive offerings that lofty chapel
held,--pictures, commemorative marble tablets, crutches, guns with
shattered barrels, and small boats presented by sailors saved after
shipwreck! Aye, but in how many years have the miracles been performed
of which these offerings are the tokens?--One shudders to think how
many.
And Livette, well content to divert her thoughts from such painful
subjects, left Monsieur le cure at his prayers, and went up on the
roof of the church.
The bright glare of the sky, bursting suddenly upon her, dazzled her.
She had to close her eyes; then she looked down upon the plain. The
plain was a flood of light.
The rascally _mistral_, that blows three, six, or nine days at a time
when it has fairly buckled down to work, had simply taken a whim, as
Tonin had foreseen. Not a leaf was stirring now. The sea had not had
time to grow angry below the surface. It was laughing. The ponds were
as smooth as mirrors. The sun shone hotter than ever in the clearer
air.
The swallows and martins circled about Livette's head, uttering in
endless succession shrill, piercing cries that constantly came nearer
and again receded. The pointed wings of the martins, also called
_arbaletriers_ or cross-bowmen, brushed against the turrets and shot
into the loopholes like arrows.
Livette looked off into the desert straight before her, and, not
seeing what she expected, she let her glance wander here and there
over the vast expanse, attractive but monotonous, which one can
traverse, from end to end, without ever seeing aught but endless
repetition of the same sand, the same tufts of grass, the same
gleaming waters.
From the top of the church the horizon seemed almost limitless in
every direction, for the golden peaks of the little Alps, vaguely
outlined down in the northeast, seem to be no more than jagged bits of
cloud.
When you are looking at them from that point, you have at your right,
to the eastward, Crau and the _sansouires_, Martigues, and Marseilles
beyond the salt marshes of Giraud, cut into rectangular mounds of
glistening salt. In the west is little Camargue, with its temporary
ponds, its rare groves of pine, its euphorbium and branching asphodel,
and its Etang des Fournaux, the father of mirages, and filled with
shells, although it has no connection with the sea.
In this vast, flat region, the mind and the eye fall into the habit of
looking always to the horizon, embracing as much space as possible in
the hope of finding some inequality.
But they cannot escape the unchanging monotony, even less varied than
the monotony of the sea, for the sea changes color, and is by turns
black, blue, pale-green, dark-purple, or golden.
In our desert there are everywhere the same tamarisks, the same reeds,
and--round about the six thousand hectares covered by the waters of
the Vaccares--always the same horizon lines, nowhere absolutely
unbroken, but almost everywhere festooned with clumps of tamarisks;
the mirage will always show you a pond gleaming in some spot of the
plain where none is to be found; and the fisherman, walking along the
shore, increases enormously in size as he recedes, because of the
refraction.
Sometimes the month of May is as hot in Camargue as August.
"Au mois de Mai
Va comme il te plait."
Livette was dazzled by the glare, and lowered her eyes to scan, with
her keen glance, the most distant clumps of tamarisks, to follow the
almost invisible ribbon of the cart-road that leads from the Vaccares
to Saintes-Maries. Her eyes are tired, and scorching in her head.
There is nothing in the landscape to give them rest.
Everywhere the treeless soil exhales a burning breath that rises in
visible vibrations. The spirit of the earth breaks its bonds and
hovers over her. She can see it ascending in hot waves. Her eyes
perceive the transparent undulations, the heat trembling in the cool
air, the very soul of the interior fire that trembles so to the sight
that one fancies he can hear it rustle. It is the never-ceasing dance
of the reflected light.
Weary of the glare of the plain, Livette turned toward the sea, but
the sea was simply an immense burnished mirror which flashed back at
the eyes, from the countless facets of its swiftly moving fragments,
the glow of the blazing sky multiplied beyond expression.
When she looked down once more upon the plain, she saw, about a league
away, a horseman trotting briskly toward the Saintes-Maries. By an
indefinable something in the bearing of that tiny speck she recognized
her Renaud.
So no harm had come to him!
She was on the point of going down again, when suddenly she forced
herself to bide a little there, to see what he would do when he
arrived.