resolution to her himself. At the thought of leaving Saintes-Maries
without _seeing her again_, for the purpose of telling her that he
would not _see her again_, a weary feeling came over him; it seemed to
him that he was suddenly shut up in a narrow space, and left there
without air, without horizon.--But he would see her again--he must. It
would be better so. Must he not soothe her anger first of all? She
would be angry enough in any event. Why exasperate her?--In very
truth, if he did see her again, it was--he reached this conclusion
after much thought--it was principally in order to protect poor
Livette against her! Yes, yes, it was for her sake that he would see
her again. See her again! At those words, which he repeated softly to
himself, a joy in living, in moving, in breathing, took possession of
him.
Meanwhile, Zinzara, for her part, was vowing inwardly that she would
enjoy a hearty laugh at the drover when he should presently seek her
out!
Why, in that case, had she answered _yes_ to his amorous questions?
Oh! because at the moment when he whispered them in her ear, if she
had been able, upon the spot, to give herself to this savage, all
aglow from his conflict with bulls and heifers, doubtless she would
have done it. He had awakened desire in her, as heat awakens thirst,
as a summer evening awakens longing for a bath.--And then it had given
her pleasure to say to herself that, over at the other end of the
arena, the woman to whom he had paid queenly honor by giving her the
smoking, red-hot iron, like the sceptre of a magician or a wicked
zingaro king,--that that woman was suffering torments.
But he came too late. The desire had passed away. And the acme of
delight to her now lay in the thought of refusing the promised favor
to the Christian she detested, while giving Livette to believe that he
had been false to her.
Sitting upon a stone, alone, at some distance from her wagon, she
awaited the drover. Her resolution to take vengeance by refusing was
written upon her compressed lips, whose smile became more malicious
than ever when she saw him riding toward her.
A few steps away he stopped. As he looked at her, he felt a sudden
rushing of the blood in all his veins, a strange, delicious pressure
at the pit of the stomach. He recognized the characteristic agitation
of love; but he made an effort, and said, in a voice which he felt to
be unsteady: "I expected to be free to-night, but I am not. The master
has sent for me, and I must be far away from here by night-fall. So I
must go at once. Adieu, gipsy!"
Zinzara understood instantly that he was running away from her, and
why!---- She rose, like the serpent that rises on its tail and hisses
with anger. All her harsh resolutions vanished in a twinkling; and, in
a short, sharp, jerky voice, entirely different from her natural
voice, she said: "I want you, do you hear? No one else shall give you
orders when I have orders for you. What I want done is done. Are you
going to act like a coward, pray--you, who have taken my fancy
because, when you are on your horse, you resemble a zingaro who knows
neither master nor God? Come, go on!"
Thus, the same motive of passionate hatred,--as pleasant to her taste
as love,--that a moment before induced her determination not to go
with Renaud, now threw her into his arms. And to him the love or
hatred of such a woman, at the moment when she gave herself to him,
was one and the same thing; were there not still her passion, her
animated features, her gleaming eyes, her lips that, as they moved,
disclosed two rows of pearly, sparkling teeth? Was there not her
flexible, ballet-dancer's body, significantly held out toward him to
whom she laid claim?
A thrill of savage joy shook Renaud from head to foot; and, as his
rider shuddered, as if he had been touched by a cramp-fish, the horse
seemed to experience a similar sensation, and pawed the ground an
instant, between the knees that involuntarily pressed closer to his
sides.
What was he to do? Ah! blessed saints! His betrothal had kept him
virtuous for a long while, you know; had held him aloof from the frail
damsels with whom he formerly consorted, and his youth was speaking
now. The sea-bull must have the wild heifer. Lions that have loved
gazelles, so says the Arabian legend, have died of it. Living
creatures, by the law of nature, crave paroxysms of passion; so long
as they have them not, they seek them; and pay for them, if need be,
with their own and others' blood. Who of us will blame them for
becoming delirious sometimes, if we remember that life longs to live,
and that that longing overshadows the fear of death?
"Come, go on!"
The queen uttered love's command. And with one bound she jumped to the
saddle behind him. In a twinkling she had wound her right arm about
the horseman's waist: "Go on!" she said again; and then, in an
undertone, in a voice that was no more than a warm, speaking breath
upon the man's neck, and made him shudder to the very roots of his
hair, she added: "I want you, do you understand? I want you! So go on,
go on! The man who goes on, arrives!"
He was caught, fast bound. The sorceress's arm was about his loins. He
felt it against him, living, trembling, stronger than aught else.
The stupefied Renaud tried to regain his self-control,--to shake off
the spell. He sat there, dazed, unable to disentangle his thoughts, to
determine what he should do, trying to collect his ideas of a moment
before, the good cure's advice, his word of honor, none of which could
he remember or repeat to himself in his mind, intelligibly. It had all
gone from him, out of reach of the effort of his memory. When an
intense amorous passion guides our movements, it is as legitimate as
physical force,--honor is not betrayed: it has ceased to exist!
Those few seconds of hesitation afforded Zinzara perfect comprehension
of what was taking place within him. His desire was no longer ardent
enough to satisfy her pride, since it was possible for him to waver
ever so little!
"Where are we going?" said she, resuming her sharp, jerky tone, in
which there was a suspicion of a hiss. "Where are we going? You must
know of a hiding-place somewhere, some deserted cabin in the midst of
your swamps here,--a perfectly safe place, all your own, where you
have taken other women--what do I care? _Pardi!_ I don't suppose that
you waited for me, to _learn_! I will go wherever you take me.
Remember this--it must be somewhere where nobody can find me, for my
race doesn't mix with yours: the zingara who gives herself to a
Christian is the only despised one among us, and if one of our people
should see me, there would be knives in the air, you may be sure, for
you and for me!"
He still hesitated, remembering that he had reasons for hesitation,
but unable to remember what they were. Mechanically he held back his
horse (it was Blanchet!), who was acting badly.
At last, in the hurly-burly of his thoughts, he seized, at random,
upon one thing he had entirely forgotten, the tapers promised by
Livette to the Saintes Maries. He was to have lighted them devoutly in
the church, during the night before or that morning. Yesterday his
fiancee had reminded him again of the promise. Doubtless, Livette had
lighted them for him, but that was not the same thing. And so the
devil had him, do what he would. He lost his head. He felt that he was
sliding down an inclined plane, and finding his struggles of no avail,
he abandoned himself to his fate and hastened his fall.
"I know where we will go," he said; "to the Conscript's Hut, in the
swamp."
It seemed to him that he was forced to reply, but he no longer felt
any internal revolt against that obligation--far otherwise.
"Is it far?"
"Yes, in Crau, on the other side of the Rhone, near the Icard farm.
The devil couldn't find me there. Rampal might come there, no one
else----"
"Wait," said she at that name, with a sudden gleam in her cat-like
eyes.
She whistled.
He said to himself that some one from Saintes-Maries would certainly
see them, and that Livette would learn the whole story--that it would
be better now to start at once.--Or perhaps--who knows?--the delay was
a good thing! Livette might pass, herself, and all would be changed.
He would hasten to her side. They would be saved. Who would be saved?
and from what? from a vague, terrible thing that was before him. He
could not have told what it was; but it was simply the renunciation of
his own will.
The gitana's clear, shrill whistle summoned a little zingaro of some
ten years, a veritable wild cat, who came running to the horse's side.
From the saddle she said a few words in the gipsy language to him, in
a short, imperative tone of command. The gipsy language is composed of
German, Coptic, Egyptian, and Sanscrit. Renaud listened without the
slightest suspicion of the meaning of the words.
In a fit of amorous hatred, the swarthy queen said to the little
fellow:
"You know Rampal, the drover? go and find him. He is in the village; I
saw him not long ago. Go at once and tell him this: he will find me
to-night, with his enemy, whom you see here, in the Conscript's Hut,
which he knows! And I will join you and the wagon to-morrow evening,
in the town of Arles, by the old tombs."
She thought of everything. The wild cat disappeared.
"What did you say to him?" Renaud inquired.
She began to laugh, an insolent laugh.
He felt that he abhorred her, that he would delight to see her
conquered, under his heel, absolutely in his power, gipsy queen and
sorceress that she was, like an ordinary woman.
Each desired the other in hatred.
She laughed as she thought that the man about whom her arms were
thrown like a lover she was luring to his destruction. That very
night--before or after the joys of love; what cared she for
that?--there would be between him and that other a struggle as of wild
beasts, which she longed to see; a witches' carnival of love, to
rejoice the souls of the dead; and she laughed.
"Queens," said she, "cannot leave their kingdoms without issuing
secret orders. Come, my beast!"
Was she speaking to the man or the horse?--To the man, doubtless, in
whom she had awakened an animal like herself.
She pressed him tighter, and again she whispered:
"Come, come!"
He felt the vampire's breath playing in the short hair on his neck and
descending in hot flushes to his feet, which were nervously tapping
his horse's flanks. Renaud trembled. His passion had taken possession
of him once more in all its intensity. It seemed as if a hurricane
were raging in man and horse alike. They started off at full speed.
Renaud believed that he had a victim in his grasp, but he was himself
the victim, and he rode away with the witch clinging fast to him--as
the kite sometimes flies away with the serpent, thinking that he has
mastered it, only to be strangled in its folds at last.
XXI
HERODIAS
They galloped across the plain. At every step, Renaud felt the gentle
pressure of the woman's arm. Zinzara and Renaud galloped away upon
Livette's horse!
Of what was the drover thinking? Was she girl or woman? His pride made
him persist, in spite of himself, in wishing that she might be the
former, although it seemed hardly probable, heathen females mature so
early!
A breath of air blew in their faces. It brought to their nostrils the
pungent smell of tamarisk blossoms. He slackened his horse's pace.
"Go on, go on!" said she, "press on! We will talk later--by ourselves,
romi, where nobody can see us."
The horse darted forward afresh.
Renaud was conscious of a vague yet overmastering feeling of pride in
being there, in trampling the grass of the plain with four feet, in
knowing no obstacles, in having that woman close beside him--and, over
yonder, another!
One would run risks and be false to the traditions of her race for
his sake. The other, if she should know, might die of the knowledge.
And, although he loved her, the thought caused a thrill of savage joy,
but he promptly repressed it. Luckily, however, she would know nothing
of it. And he became intoxicated with the rapid movement and with
pride, man and beast combined, fairly launched upon his mad career.
Magnificent was the sky, studded with more stars than the dunes have
grains of sand and the desert waving flowers clinging to the twigs of
the _saladelles_. The Milky-Way was as white as the pyramids of salt
seen through the morning mist. One would have said that a vast bridal
veil, torn in strips, was floating above the whole plain, alive with
murmurs of love.
Innumerable little snails were perched, like blossoms, upon the stalks
of the reeds, and swung to and fro.
A very gentle breeze was blowing and raising a slight, uncertain
ripple along the edges of the marsh, with the sound of a furtive kiss
among the flowering rushes. At times, a lark or a flamingo, asleep
among the reeds or in the shallow water, would awaken ever so little
and chirp to let his mate know that he was there, not far away.
June is no hotter. Sometimes the smell of roses filled their nostrils,
coming in long puffs from far-off gardens. Yonder, in the park of the
Chateau d'Avignon, the Syrian tree was sending forth its pollen.
Renaud, after skirting the sea for some distance, rode due northeast,
beyond the pond of La Dame.
He was bound for Grand-Patis. The people at Sambuc had some boats that
he knew of.
For a moment, they rode beside a drove. Bulls, standing in water up to
their thighs, hardly noticed, were feeding on the flowering reeds.
White mares fled at their approach, followed faithfully by stallions
anxious not to lose sight of them. The sap of May was flowing in the
reeds and rushes, in the sambucus and tamarisk. The very water exhaled
a saline odor, stronger than usual, and more heavily laden with
desires. The wild vine called to its mate, that came borne upon the
heavy breath of the blooming desert.
Again Renaud stopped, seized with a mild, pleasurable vertigo.
The fresh, love-compelling breeze in which they were bathed laid an
imperious command upon him.
"Get down," said he, "get down at once! This is a good place to rest."
But she remembered the order she had given.
"We must go where we were going," said she. "I will not get down until
we are there. We must cross the Rhone, you say? Press on, press
on!--Gallop! The gipsy loves the horse."
She would have none of his caresses except at the place appointed. She
would not submit to him until they should be where he was, by her
agency, in danger of death or suffering. A kiss under other
circumstances would be a triumph for him, and she gave herself to him
for her own pleasure alone. She desired to feel, in the interchange of
caresses, that the moisture of her lips was poison, that her bite
would cause death or madness.
Firmly seated _en croupe_, still clinging fast to the drover--her
victim--with her arm wound about him, her bare legs hanging in the
folds of her skirt which the wind raised as they sped along, with her
head thrown proudly back, she swayed gracefully with the rocking
motion of the gallop; and her face, which had a sallow look in the
moonlight against the neck of the man whom she was leading astray,
albeit she seemed to be carried away by him--her face was wreathed in
smiles.
When Herodias had obtained the head of John the Baptist, she lifted it
by the hair from the gold charger, whereon it lay with a circle of
blood around the neck, raised it to the level of her face, and after
gazing upon it with deep interest, examining the closed eyelids and
long lashes and the transparent pallor of the cheeks, she suddenly
placed her mouth upon that lifeless mouth and sought to force her
tongue between the lips to the cold teeth too tightly closed in death,
esteeming that kiss, inflicted on her dead foe, more delicious than
the incestuous caresses for which he had reproved her.
What was left of Renaud's suspicions of Zinzara, while she was smiling
in the darkness, and the warm breath from her lips was playing upon
his neck? He had ceased to reflect; he rode on. He willingly postponed
the longed-for hour, now that he was forced to go on. He thought no
more of violence. His happiness was secure. He could wait. In the
midst of the deserted plains, still warm from the sunlight though
refreshed by the night air, love came without calling, but he enjoyed
the anticipation more than anything he had known.--And then she might
escape him even now. He must be careful not to startle her. When they
reached the nest yonder, he would keep her there some time. And so he
rode on, inhaling the saline air of the desert, which was his--with
his stallion's four shoeless feet trampling through the sand and
water, which were his also--bound for the horizon, which would soon be
his.
Once, however, in the midst of a swamp, where the water was above his
horse's knees, he stopped again.
"What is it?" said she.
Renaud turned his head, and throwing himself back, called her with a
smacking of his lips.
"When I am ready!" said Zinzara in a mocking tone.
As she spoke, Blanchet leaped forward, with all four feet in the air,
and made a tremendous splashing in the water, which fell about their
heads in a heavy shower.
And, unseen by Renaud, the gipsy smiled against his neck, as she
replaced in her hair the long gold pin she had plunged into the
beast's flank.
Suddenly there was a shout of _Qui vive?_ directly in front of them,
so unexpected in the solitude, that Blanchet jumped again.
"_Qui vive?_" the voice repeated.
"The king!" Renaud replied gaily.
"Ah! is it you, Renaud?"
It was the revenue officers; but Renaud hurried by, at a safe
distance, so that they might not recognize the gitana.
They were near the salt spring of Badon. The rectangular heaps of salt
seemed like so many long, low houses, with sharp roofs. In its
shroud-like whiteness the spot resembled a little town, geometrically
laid out, asleep under dead snow.
They reached the shore of the main stream of the Rhone.
Zinzara was on the ground before Renaud had stopped his horse.
He alighted in his turn, and handed the rein to the gipsy. She held
Blanchet while he was drinking in the river.
"Now for some oats!" said Renaud.
He took a small sack that was fastened across his saddle-bow, from
holster to holster, and at Zinzara's suggestion emptied it into her
dress which she held up with both hands.
Poor, poor Blanchet! there was only a handful of grain.
"Wait for me; I'll go to find the boat."
Renaud disappeared in the darkness behind the reeds and willows that
grew along the bank, drowned in the mist, floating like pallid
spectres in the darkness.
Zinzara heard nothing save the plashing of the water, and the
crunching of the oats between Blanchet's teeth, as he swept them up
with his long lip from the hollow of the dress.--Oh! if Livette could
have seen that!
"Here I am, come!" said Renaud's voice.
He approached, raising the oars. She walked to the water's edge.
"Hold the reins fast. The horse will follow us."
She stepped into the boat and stood in the stern. Blanchet followed,
in the wake.
Renaud knew the current at that spot. He rowed diagonally across and
reached the other shore more than a hundred yards farther down.
He tied the boat to the trunk of a willow and tightened the girths,
and they were off again.
It was necessary to ascend the stream a long distance to find a place
to ford the canal that runs from Arles to Port-le-Bouc. When they had
crossed the canal, he said:
"We are almost there."
They had ridden nearly five hours.
His desires were approaching fruition. He was seized with the
impatience that comes with the last half-hour. He had a vision of what
was to come.
"It is in the _gargate_," he said. And he explained: "The _gargate_ is
like thickened water. It is about the same as mud. The cabin we are
going to is in the midst of one of these patches of mud. Ah! we shall
be well protected there, gitana, I promise you. A man once lived there
for a long while; a conscript who wanted to evade the draft. And
later, an escaped convict, a native of the neighborhood, who knew
about the place. No one could dislodge him there. Others know the
spot; but never fear, I have a way to fool them. Trust me, gitana, we
shall be well guarded there, by death hidden in the water around us!"
They reached their destination.
Renaud tied his horse to a tree, and took Zinzara's hand.
"Follow me," he said.
The moon was rising. With the end of a stick, he pointed out to her,
just above the surface of the water, the heads of the stakes, looming
black among the stalks of thorn-broom and reeds and the broad,
spreading leaves of the water-lily.
"Always step to the left of the stakes," he said; "they mark the
right-hand edge of the solid path just below the surface of the
water."
Renaud had taken off his shoes and stockings. She lifted her skirts
and walked with bare legs, and he held her hand. They walked thus for
some time. Her interest was aroused by her surroundings. The place
pleased her.
The water was disturbed a little here and there. She stopped and
watched.
"Turtles," said he; and added: "Here is the cabin."
The cabin stood in the midst of the bog, built on piles, as was the
path leading to it. Reeds and a few tamarisks surrounded it, and made
it invisible from almost every direction. On the gray, thatched roof,
shaped like a hay-stack, the little cross gleamed in the moonlight,
bent back as if the wind had tried to blow it down.
The back of the cabin was turned to the _mistral_. They entered.
Renaud took a candle from his wallet and struck a match. The light
danced upon the walls.
The low walls were of grayish mud, set in a rough frame-work. The
floor was covered with a bed of reeds. A cotton cloth, to keep out the
gnats, hung before the door. There was a stationary table against the
wall at the right, near the head of the bed; it was a flat stone
supported by four pieces of timber fastened to the floor.
Renaud set his candle down on the stone. The gitana, already seated on
the rough bed, watched him with a savage look in her eyes. She began
to feel that she was a little too much in his power, that it was a
little too much like being under his roof.
The cabin was like all the cabins in the district. From the ceiling
bunches of reed blossoms hung like waving silver plumes. The big
cross-timbers of the ceiling were pinned together with wooden pegs,
the large ends of which projected, and some few scraps of worn-out
clothes were still hanging from them. There was a fire-place in one
corner, made of large stones placed side by side, and in the roof,
directly above it, was a hole for the smoke.
Renaud hung his wallet on one of the pegs.
"Now, wait for me," he said, with a loud laugh, "I'm going out to
attend to the horse."
She was surprised, but after she had glanced at him, she could think
of nothing but Rampal.
He went out to Blanchet, removed the saddle and laid it on the ground,
then mounted him, bareback, and rode him to a pasture some distance
away, where he hobbled him and left him.
A quarter of an hour later, Renaud returned, with his saddle across
his shoulders, to the cabin where Zinzara was awaiting him. But, as he
walked along the solid path, a black ribbon covered by a sheet of
shallow water, he took up the stakes that marked one edge of the path,
and moved them from the right side to the left;--so that, if that
beggarly Rampal, the only man likely to follow him to that lair, chose
to come there, he certainly would not go far, but would remain there,
buried up to his neck at least!
When he had changed the position of the first twenty stakes, the only
ones visible from the shore of the bog, Renaud stood up and walked
swiftly toward the cabin. His heart at that moment was sad, and more
filled with slime and noxious things than the waters of the swamp,
which, though they glistened in the moonlight, were black beneath the
surface.
XXII
IN THE NEST
In the contracted cage, whose thatched roof, with its peak of red
tiles, shone in the moonlight amid the marsh plants, the two beasts of
the same species, Zinzara and Renaud, were shut up together.
"I am hungry," said she, in a hostile tone.
He took a tin box from his wallet and raised the cover; it contained
the wherewithal to support life; he cut the bread and uncorked the
bottle.
She ate silently, still with the savage look in her eyes. He waited
upon her, partaking also of the dry bread himself, and putting his
lips to the flat bottle, filled with the strong wine of the wild
grape.
When they had eaten, he handed her a small flask of brandy. She drank
from it, joyfully, and soon her eyes began to sparkle. He looked at
her, ready to embrace her. She answered him with a glance so mocking
and unfathomable, that he hesitated, waiting for he knew not what,
weary besides, and feeling that his brain was confused.
He saw her thereupon take her tambourine, which she wore fastened to
her belt by a small cord, under her dress; and she began to play upon
it. She was sitting on the bed. She struck regular, monotonous blows
upon the vibrating skin, and at every blow the charms depending from
the tambourine jangled noisily.