Eight o'clock in the evening. They have dined at the cider mill, all
the players except the vicar, under the patronage of Itchoua; they have
lounged for a long time afterward, languid in the smoke of smuggled
cigarettes and listening to the marvellous improvisations of the two
Iragola brothers, of the Mendiazpi mountain--while outside, on the
street, the girls in small groups holding one another's arms, looked at
the windows, found pleasure in observing on the smoky panes the round
shadows of the heads of the men covered with similar caps--
Now, on the square, the brass band plays the first measures of the
fandango, and the young men, the young girls, all those of the village
and several also of the mountain who have remained to dance, arrive in
impatient groups. There are some dancing already on the road, not to
lose anything.
And soon the fandango turns, turns, in the light of the new moon the
horns of which seem to pose, lithe and light, on the enormous and heavy
mountain. In the couples that dance without ever touching each other,
there is never a separation; before one another always and at an equal
distance, the boy and the girl make evolutions with a rhythmic grace, as
if they were tied together by some invisible magnet.
It has gone into hiding, the crescent of the moon, fallen, one would
think, in the black mountain; then lanterns are brought and hooked to
the trunks of the plane-trees and the young men can see better their
partners who, opposite them swing with an air of fleeing continually,
but without increasing their distance ever: almost all pretty, their
hair elegantly dressed, a kerchief on the neck, and wearing with
ease gowns in the fashion of to-day. The men, somewhat grave always,
accompany the music with snaps of their fingers in the air: shaven and
sunburnt faces to which labor in the fields, in smuggling or at sea,
has given a special thinness, almost ascetic; still, by the ampleness
of their brown necks, by the width of their shoulders, one divines their
great strength, the strength of that old, sober and religious race.
The fandango turns and oscillates, to the tune of an ancient waltz. All
the arms, extended and raised, agitate themselves in the air, rise or
fall with pretty, cadenced motions following the oscillations of bodies.
The rope soled sandals make this dance silent and infinitely light;
one hears only the frou-frou of gowns, and ever the snap of fingers
imitating the noise of castanets. With a Spanish grace, the girls, whose
wide sleeves expand like wings, swing their tightened waists above their
vigorous and supple hips--
Facing one another, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse said nothing at first,
captivated by the childish joy of moving quickly in cadence, to the
sound of music. It is very chaste, that manner of dancing without the
slightest touch of bodies.
But there were also, in the course of the evening, waltzes and
quadrilles, and even walks arm-in-arm during which the lovers could
touch each other and talk.
“Then, my Ramuntcho,” said Gracieuse, “it is of that game that you
expect to make your future, is it not?”
They were walking now arm-in-arm, under the plane-trees shedding their
leaves in the night of November, lukewarm as a night of May, during an
interval of silence when the musicians were resting.
“Yes,” replied Ramuntcho, “in our country it is a trade, like any other,
where one may earn a living, as long as strength lasts--and one may go
from time to time to South America, you know, as Irun and Gorosteguy
have done, and bring back twenty, thirty thousand francs for a season,
earned honestly at Buenos Ayres.”
“Oh, the Americas--” exclaimed Gracieuse in a joyful enthusiasm--“the
Americas, what happiness! It was always my wish to go across the sea to
those countries!--And we would look for your uncle Ignacio, then go to
my cousin, Bidegaina, who has a farm on the Uruguay, in the prairies--”
She ceased talking, the little girl who had never gone out of that
village which the mountains enclose; she stopped to think of these
far-off lands which haunted her young head because she had, like most
Basques, nomadic ancestors--folks who are called here Americans or
Indians, who pass their adventurous lives on the other side of the ocean
and return to the cherished village only very late, to die. And, while
she dreamed, her nose in the air, her eyes in the black of the clouds
and of the summits, Ramuntcho felt his blood running faster, his
heart beating quicker in the intense joy of what she had just said so
spontaneously. And, inclining his head toward her, he asked, as if to
jest, in a voice infinitely soft and childish:
“We would go? Is that what you said: we would go, you with me? This
signifies therefore that you would consent, a little later, when we
become of age, to marry me?”
He perceived through the darkness the gentle black light of Gracieuse's
eyes, which rose toward him with an expression of astonishment and of
reproach.
“Then--you did not know?”
“I wanted to make you say it, you see--You had never said it to me, do
you know?--”
He held tighter the arm of his little betrothed and their walk became
slower. It is true that they had never said it, not only because it
seemed to them that it was not necessary to say, but especially because
they were stopped at the moment of speaking by a sort of terror--the
terror of being mistaken about each other's sentiment--and now they
knew, they were sure. Then they had the consciousness of having passed
together the grave and solemn threshold of life. And, leaning on one
another, they faltered, almost, in their slackened promenade, like two
children intoxicated by youthfulness, joy and hope.
“But do you think your mother will consent?” said Ramuntcho timidly,
after the long, delightful silence--
“Ah, that is the trouble,” replied the little girl with a sigh of
anxiety--“Arrochkoa, my brother, will be for us, it is probable. But
mother?--Will mother consent?--But, it will not happen soon, in any
case--You have to serve in the army.”
“No, if you do not want me to! No, I need not serve! I am a Guipuzcoan,
like my mother; I shall be enrolled only if I wish to be--Whatever you
say, I'll do--”
“My Ramuntcho, I would like better to wait for you longer and that you
become naturalized, and that you become a soldier like the others. I
tell you this, since you ask--”
“Truly, is it what you wish? Well, so much the better. Oh, to be a
Frenchman or a Spaniard is indifferent to me. I shall do as you wish. I
like as well one as the other: I am a Basque like you, like all of us;
I care not for the rest! But as for being a soldier somewhere, on this
side of the frontier or on the other, yes, I prefer it. In the first
place, one who goes away looks as if he were running away; and then, it
would please me to be a soldier, frankly.”
“Well, my Ramuntcho, since it is all the same to you, serve as a soldier
in France, to please me.”
“It is understood, Gatchutcha!--You will see me wearing red trousers.
I shall call on you in the dress of a soldier, like Bidegarray, like
Joachim. As soon as I have served my three years, we will marry, if your
mother consents!”
After a moment of silence Gracieuse said, in a low, solemn voice:
“Listen, my Ramuntcho--I am like you: I am afraid of her--of my
mother--But listen--if she refuses, we shall do together anything,
anything that you wish, for this is the only thing in the world in which
I shall not obey her--”
Then, silence returned between them, now that they were engaged, the
incomparable silence of young joys, of joys new and not yet tried, which
need to hush, which need to meditate in order to understand themselves
better in their profoundness. They walked in short steps and at random
toward the church, in the soft obscurity which the lanterns troubled no
longer, intoxicated by their innocent contact and by feeling that they
were walking together in the path where no one had followed them--
But the noise of the brass instruments suddenly arose anew, in a sort
of slow waltz, oddly rhythmic. And the two children, at the fandango's
appeal, without having consulted each other, and as if it was a
compulsory thing which may not be disputed, ran, not to lose a moment,
toward the place where the couples were dancing. Quickly, quickly
placing themselves opposite each other, they began again to swing in
measure, without talking to each other, with the same pretty gestures
of their arms, the same supple motions of their hips. From time to
time, without loss of step or distance, both ran, in a direct line like
arrows. But this was only an habitual variation of the dance,--and, ever
in measure, quickly, as if they were gliding, they returned to their
starting point.
Gracieuse had in dancing the same passionate ardor as in praying at the
white chapels,--the same ardor which later doubtless, she would have in
embracing Ramuntcho when caresses between them would not be forbidden.
And at moments, at every fifth or sixth measure, at the same time as
her light and strong partner, she turned round completely, the bust bent
with Spanish grace, the head thrown backward, the lips half open on
the whiteness of the teeth, a distinguished and proud grace disengaging
itself from her little personality, still so mysterious, which to
Ramuntcho only revealed itself a little.
During all this beautiful evening of November, they danced before each
other, mute and charming, with intervals of promenade in which they
hardly talked--intoxicated in silence by the delicious thought with
which their minds were filled.
And, until the curfew rang in the church, this dance under the branches
of autumn, these little lanterns, this little festival in this corner
closed to the world, threw a little light and joyful noise into the vast
night which the mountains, standing everywhere like giants of shadow,
made more dumb and more black.