It was their last evening, for, the day before yesterday, at the Mayor's
office of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he had, with a hand trembling a little,
signed his engagement for three years in the Second naval infantry,
whose garrison was a military port of the North.
It was their last evening,--and they had said that they would make it
longer than usual,--it would last till midnight, Gracieuse had decided:
midnight, which in the villages is an unseasonable and black hour,
an hour after which, she did not know why, all seemed to the little
betrothed graver and guiltier.
In spite of the ardent desire of their senses, the idea had not come
to one nor to the other that, during this last meeting, under the
oppression of parting, something more might be attempted.
On the contrary, at the instant so full of concentration of their
farewell, they felt more chaste still, so eternal was their love.
Less prudent, however, since they had not to care for the morrow, they
dared to talk there, on their lovers' bench, as they had never done
before. They talked of the future, of a future which was for them very
distant, because, at their age, three years seem infinite.
In three years, at his return, she would be twenty; then, if her mother
persisted to refuse in an absolute manner, at the end of a year she
would use her right of majority, it was between them an agreed and a
sworn thing.
The means of correspondence, during the long absence of Ramuntcho,
preoccupied them a great deal: between them, everything was so
complicated by obstacles and secrets!--Arrochkoa, their only possible
intermediary, had promised his help; but he was so changeable, so
uncertain!--Oh, if he were to fail!--And then, would he consent to send
sealed letters?--If he did not consent there would be no pleasure in
writing.--In our time, when communications are easy and constant, there
are no more of these complete separations similar to the one which
theirs would be; they were to say to each other a very solemn farewell,
like the one which the lovers of other days said, the lovers of the
days when there were lands without post-offices, and distances that
frightened one. The fortunate time when they should see each other again
appeared to them situated far off, far off, in the depths of duration;
yet, because of the faith which they had in each other, they expected
this with a tranquil assurance, as the faithful expect celestial life.
But the least things of their last evening acquired in their minds
a singular importance; as this farewell came near, all grew and was
exaggerated for them, as happens in the expectation of death. The slight
sounds and the aspects of the night seemed to them particular and, in
spite of them, were engraving themselves forever in their memory. The
song of the crickets had a characteristic which it seemed to them they
had never heard before. In the nocturnal sonority, the barking of
a watch-dog, coming from some distant farm, made them shiver with a
melancholy fright. And Ramuntcho was to carry with him in his exile,
to preserve later with a desolate attachment, a certain stem of grass
plucked from the garden negligently and with which he had played
unconsciously the whole evening.
A phase of their life finished with that day: a lapse of time had
occurred, their childhood had passed--
Of recommendations, they had none very long to exchange, so intensely
was each one sure of what the other might do during the separation. They
had less to say to each other than other engaged people have, because
they knew mutually their most intimate thoughts. After the first hour
of conversation, they remained hand in hand in grave silence, while were
consumed the inexorable minutes of the end.
At midnight, she wished him to go, as she had decided in advance, in her
little thoughtful and obstinate head. Therefore, after having embraced
each other for a long time, they quitted each other, as if the
separation were, at this precise minute, an ineluctable thing which it
was impossible to retard. And while she returned to her room with
sobs that he heard, he scaled over the wall and, in coming out of the
darkness of the foliage, found himself on the deserted road, white with
lunar rays. At this first separation, he suffered less than she, because
he was going, because it was he that the morrow, full of uncertainty,
awaited. While he walked on the road, powdered and clear, the powerful
charm of change, of travel, dulled his sensitiveness; almost without any
precise thought, he looked at his shadow, which the moon made clear
and harsh, marching in front of him. And the great Gizune dominated
impassibly everything, with its cold and spectral air, in all this white
radiance of midnight.