There is to be a grand ball-game next Sunday, for the feast of Saint
Damasus, in the borough of Hasparitz.
Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, companions in continual expeditions through the
surrounding country, travelled for the entire day, in the little wagon
of the Detcharry family, in order to organize that ball-game, which to
them is a considerable event.
In the first place, they had to consult Marcos, one of the Iragola
brothers. Near a wood, in front of his house in the shade, they found
him seated on a stump of a chestnut tree, always grave and statuesque,
his eyes inspired and his gesture noble, in the act of making his little
brother, still in swaddling clothes, eat soup.
“Is he the eleventh?” they have asked, laughing.
“Oh! Go on!” the big eldest brother has replied, “the eleventh
is running already like a hare in the heather. This is number
twelve!--little John the Baptist, you know, the latest, who, I think,
will not be the last.”
And then, lowering their heads not to strike the branches, they had
traversed the woods, the forests of oaks under which extends infinitely
the reddish lace of ferns.
And they have traversed several villages also,--Basque villages, all
grouped around these two things which are the heart of them and which
symbolize their life: the church and the ball-game. Here and there, they
have knocked at the doors of isolated houses, tall and large houses,
carefully whitewashed, with green shades, and wooden balconies where are
drying in the sun strings of red peppers. At length they have talked,
in their language so closed to strangers of France, with the famous
players, the titled champions, the ones whose odd names have been seen
in all the journals of the southwest, on all the posters of Biarritz
or of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and who, in ordinary life, are honest country
inn-keepers, blacksmiths, smugglers, with waistcoat thrown over the
shoulder and shirt sleeves rolled on bronze arms.
Now that all is settled and that the last words have been exchanged,
it is too late to return that night to Etchezar; then, following their
errant habits, they select for the night a village which they like,
Zitzarry, for example, where they have gone often for their smuggling
business. At the fall of night, then, they turn toward this place, which
is near Spain. They go by the same little Pyrenean routes, shady and
solitary under the old oaks that are shedding their leaves, among slopes
richly carpeted with moss and rusty ferns. And now there are ravines
where torrents roar, and then heights from which appear on all sides the
tall, sombre peaks.
At first it was cold, a real cold, lashing the face and the chest. But
now gusts begin to pass astonishingly warm and perfumed with the scent
of plants: the southern wind, rising again, bringing back suddenly the
illusion of summer. And then, it becomes for them a delicious sensation
to go through the air, so brusquely changed, to go quickly under
the lukewarm breaths, in the noise of their horse's bells galloping
playfully in the mountains.
Zitzarry, a smugglers' village, a distant village skirting the frontier.
A dilapidated inn where, according to custom, the rooms for the men
are directly above the stables, the black stalls. They are well-known
travelers there, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, and while men are lighting
the fire for them they sit near an antique, mullioned window, which
overlooks the square of the ball-game and the church; they see the
tranquil, little life of the day ending in this place so separated from
the world.
On this solemn square, the children practice the national game; grave
and ardent, already strong, they throw their pelota against the wall,
while, in a singing voice and with the needful intonation, one of
them counts and announces the points, in the mysterious tongue of the
ancestors. Around them, the tall houses, old and white, with warped
walls, with projecting rafters, contemplate through their green or red
windows those little players, so lithe, who run in the twilight like
young cats. And the carts drawn by oxen return from the fields, with
the noise of bells, bringing loads of wood, loads of gorse or of dead
ferns--The night falls, falls with its peace and its sad cold. Then,
the angelus rings--and there is, in the entire village, a tranquil,
prayerful meditation--
Then Ramuntcho, silent, worries about his destiny, feels as if he were
a prisoner here, with his same aspirations always, toward something
unknown, he knows not what, which troubles him at the approach of night.
And his heart also fills up, because he is alone and without support in
the world, because Gracieuse is in a situation different from his and
may never be given to him.
But Arrochkoa, very brotherly this time, in one of his good moments,
slaps him on the shoulder as if he had understood his reverie, and says
to him in a tone of light gaiety:
“Well! it seems that you talked together, last night, sister and
you--she told me about it--and that you are both prettily agreed!--”
Ramuntcho lifts toward him a long look of anxious and grave
interrogation, which is in contrast with the beginning of their
conversation:
“And what do you think,” he asks, “of what we have said?”
“Oh, my friend,” replied Arrochkoa, become more serious also, “on my
word of honor, it suits me very well--And even, as I fear that there
shall be trouble with mother, I promise to help you if you need help--”
And Ramuntcho's sadness is dispelled as a little dust on which one has
blown. He finds the supper delicious, the inn gay. He feels himself
much more engaged to Gracieuse, now, when somebody is in the secret, and
somebody in the family who does not repulse him. He had a presentiment
that Arrochkoa would not be hostile to him, but his co-operation, so
clearly offered, far surpasses Ramuntcho's hope--Poor little abandoned
fellow, so conscious of the humbleness of his situation, that the
support of another child, a little better established in life, suffices
to return to him courage and confidence!