The next day, Sunday, they went together religiously to hear one of the
masses of the clear morning, in order to return to Etchezar the same
day, immediately after the grand ball-game. It was this return, much
more than the game, that interested Gracieuse and Ramuntcho, for it
was their hope that Pantchika and her mother would remain at Erribiague
while they would go, pressed against each other, in the very small
carriage of the Detcharry family, under the indulgent and slight
watchfulness of Arrochkoa, five or six hours of travel, all three
alone, on the spring roads, under the new foliage, with amusing halts in
unknown villages--
At eleven o'clock in the morning, on that beautiful Sunday, the square
was encumbered by mountaineers come from all the summits, from all
the savage, surrounding hamlets. It was an international match,
three players of France against three of Spain, and, in the crowd of
lookers-on, the Spanish Basques were more numerous; there were large
sombreros, waistcoats and gaiters of the olden time.
The judges of the two nations, designated by chance, saluted each
other with a superannuated politeness, and the match began, in profound
silence, under an oppressive sun which annoyed the players, in spite of
their caps, pulled down over their eyes.
Ramuntcho soon, and after him Arrochkoa, were acclaimed as victors. And
people looked at the two little strangers, so attentive, in the first
row, so pretty also with their elegant pink waists, and people said:
“They are the sweethearts of the two good players.” Then Gracieuse, who
heard everything, felt proud of Ramuntcho.
Noon. They had been playing for almost an hour. The old wall, with its
summit curved like a cupola, was cracking from dryness and from heat,
under its paint of yellow ochre. The grand Pyrenean masses, nearer here
than at Etchezar, more crushing and more high, dominated from everywhere
these little, human groups, moving in a deep fold of their sides. And
the sun fell straight on the heavy caps of the men, on the bare heads
of the women, heating the brains, increasing enthusiasm. The passionate
crowd yelled, and the pelotas were flying, when, softly, the angelus
began to ring. Then an old man, all wrinkled, all burned, who was
waiting for this signal, put his mouth to the clarion--his old clarion
of a Zouave in Africa--and rang the call to rest. And all, the women who
were seated rose; all the caps fell, uncovering hair black, blonde
or white, and the entire people made the sign of the cross, while the
players, with chests and foreheads streaming with perspiration, stopped
in the heat of the game and stood in meditation with heads bent--
At two o'clock, the game having come to an end gloriously for the
French, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho went in their little wagon, accompanied
and acclaimed by all the young men of Erribiague; then Gracieuse sat
between the two, and they started for their long, charming trip, their
pockets full of the gold which they had earned, intoxicated by their
joy, by the noise and by the sunlight.
And Ramuntcho, who retained the taste of yesterday's kiss, felt like
shouting to them: “This little girl who is so pretty, as you see, is
mine! Her lips are mine, I had them yesterday and will take them again
to-night!”
They started and at once found silence again, in the shaded valleys
bordered by foxglove and ferns--
To roll for hours on the small Pyrenean roads, to change places almost
every day, to traverse the Basque country, to go from one village
to another, called here by a festival, there by an adventure on the
frontier--this was now Ramuntcho's life, the errant life which the
ball-game made for him in the day-time and smuggling in the night-time.
Ascents, descents, in the midst of a monotonous display of verdure.
Woods of oaks and of beeches, almost inviolate, and remaining as they
were in the quiet centuries.--When he passed by some antique house,
hidden in these solitudes of trees, he stopped to enjoy reading, above
the door, the traditional legend inscribed in the granite: “Ave Maria!
in the year 1600, or in the year 1500, such a one, from such a village,
has built this house, to live in it with such a one, his wife.”
Very far from all human habitation, in a corner of a ravine, where
it was warmer than elsewhere, sheltered from all breezes, they met a
peddler of holy images, who was wiping his forehead. He had set down
his basket, full of those colored prints with gilt frames that represent
saints with Euskarian legends, and with which the Basques like to adorn
their old rooms with white walls. And he was there, exhausted from
fatigue and heat, as if wrecked in the ferns, at a turn of those little,
mountain routes which run solitary under oaks.
Gracieuse came down and bought a Holy Virgin.
“Later,” she said to Ramuntcho, “we shall put it in our house as a
souvenir--”
And the image, dazzling in its gold frame, went with them under the
long, green vaults--
They went out of their path, for they wished to pass by a certain valley
of the Cherry-trees, not in the hope of finding cherries in it, in
April, but to show to Gracieuse the place, which is renowned in the
entire Basque country.
It was almost five o'clock, the sun was already low, when they reached
there. It was a shaded and calm region, where the spring twilight
descended like a caress on the magnificence of the April foliage. The
air was cool and suave, fragrant with hay, with acacia. Mountains--very
high, especially toward the north, to make the climate there softer,
surrounded it on all sides, investing it with a melancholy mystery of
closed Edens.
And, when the cherry-trees appeared, they were a gay surprise, they were
already red.
There was nobody on these paths, above which the grand cherry-trees
extended like a roof, their branches dripping with coral.
Here and there were some summer houses, still uninhabited, some deserted
gardens, invaded by the tall grass and the rose bushes.
Then, they made their horse walk; then, each one in his turn,
transferring the reins and standing in the wagon, amused himself by
eating these cherries from the trees while passing by them and without
stopping. Afterward, they placed bouquets of them in their buttonholes,
they culled branches of them to deck the horse's head, the harness and
the lantern. The equipage seemed ornamented for some festival of youth
and of joy--
“Now let us hurry,” said Gracieuse. “If only it be light enough, at
least, when we reach Etchezar, for people to see us pass, ornamented as
we are!”
As for Ramuntcho, he thought of the meeting place in the evening, of the
kiss which he would dare to repeat, similar to that of yesterday, taking
Gracieuse's lip between his lips like a cherry--