At twilight, Franchita was returning from escorting her son and was
trying to regain her habitual face, her air of haughty indifference, to
pass through the village.
But, when she arrived in front of the Detcharry house, she saw Dolores
who, instead of going in, as she intended, turned round and stood at the
door to see her pass. Something new, some sudden revelation must
have impelled her to take this attitude of aggressive defiance, this
expression of provoking irony,--and Franchita then stopped, she also,
while this phrase, almost involuntary, came through her set teeth:
“What is the matter with that woman? Why does she look at me so--”
“He will not come to-night, the lover, will he?” responded the enemy.
“Then you knew that he came here to see your daughter?”
In truth, Dolores knew this since the morning: Gracieuse had told her,
since no care needed to be taken of the morrow; Gracieuse had told
it wearily, after talking uselessly of Uncle Ignacio, of Ramuntcho's
future, of all that would serve their cause--
“Then you knew that he came here to see your daughter?”
By a reminiscence of other times, they regained instinctively their
theeing and thouing of the sisters' school, those two women who for
nearly twenty years had not addressed a word to each other. Why they
detested each other, they hardly knew; so many times, it begins thus,
with nothings, with jealousies, with childish rivalries, and then, at
length, by dint of seeing each other every day without talking to each
other, by dint of casting at each other evil looks, it ferments till it
becomes implacable hatred.--Here they were, facing each other, and their
two voices trembled with rancor, with evil emotion:
“Well,” replied the other, “you knew it before I did, I suppose, you who
are without shame and sent him to our house!--Anyway, one can understand
your easiness about means, after what you have done in the past--”
And, while Franchita, naturally much more dignified, remained mute,
terrified now by this unexpected dispute on the street, Dolores
continued:
“No. My daughter marrying that penniless bastard, think of it!--”
“Well, I have the idea that she will marry him, in spite of
everything!--Try to propose to her a man of your choice and see--”
Then, as if she disdained to continue, she went on her way, hearing
behind her the voice and the insults of the other pursuing her. All her
limbs trembled and she faltered at every step on her weakened legs.
At the house, now empty, what sadness she found!
The reality of this separation, which would last for three years,
appeared to her under an aspect frightfully new, as if she had hardly
been prepared for it--even as, on one's return from a graveyard, one
feels for the first time, in its frightful integrity, the absence of the
cherished dead--
And then, those words of insult in the street, those words the more
crushing because she was cruelly conscious of her sin with the stranger!
Instead of passing by, as she should have done, how had she found the
courage to stop before her enemy and, by a phrase murmured between her
teeth, provoke this odious dispute? How could she have descended to such
a thing, forgotten herself thus, she who, for fifteen years, had imposed
herself, little by little, on the respect of all by her demeanor, so
perfectly dignified. Oh, to have attracted and to have suffered the
insult of that Dolores,--whose past was irreproachable and who had, in
effect, the right to treat her with contempt! When she reflected, she
became frightened more and more by that sort of defiance of the future
which she had had the imprudence to hurl; it seemed to her that she
had compromised the cherished hope of her son in exasperating thus the
hatred of that woman.
Her son!--her Ramuntcho, whom a wagon was carrying away from her at this
hour in the summer night, was carrying away from her to a long distance,
to danger, to war!--She had assumed very heavy responsibilities in
directing his life with ideas of her own, with stubbornness, with pride,
with selfishness.--And now, this evening, she had, perhaps, attracted
misfortune to him, while he was going away so confident in the joy of
his return!--This would be doubtless for her the supreme chastisement;
she seemed to hear, in the air of the empty house, something like a
threat of this expiation, she felt its slow and sure approach.
Then, she said for him her prayers, from a heart harshly revolted,
because religion, as she understood it, remained without sweetness,
without consolation, without anything confidential and tender. Her
distress and her remorse were, at this moment, of so sombre a nature
that tears, benevolent tears, came no longer to her--
And he, at this same instant of the night, continued to descend, through
darker valleys, toward the lowland where the trains pass--carrying away
men to a long distance, changing and upsetting all things. For about an
hour he would continue to be on Basque soil; then, it would end. Along
his route, he met some oxcarts, of indolent demeanor, recalling the
tranquillities of the olden time; or vague human silhouettes, hailing
him with the traditional goodnight, the antique “Gaou-one,” which
to-morrow he would cease to hear. And beyond, at his left, in the depth
of a sort of black abyss, was the profile of Spain, Spain which, for a
very long time doubtless, would trouble his nights no longer--
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Three years have passed, rapidly.
Franchita is alone at home, ill and in bed, at the end of a November
day.--And it is the third autumn since her son's departure.
In her hands, burning with fever, she holds a letter from him, a letter
which should have brought only joy without a cloud, since it announces
his return, but which causes in her, on the contrary, tormented
sentiments, for the happiness of seeing him again is poisoned now by
sadness, by worry especially, by frightful worry--
Oh, she had an exact presentiment of the sombre future, that night when,
returning from escorting him on the road to departure, she returned to
her house with so much anguish, after that sort of defiance hurled at
Dolores on the street: it was cruelly true that she had broken then
forever her son's life--!
Months of waiting and of apparent calm had followed that scene, while
Ramuntcho, far from his native land, was beginning his military service.
Then, one day, a wealthy suitor had presented himself for Gracieuse and
she, to the entire village's knowledge, had rejected him obstinately in
spite of Dolores's will. Then, they had suddenly gone away, the mother
and the daughter, pretexting a visit to relatives in the highland; but
the voyage had been prolonged; a mystery more and more singular had
enveloped this absence,--and suddenly the rumor had come that Gracieuse
was a novice among the sisters of Saint Mary of the Rosary, in a
convent of Gascony where the former Mother Superior of Etchezar was the
abbess--!
Dolores had reappeared alone in her home, mute, with a desolate and evil
air. None knew what influence had been exercised over the little girl
with the golden hair, nor how the luminous doors of life had been closed
before her, how she had permitted herself to be walled in that tomb;
but, as soon as the period of novitiate had been accomplished, without
seeing even her brother, she had taken her vows there, while Ramuntcho,
in a far-off colonial war, ever distant from the post-offices of France,
among the forests of a Southern island, won the stripes of a sergeant
and a military medal.
Franchita had been almost afraid that he would never return, her
son.--But at last, he was coming back. Between her fingers, thin and
warm, she held the letter which said: “I start day after to-morrow and
I will be with you Saturday night.” But what would he do, at his return,
what would he make of his life, so sadly changed? In his letters, he had
obstinately refrained from writing of this.
Anyway, everything had turned against her. The farmers, her tenants,
had left Etchezar, leaving the barn empty, the house more lonely,
and naturally her modest income was much diminished. Moreover, in
an imprudent investment, she had lost a part of the money which the
stranger had given for her son. Truly, she was too unskilful a mother,
compromising in every way the happiness of her beloved Ramuntcho,--or
rather, she was a mother upon whom justice from above fell heavily
to-day, because of her past error.--And all this had vanquished her, all
this had hastened and aggravated the malady which the physician, called
too late, did not succeed in checking.
Now, therefore, waiting for the return of her son, she was stretched on
her bed, burning with fever.
CHAPTER II.
He was returning, Ramuntcho, after his three years of absence,
discharged from the army in that city of the North where his regiment
was in garrison. He was returning with his heart in disarray, with his
heart in a tumult and in distress.
His twenty-two year old face had darkened under the ardent sun; his
mustache, now very long, gave him an air of proud nobility. And, on
the lapel of the civilian coat which he had just bought, appeared the
glorious ribbon of his medal.
At Bordeaux, where he had arrived after a night of travel, he had taken
a place, with some emotion, in that train of Irun which descends in a
direct line toward the South, through the monotony of the interminable
moors. Near the right door he had installed himself in order to
see sooner the Bay of Biscay open and the highlands of Spain sketch
themselves.
Then, near Bayonne, he had been startled at the sight of the first
Basque caps, at the tall gates, the first Basque houses among the pines
and the oaks.
And at Saint-Jean-de-Luz at last, when he set foot on the soil, he
had felt like one drunk--After the mist and the cold already begun
in Northern France, he felt the sudden and voluptuous impression of
a warmer climate, the sensation of going into a hothouse. There was a
festival of sunlight that day; the southern wind, the exquisite southern
wind, blew, and the Pyrenees had magnificent tints on the grand, free
sky. Moreover, girls passed, whose laughter rang of the South and of
Spain, who had the elegance and the grace of the Basques--and who,
after the heavy blondes of the North, troubled him more than all these
illusions of summer.--But promptly he returned to himself: what was he
thinking of, since that regained land was to him an empty land forever?
How could his infinite despair be changed by that tempting gracefulness
of the girls, by that ironical gaiety of the sky, the human beings and
the things?--No! He would go home, embrace his mother--!
As he had expected, the stage-coach to Etchezar had left two hours
ago. But, without trouble, he would traverse on foot this long road so
familiar to him and arrive in the evening, before night.
So he went to buy sandals, the foot-gear of his former runs. And, with
the mountaineer's quick step, in long, nervous strides, he plunged at
once into the heart of the silent country, through paths which were for
him full of memories.
November was coming to an end in the tepid radiance of that sun which
lingers always here for a long time, on the Pyrenean slopes. For days,
in the Basque land, had lasted this same luminous and pure sky, above
woods half despoiled of their leaves, above mountains reddened by the
ardent tint of the ferns. From the borders of the paths ascended tall
grasses, as in the month of May, and large, umbellated flowers, mistaken
about the season; in the hedges, privets and briars had come into bloom
again, in the buzz of the last bees; and one could see flying persistent
butterflies, to whom death had given several weeks of grace.
The Basque houses appeared here and there among the trees,--very
elevated, the roof protruding, white in their extreme oldness, with
their shutters brown or green, of a green ancient and faded. And
everywhere, on their wooden balconies were drying the yellow gold
pumpkins, the sheafs of pink peas; everywhere, on their walls, like
beautiful beads of coral, were garlands of red peppers: all the things
of the soil still fecund, all the things of the old, nursing soil,
amassed thus in accordance with old time usage, in provision for the
darkened months when the heat departs.
And, after the mists of the Northern autumn, that limpidity of the
air, that southern sunlight, every detail of the land, awakened in the
complex mind of Ramuntcho infinite vibrations, painfully sweet.
It was the tardy season when are cut the ferns that form the fleece
of the reddish hills. And, large ox-carts filled with them rolled
tranquilly, in the beautiful, melancholy sun, toward the isolated farms,
leaving on their passage the trail of their fragrance. Very slowly,
through the mountain paths, went these enormous loads of ferns; very
slowly, with sounds of cow-bells. The harnessed oxen, indolent and
strong,--all wearing the traditional head-gear of sheepskin, fallow
colored, which gives to them the air of bisons or of aurochs, pulled
those heavy carts, the wheels of which are solid disks, like those of
antique chariots. The cowboys, holding the long stick in their hands,
marched in front, always noiselessly, in sandals, the pink cotton shirt
revealing the chest, the waistcoat thrown over the left shoulder--and
the woolen cap drawn over a face shaven, thin, grave, to which the
width of the jaws and of the muscles of the neck gives an expression of
massive solidity.
Then, there were intervals of solitude when one heard, in these paths,
only the buzz of flies, in the yellowed and finishing shade of the
trees.
Ramuntcho looked at them, at these rare passers-by who crossed his road,
surprised at not meeting somebody he knew who would stop before him.
But there were no familiar faces. And the friends whom he met were
not effusive, there were only vague good-days exchanged with folks who
turned round a little, with an impression of having seen him sometime,
but not recalling when, and fell back into the humble dream of the
fields.--And he felt more emphasized than ever the primary differences
between him and those farm laborers.
Over there, however, comes one of those carts whose sheaf is so big that
branches of oaks in its passage catch it. In front, walks the driver,
with a look of soft resignation, a big, peaceful boy, red as the ferns,
red as the autumn, with a reddish fur in a bush on his bare chest; he
walks with a supple and nonchalant manner, his arms extended like those
of a cross on his goad, placed across his shoulders. Thus, doubtless, on
these same mountains, marched his ancestors, farm laborers and cowboys
like him since numberless centuries.
And this one, at Ramuntcho's aspect, touches the forehead of his oxen,
stops them with a gesture and a cry of command, then comes to the
traveller, extending to him his brave hands.--Florentino! A Florentino
much changed, having squarer shoulders, quite a man now, with an assured
and fixed demeanor.
The two friends embrace each other. Then, they scan each other's faces
in silence, troubled suddenly by the wave of reminiscences which come
from the depth of their minds and which neither the one nor the other
knows how to express; Ramuntcho, not better than Florentino, for, if his
language be infinitely better formed, the profoundness and the mystery
of his thoughts are also much more unfathomable.
And it oppresses them to conceive things which they are powerless to
tell; then their embarrassed looks return absent-mindedly to the two
beautiful, big oxen:
“They are mine, you know,” says Florentino. “I was married two
years ago.--My wife works. And, by working--we are beginning to get
along.--Oh!” he adds, with naive pride, “I have another pair of oxen
like these at the house.”
Then he ceases to talk, flushing suddenly under his sunburn, for he has
the tact which comes from the heart, which the humblest possess often by
nature, but which education never gives, even to the most refined people
in the world: considering the desolate return of Ramuntcho, his broken
destiny, his betrothed buried over there among the black nuns, his
mother dying, Florentino is afraid to have been already too cruel in
displaying too much his own happiness.
Then the silence returned; they looked at each other for an instant
with kind smiles, finding no words. Besides, between them, the abyss
of different conceptions has grown deeper in these three years. And
Florentino, touching anew the foreheads of his oxen, makes them march
again with a call of his tongue, and presses tighter the hand of his
friend:
“We shall see each other again, shall we not?”
And the noise of the cow-bells is soon lost in the calm of the road more
shady, where begins to diminish the heat of the day--
“Well, he has succeeded in life, that one!” thinks Ramuntcho
lugubriously, continuing his walk under the autumn branches--
The road which he follows ascends, hollowed here and there by springs
and sometimes crossed by big roots of oaks.
Soon Etchezar will appear to him and, before seeing it, the image of
it becomes more and more precise in him, recalled and enlivened in his
memory by the aspect of the surroundings.
Empty now, all this land, where Gracieuse is no more, empty and sad as
a beloved home where the great Reaper has passed!--And yet Ramuntcho, in
the depths of his being, dares to think that, in some small convent over
there, under the veil of a nun, the cherished black eyes still exist and
that he will be able at least to see them; that taking the veil is not
quite like dying, and that perhaps the last word of his destiny has not
been said irrevocably.--For, when he reflects, what can have changed
thus the soul of Gracieuse, formerly so uniquely devoted to him?--Oh,
terrible, foreign pressure, surely--And then, when they come face to
face again, who knows?--When they talk, with his eyes in her eyes?--But
what can he expect that is reasonable and possible?--In his native land
has a nun ever broken her eternal vows to follow one to whom she was
engaged? And besides, where would they go to live together afterward,
when folks would get out of their way, would fly from them as
renegades?--To America perhaps, and even there!--And how could he
take her from these white houses of the dead where the sisters live,
eternally watched?--Oh, no, all this is a chimera which may not be
realized--All is at an end, all is finished hopelessly--!
Then, the sadness which comes to him from Gracieuse is forgotten for a
moment, and he feels nothing except an outburst of his heart toward his
mother, toward his mother who remains to him, who is there, very near, a
little upset, doubtless, by the joyful trouble of waiting for him.
And now, on the left of his route, is a humble hamlet, half hidden in
the beeches and the oaks, with its ancient chapel,--and with its wall
for the pelota game, under very old trees, at the crossing of two paths.
At once, in Ramuntcho's youthful head, the course of thoughts changes
again: that little wall with rounded top, covered with wash of kalsomine
and ochre, awakens tumultuously in him thoughts of life, of force and of
joy; with a childish ardor he says to himself that to-morrow he will be
able to return to that game of the Basques, which is an intoxication of
movement and of rapid skill; he thinks of the grand matches on Sundays
after vespers, of the glory of the fine struggles with the champions of
Spain, of all this deprivation of his years of exile. But it is a very
short instant, and mortal despair comes back to him: his triumphs on the
squares, Gracieuse shall not see them; then, what is the use!--Without
her, all things, even these, fall back discolored, useless and vain, do
not even exist--
Etchezar!--Etchezar, is revealed suddenly at a turn of the road!--It
is in a red light, something like a fantasmagoria image, illuminated
purposely in a special manner in the midst of grand backgrounds of shade
and of night. It is the hour of the setting sun. Around the isolated
village, which the old, heavy belfry, surmounts, a last sheaf of rays
traces a halo of the color of copper and gold, while clouds--and a
gigantic obscurity emanating from the Gizune--darken the lands piled up
above and under, the mass of brown hills, colored by the death of the
ferns--
Oh! the melancholy apparition of the native land, to the soldier who
returns and will not find his sweetheart--!
Three years have passed since he left here.--Well, three years, at his
age, are an abyss of time, a period which changes all things. And,
after that lone exile, how this village, which he adores, appears to
him diminished, small, walled in the mountains, sad and hidden!--In the
depth of his mind of a tall, uncultured boy, commences again, to make
him suffer more, the struggle of those two sentiments of a too refined
man, which are an inheritance of his unknown father: an attachment
almost maladive to the home, to the land of childhood, and a fear of
returning to be enclosed in it, when there exist in the world other
places so vast and so free. --After the warm afternoon, the autumn is
indicated now by the hasty fall of the day, with a coolness ascending
suddenly from the valleys underneath, a scent of dying leaves and of
moss. And then the thousand details of preceding autumns in the Basque
country, of the former Novembers, come to him very precisely; the cold
fall of night succeeding the beautiful, sunlit day; the sad clouds
appearing with the night; the Pyrenees confounded in vapors inky gray,
or, in places, cut in black silhouettes on a pale, golden sky; around
the houses, the belated flowers of the gardens, which the frost spares
for a long time here, and, in front of all the doors, the strewn leaves
of the plane-trees, the yellow strewn leaves cracking under the steps of
the man returning in sandals to his home for supper.--Oh, the heedless
joy of these returns to the home, in the nights of other times, after
days of marching on the rude mountain! Oh, the gaiety, in that time,
of the first winter fires--in the tall, smoky hearth ornamented with a
drapery of white calico and with a strip of pink paper. No, in the
city, with its rows of houses one does not have the real impression of
returning home, of earthing up like plants at night in the primitive
manner, as one has it here, under those Basque roofs, solitary in the
midst of the country, with the grand, surrounding black, the grand,
shivering black of the foliage, the grand, changing black of the clouds
and the summits.--But to-day, his travels, his new conceptions, have
diminished and spoiled his mountaineer's home; he will doubtless find it
almost desolate, especially in the thought that his mother shall not be
there always--and that Gracieuse shall never be there again.
His pace quickens in his haste to embrace his mother; he turns around
his village instead of going into it, in order to reach his house
through a path which overlooks the square and church; passing quickly,
he looks at everything with inexpressible pain. Peace, silence soar
over this little parish of Etchezar, heart of the French Basque land and
country of all the famous pelotaris of the past who have become heavy
grandfathers, or are dead now. The immutable church, where have remained
buried his dreams of faith, is surrounded by the same dark cypresses,
like a mosque. The ball-game square, while he walks quickly above it,
is still lighted by the sun with a finishing ray, oblique, toward the
background, toward the wall which the ancient inscription surmounts,--as
on the evening of his first great success, four years ago, when, in the
joyous crowd, Gracieuse stood in a blue gown, she who has become a black
nun to-day.--On the deserted benches, on the granite steps where the
grass grows, three or four old men are seated, who were formerly
the heroes of the place and whom their reminiscences bring back here
incessantly, to talk at the end of the days, when the twilight descends
from the summits, invades the earth, seems to emanate and to fall from
the brown Pyrenees.--Oh, the folks who live here, whose lives run here;
oh, the little cider inns, the little, simple shops and the old, little
things--brought from the cities, from the other places--sold to the
mountaineers of the surrounding country!--How all this seems to him
now strange, separated from him, or set far in the background of the
primitive past!--Is he truly not a man of Etchezar to-day, is he no
longer the Ramuntcho of former times?--What particular thing resides
in his mind to prevent him from feeling comfortable here, as the others
feel? Why is it prohibited to him, to him alone, to accomplish here the
tranquil destiny of his dreams, since all his friends have accomplished
theirs?--
At last here is his house, there, before his eyes. It is as he expected
to find it. As he expected, he recognizes along the wall all the
persistent flowers cultivated by his mother, the same flowers which
the frost has destroyed weeks ago in the North from which he comes:
heliotropes, geraniums, tall dahlias and roses with climbing branches.
And the cherished, strewn leaves, which fall every autumn from the
vault-shaped plane-trees, are there also, and are crushed with a noise
so familiar under his steps--!
In the lower hall, when he enters, there is already grayish indecision,
already night. The high chimney, where his glance rests at first by an
instinctive reminiscence of the fires of ancient evenings, stands the
same with its white drapery; but cold, filled with shade, smelling of
absence or death.
He runs up to his mother's room. She, from her bed having recognized her
son's step, has straightened up, all stiff, all white in the twilight:
“Ramuntcho,” she says, in a veiled and aged voice.
She extends her arms to him and as soon as she holds him, enlaces and
embraces him:
“Ramuntcho!--”
Then, having uttered this name without adding anything, she leans her
head against his cheek, in the habitual movement of surrender, in
the movement of the grand, tender feelings of other times.--He, then,
perceives that his mother's face is burning against his. Through her
shirt he feels the arms that surround him thin, feverish and hot. And
for the first time, he is frightened; the notion that she is doubtless
very ill comes to his mind, the possibility and the sudden terror that
she might die--
“Oh, you are alone, mother! But who takes care of you? Who watches over
you?”
“Who watches over me?--” she replies with her abrupt brusqueness, her
ideas of a peasant suddenly returned. “Spending money to nurse me, why
should I do it?--The church woman or the old Doyamburu comes in
the day-time to give me the things that I need, the things that the
physician orders.--But--medicine!--Well! Light a lamp, my Ramuntcho!--I
want to see you--and I cannot see you--”
And, when the clearness has come from a Spanish, smuggled match, she
says in a tone of caress infinitely sweet, as one talks to a very little
child whom one adores:
“Oh, your mustache! The long mustache which has come to you, my son!--I
do not recognize my Ramuntcho!--Bring your lamp here, bring it here so
that I can look at you!--”
He also sees her better now, under the new light of that lamp, while
she admires him lovingly. And he is more frightened still, because the
cheeks of his mother are so hollow, her hair is so whitened; even the
expression of her eyes is changed and almost extinguished; on her face
appears the sinister and irremediable labor of time, of suffering and of
death--
And, now, two tears, rapid and heavy, fall from the eyes of Franchita,
which widen, become living again, made young by desperate revolt and
hatred.
“Oh, that woman,” she says suddenly. “Oh, that Dolores!”
And her cry expresses and summarizes all her jealousy of thirty years'
standing, all her merciless rancor against that enemy of her childhood
who has succeeded at last in breaking the life of her son.
A silence between them. He is seated, with head bent, near the bed,
holding the poor, feverish hand which his mother has extended to him.
She, breathing more quickly, seems for a long while under the oppression
of something which she hesitates to express:
“Tell me, my Ramuntcho!--I would like to ask you.--What do you intend to
do, my son? What are your projects for the future?--”
“I do not know, mother.--I will think, I will see.--You ask--all
at once.--We have time to talk of this, have we not?--To America,
perhaps--”
“Oh, yes,” she says slowly, with the fear that was in her for days, “to
America--I suspected it. Oh, that is what you will do.--I knew it, I
knew it--”
Her phrase ends in a groan and she joins her hands to try to pray--
CHAPTER III.
Ramuntcho, the next morning, was wandering in the village, under a sun
which had pierced the clouds of the night, a sun as radiant as that of
yesterday. Careful in his dress, the ends of his mustache turned up,
proud in his demeanor, elegant, grave and handsome, he went at
random, to see and to be seen, a little childishness mingling with his
seriousness, a little pleasure with his distress. His mother had said to
him:
“I am better, I assure you. To-day is Sunday; go, walk about I pray
you--”
And passers-by turned their heads to look at him, whispered the news:
“Franchita's son has returned home; he looks very well!”
A summer illusion persisted everywhere, with, however, the unfathomable
melancholy of things tranquilly finishing. Under that impassible
radiance of sunlight, the Pyrenean fields seemed dull, all their plants,
all their grasses were as if collected in one knows not what resignation
weary of living, what expectation of death.
The turns of the path, the houses, the least trees, all recalled hours
of other times to Ramuntcho, hours wherein Gracieuse was mingled. And
then, at each reminiscence, at each step, engraved itself and hammered
itself in his mind, under a new form, this verdict without recourse: “It
is finished, you are alone forever, Gracieuse has been taken away from
you and is in prison--” The rents in his heart, every accident in the
path renewed and changed them. And, in the depth of his being, as a
constant basis for his reflections, this other anxiety endured: his
mother, his mother very ill, in mortal danger, perhaps--!
He met people who stopped him, with a kind and welcoming air, who talked
to him in the dear Basque tongue--ever alert and sonorous despite its
incalculable antiquity; old Basque caps, old white heads, liked to talk
of the ball-game to this fine player returned to his cradle. And then,
at once, after the first words of greeting, smiles went out, in spite of
this clear sun in this blue sky, and all were disturbed by the thought
of Gracieuse in a veil and of Franchita dying.
A violent flush of blood went up to his face when he caught sight of
Dolores, at a distance, going into her home. Very decrepit, that one,
and wearing a prostrate air! She had recognized him, for she turned
quickly her obstinate and hard head, covered by a mourning mantilla.
With a sentiment of pity at seeing her so undone, he reflected that she
had struck herself with the same blow, and that she would be alone now
in her old age and at her death--
On the square, he met Marcos Iragola who informed him that he was
married, like Florentino--and with the little friend of his childhood,
he also.
“I did not have to serve in the army,” Iragola explained, “because we
are Guipuzcoans, immigrants in France; so I could marry her earlier!”
He, twenty-one years old; she eighteen; without lands and without a
penny, Marcos and Pilar, but joyfully associated all the same, like
two sparrows building their nest. And the very young husband added
laughingly:
“What would you? Father said: 'As long as you do not marry I warn you
that I shall give you a little brother every year.' And he would have
done it! There are already fourteen of us, all living--”
Oh, how simple and natural they are! How wise and humbly
happy!--Ramuntcho quitted him with some haste, with a heart more bruised
for having spoken to him, but wishing very sincerely that he should be
happy in his improvident, birdlike, little home.
Here and there, folks were seated in front of their doors, in that sort
of atrium of branches which precedes all the houses of this country.
And their vaults of plane-trees, cut in the Basque fashion, which in the
summer are so impenetrable all open worked in this season, let fall
on them sheafs of light. The sun flamed, somewhat destructive and sad,
above those yellow leaves which were drying up--
And Ramuntcho, in his slow promenade, felt more and more what intimate
ties, singularly persistent, would attach him always to this region of
the earth, harsh and enclosed, even if he were there alone, abandoned,
without friends, without a wife and without a mother--
Now, the high mass rings! And the vibrations of that bell impress him
with a strange emotion that he did not expect. Formerly, its familiar
appeal was an appeal to joy and to pleasure--
He stops, he hesitates, in spite of his actual religious unbelief and
in spite of his grudge against that church which has taken his betrothed
away from him. The bell seems to invite him to-day in so special
a manner, with so peaceful and caressing a voice: “Come, come; let
yourself be rocked as your ancestors were; come, poor, desolate being,
let yourself be caught by the lure which will make your tears fall
without bitterness, and will help you to die--”
Undecided, resisting still, he walks, however, toward the church--when
Arrochkoa appears!
Arrochkoa, whose catlike mustache has lengthened a great deal and whose
feline expression is accentuated, runs to him with extended hands, with
an effusion that he did not expect, in an enthusiasm, perhaps sincere,
for that ex-sergeant who has such a grand air, who wears the ribbon of a
medal and whose adventures have made a stir in the land:
“Ah, my Ramuntcho, when did you arrive?--Oh, if I could have
prevented--What do you think of my old, hardened mother and of all those
church bigots?--Oh, I did not tell you: I have a son, since two months;
a fine little fellow! We have so many things to say, my poor friend, so
many things!--”
The bell rings, rings, fills the air more and more with its soft appeal,
very grave and somewhat imposing also.
“You are not going there, I suppose?” asks Arrochkoa, pointing to the
church.
“No, oh, no,” replies Ramuntcho, sombrely decided.
“Well come then, let us go in here and taste the new cider of your
country!--”
To the smugglers' cider mill, he brings him; both, near the open window,
sit as formerly, looking outside;--and this place also, these old
benches, these casks in a line in the back, these same images on the
wall, are there to recall to Ramuntcho the delicious times of the past,
the times that are finished.
The weather is adorably beautiful; the sky retains a rare limpidity;
through the air passes that special scent of falling seasons, scent of
woods despoiled, of dead leaves that the sun overheats on the soil. Now,
after the absolute calm of the morning, rises a wind of autumn, a chill
of November, announcing clearly, but with a melancholy almost charming,
that the winter is near--a southern winter, it is true, a softened
winter, hardly interrupting the life of the country. The gardens and all
the old walls are still ornamented with roses--!
At first they talk of indifferent things while drinking their cider, of
Ramuntcho's travels, of what happened in the country during his absence,
of the marriages which occurred or were broken. And, to those two rebels
who have fled from the church, all the sounds of the mass come during
their talk, the sounds of the small bells and the sounds of the organ,
the ancient songs that fill the high, sonorous nave--
At last, Arrochkoa returns to the burning subject:
“Oh, if you had been here it would not have occurred!--And even now, if
she saw you--”
Ramuntcho looks at him then, trembling at what he imagines he
understands:
“Even now?--What do you mean?”
“Oh, women--with them, does one ever know?--She cared a great deal for
you and it was hard for her.--In these days there is no law to keep her
there!--How little would I care if she broke her vows--”
Ramuntcho turns his head, lowers his eyes, says nothing, strikes the
soil with his foot. And, in the silence, the impious thing which he had
hardly dared to formulate to himself, seems to him little by little less
chimerical, attainable, almost easy.--No, it is not impossible to regain
her. And, if need be, doubtless, Arrochkoa, her own brother, would lend
a hand. Oh, what a temptation and what a new disturbance in his mind--!
Drily he asks, “Where is she?--Far from here?”
“Far enough, yes. Over there, toward Navarre, five or six hours of
a carriage drive. They have changed her convent twice. She lives at
Amezqueta now, beyond the oak forests of Oyanzabal; the road is through
Mendichoco; you know, we must have gone through it together one night
with Itchoua.”
The high mass is ended.--Groups pass: women, pretty girls, elegant in
demeanor, among whom Gracieuse is no more: many Basque caps lowered on
sunburnt foreheads. And all these faces turn to look at the two cider
drinkers at their window. The wind, that blows stronger, makes dance
around their glasses large, dead, plane-tree leaves.
A woman, already old, casts at them, from under her black cloth
mantilla, a sad and evil glance:
“Ah,” says Arrochkoa, “here is mother! And she looks at us
crosswise.--She may flatter herself for her work!--She punished herself
for she will end in solitude now.--Catherine--who is at Elsagarray's,
you know--works by the day for her; otherwise, she would have nobody to
talk to in the evening--”
A bass voice, behind them, interrupts them, with a Basque greeting,
hollow like a sound in a cavern, while a large and heavy hand rests on
Ramuntcho's shoulder as if to take possession of him: Itchoua, Itchoua
who has just finished chanting his liturgy!--Not changed at all, this
one; he has always his same ageless face, always his colorless mask
which is at once that of a monk and that of a highwayman, and his same
eyes, set in, hidden, absent. His mind also must have remained similar,
his mind capable of impassible murder at the same time as devout
fetichism.
“Ah,” he says, in a tone which wishes to be that of a good fellow, “you
have returned to us, my Ramuntcho! Then we are going to work together,
eh? Business is brisk with Spain now, you know, and arms are needed at
the frontier. You are one of us, are you not?”
“Perhaps,” replies Ramuntcho. “We may talk of it--”
For several moments his departure for America has become a faint idea in
his mind.--No!--He would rather stay in his native land, begin again
his former life, reflect and wait obstinately. Anyway, now that he knows
where she is, that village of Amezqueta, at a distance of five or six
hours from here, haunts him in a dangerous way, and he hugs all sorts
of sacrilegious projects which, until to-day, he would never have dared
hardly to conceive.
CHAPTER IV.
At noon, he returned to his isolated house to see his mother.
The febrile and somewhat artificial improvement of the morning had
continued. Nursed by the old Doyanburu, Franchita said that she felt
better, and, in the fear that Ramuntcho might become dreamy, she made
him return to the square to attend the Sunday ball-game.
The breath of the wind became warm again, blew from the south; none of
the shivers of a moment ago remained; on the contrary, a summer sun
and atmosphere, on the reddened woods, on the rusty ferns, on the roads
where continued to fall the sad leaves. But the sky was gathering thick
clouds, which suddenly came out from the rear of the mountains as if
they had stayed there in ambush to appear all at the same signal.
The ball-game had not yet been arranged and groups were disputing
violently when he reached the square. Quickly, he was surrounded, he was
welcomed, designated by acclamation to go into the game and sustain the
honor of his county. He did not dare, not having played for three years
and distrusting his unaccustomed arm. At last, he yielded and began
to undress--but to whom would he trust his waistcoat now?--The image
reappeared to him, suddenly, of Gracieuse, seated on the nearest steps
and extending her hands to receive it. To whom would he throw his
waistcoat to-day? It is intrusted ordinarily to some friend, as the
toreadors do with their gilt silk mantles.--He threw it at random, this
time, anywhere, on the granite of the old benches flowered with belated
scabwort--
The match began. Out of practice at first, uncertain, he missed several
times the little bounding thing which is to be caught in the air.
Then, he went to his work with a rage, regained his former ease and
became himself again superbly. His muscles had gained in strength what
they had perhaps lost in skill; again he was applauded, he knew the
physical intoxication of moving, of leaping, of feeling his muscles play
like supple and violent springs, of hearing around him the ardent murmur
of the crowd.
But then came the instant of rest which interrupts ordinarily the
long disputed games; the moment when one sits halting, the blood in
ebulition, the hands reddened, trembling,--and when one regains the
course of ideas which the game suppresses.
Then, he realized the distress of being alone.
Above the assembled heads, above the woolen caps and the hair ornamented
with kerchiefs, was accentuated that stormy sky which the southern
winds, when they are about to finish, bring always. The air had assumed
an absolute limpidity, as if it had become rarified, rarified unto
emptiness. The mountains seemed to have advanced extraordinarily; the
Pyrenees were crushing the village; the Spanish summits or the French
summits were there, all equally near, as if pasted on one another,
exaggerating their burned, brown colors, their intense and sombre,
violet tints. Large clouds, which seemed as solid as terrestrial
things, were displayed in the form of bows, veiling the sun, casting an
obscurity which was like an eclipse. And here and there, through some
rent, bordered with dazzling silver, one could see the profound blue
green of a sky almost African. All this country, the unstable climate of
which changes between a morning and an evening, became for several hours
strangely southern in aspect, in temperature and in light.
Ramuntcho breathed that dry and suave air, come from the South in order
to vivify the lungs. It was the true weather of his native land. It was
even the characteristic weather of that land of the Bay of Biscay, the
weather which he liked best formerly, and which to-day filled him with
physical comfort--as much as with disturbance of mind, for all that was
preparing, all that was amassing above, with airs of ferocious menace,
impressed him with the sentiment of a heaven deaf to prayers, without
thoughts as without master, a simple focus of storms, of blind forces
creating, recreating and destroying. And, during these minutes of
halting meditation, where men in Basque caps of a temperament other than
his, surrounded him to congratulate him, he made no reply, he did not
listen, he felt only the ephemeral plenitude of his own vigor, of his
youth, of his will, and he said to himself that he wished to use harshly
and desperately all things, to try anything, without the obstacle of
vain fears, of vain church scruples, in order to take back the young
girl whom his soul and his flesh desired, who was the unique one and the
betrothed--
When the game had ended gloriously for him, he returned alone, sad and
resolute,--proud of having won, of having known how to preserve his
agile skilfulness, and realizing that it was a means in life, a source
of money and of strength, to have remained one of the chief ball-players
of the Basque country.
Under the black sky, there were still the same tints exaggerated by
everything, the same sombre horizon. And still the same breaths from the
south, dry and warm, agitors of muscles and of thought.
However, the clouds had descended, descended, and soon this weather,
these appearances would change and finish. He knew it, as do all the
countrymen accustomed to look at the sky: it was only the announcement
of an autumn squall to close the series of lukewarm winds,--of a
decisive shake-up to finish despoiling the woods of their leaves.
Immediately after would come the long showers, chilling everything, the
mists making the mountains confused and distant. And it would be the
dull rain of winter, stopping the saps, making temporary projects
languid, extinguishing ardor and revolt--
Now the first drops of water were beginning to fall on the road,
separate and heavy on the strewn leaves.
As the day before, when he returned home, at twilight, his mother was
alone.
He found her asleep, in a bad sleep, agitated, burning.
Rambling in his house he tried, in order to make it less sinister, to
light in the large, lower chimney a fire of branches, but it went out
smoking. Outside, torrents of rain fell. Through the windows, as through
gray shrouds, the village hardly appeared, effaced under a winter
squall. The wind and the rain whipped the walls of the isolated house,
around which, once more, would thicken the grand blackness of the
country in rainy nights--that grand blackness, that grand silence, to
which he had long been unaccustomed. And in his childish heart, came
little by little, a cold of solitude and of abandonment; he lost even
his energy, the consciousness of his love, of his strength and of his
youth; he felt vanishing, before the misty evening, all his projects of
struggle and of resistance. The future which he had formed a moment
ago became miserable or chimerical in his eyes, that future of a pelota
player, of a poor amuser of the crowds, at the mercy of a malady or of
a moment of weakness--His hopes of the day-time were going out, based,
doubtless, on unstable things, fleeing now in the night--
Then he felt transported, as in his childhood, toward that soft refuge
which was his mother; he went up, on tiptoe, to see her, even asleep,
and to remain there, near her bed, while she slept.
And, when he had lighted in the room, far from her, a discreet lamp,
she appeared to him more changed than she had been by the fever of
yesterday; the possibility presented itself, more frightful to his mind,
of losing her, of being alone, of never feeling again on his cheek the
caress of her head.--Moreover, for the first time, she seemed old to
him, and, in the memory of all the deceptions which she had suffered
because of him, he felt a pity for her, a tender and infinite pity,
at sight of her wrinkles which he had not before observed, of her hair
recently whitened at the temples. Oh, a desolate pity and hopeless, with
the conviction that it was too late now to arrange life better.--And
something painful, against which there was no possible resistance, shook
his chest, contracted his young face; objects became confused to his
view, and, in the need of imploring, of asking for mercy, he let himself
fall on his knees, his forehead on his mother's bed, weeping at last,
weeping hot tears--
CHAPTER V.
“And whom did you see in the village, my son?” she asked, the next
morning during the improvement which returned every time, in the first
hours of the day, after the fever had subsided.
“And whom did you see in the village, my son?--” In talking, she tried
to retain an air of gaiety, of saying indifferent things, in the fear of
attacking grave subjects and of provoking disquieting replies.
“I saw Arrochkoa, mother,” he replied, in a tone which brought back
suddenly the burning questions.
“Arrochkoa!--And how did he behave with you?”
“Oh, he talked to me as if I had been his brother.”
“Yes, I know, I know.--Oh, it was not he who made her do it--”
“He said even--”
He did not dare to continue now, and he lowered his head.
“He said what, my son?”
“Well, that--that it was hard to put her in prison there--that
perhaps--that, even now, if she saw me, he was not far from thinking--”
She straightened under the shock of what she had just suspected; with
her thin hands she parted her hair, newly whitened, and her eyes became
again young and sharp, in an expression almost wicked from joy, from
avenged pride:
“He said that, he!--”
“Would you forgive me, mother--if I tried?”
She took his two hands and they remained silent, not daring, with
their scruples as Catholics, to utter the sacrilegious thing which was
fomenting in their heads. In the depth of her eyes, the evil spark went
out.
“Forgive you?” she said in a low voice, “Oh, I--you know very well that
I would.--But do not do this, my son, I pray you, do not do it; it would
bring misfortune to both of you!--Do not think of it, my Ramuntcho,
never think of it--”
Then, they hushed, hearing the steps of the physician who was coming
up for his daily visit. And it was the only time, the supreme time when
they were to talk of it in life.
But Ramuntcho knew now that, even after death, she would not condemn him
for having attempted, or for having committed it: and this pardon was
sufficient for him, and, now that he felt sure of obtaining it, the
greatest barrier, between his sweetheart and him, had now suddenly
fallen.
CHAPTER VI.
In the evening, when the fever returned, she seemed already much more
dangerously affected.
On her robust body, the malady had violently taken hold,--the
malady recognized too late, and insufficiently nursed because of her
stubbornness as a peasant, because of her incredulous disdain for
physicians and medicine.
And little by little, in Ramuntcho, the frightful thought of losing her
installed itself in a dominant place; during the hours of watchfulness
spent near her bed, silent and alone, he was beginning to face the
reality of that separation, the horror of that death and of that
burial,--even all the lugubrious morrows, all the aspects of his future
life: the house which he would have to sell before quitting the country;
then, perhaps, the desperate attempt at the convent of Amezqueta; then
the departure, probably solitary and without desire to return, for
unknown America--
The idea also of the great secret which she would carry with her
forever,--of the secret of his birth,--tormented him more from hour to
hour.
Then, bending over her, and, trembling, as if he were about to commit an
impious thing in a church, he dared to say:
“Mother!--Mother, tell me now who my father is!”
She shuddered at first under the supreme question, realizing well, that
if he dared to question her thus, it was because she was lost. Then,
she hesitated for a moment: in her head, boiling from fever, there was a
battle; her duty, she discerned well no longer; her obstinacy which had
lasted for so many years faltered almost at this hour, in presence of
the sudden apparition of death--
But, resolved at last forever, she replied at once, in the brusque tone
of her bad days:
“Your father!--And what is the use, my son?--What do you want of your
father who for twenty years has never thought of you?--”
No, it was decided, ended, she would not tell. Anyway, it was too
late now; at the moment when she would disappear, enter into the inert
powerlessness of the dead, how could she risk changing so completely
the life of that son over whom she would no longer watch, how could she
surrender him to his father, who perhaps would make of him a disbeliever
and a disenchanted man like himself! What a responsibility and what an
immense terror--!
Her decision having been taken irrevocably, she thought of herself,
feeling for the first time that life was closing behind her, and joined
her hands for a sombre prayer.
As for Ramuntcho, after this attempt to learn, after this great effort
which had almost seemed a profanation to him, he bent his head before
his mother's will and questioned no longer.
CHAPTER VII.
It went very quickly now, with the drying fevers that made her
cheeks red, her nostrils pinched, or with the exhaustion of baths of
perspiration, her pulse hardly beating.
And Ramuntcho had no other thought than his mother; the image of
Gracieuse ceased to visit him during these funereal days.
She was going, Franchita; she was going, mute and as if indifferent,
asking for nothing, never complaining--
Once, however, as he was watching, she called him suddenly with a poor
voice of anguish, to throw her arms around him, to draw him to her, lean
her head on his cheek. And, in that minute, Ramuntcho saw pass in
her eyes the great Terror--that of the flesh which feels that it is
finishing, that of the men and that of the beasts, the horrible and the
same for all.--A believer, she was that a little; practising rather,
like so many other women around her; timid in the face of dogmas, of
observances, of services, but without a clear conception of the world
beyond, without a luminous hope.--Heaven, all the beautiful things
promised after life.--Yes, perhaps.--But still, the black hole was
there, near and certain, where she would have to turn into dust.--What
was sure, what was inexorable, was the fact that never, never more would
her destroyed visage lean in a real manner on that of Ramuntcho; then,
in the doubt of having a mind which would fly, in the horror and the
misery of annihilation, of becoming powder and nothing, she wanted again
kisses from that son, and she clutched at him as clutch the wrecked who
fall into the black and deep waters--
He understood all this, which the poor, fading eyes said so well. And
the pity so tender, which he had already felt at seeing the wrinkles
and the white hairs of his mother, overflowed like a flood from his very
young heart; he responded to this appeal with all that one may give of
desolate clasps and embraces.
But it did not last long. She had never been one of those who are
enervated for long, or at least, let it appear. Her arms unclasped,
her head fallen back, she closed her eyes again, unconscious now,--or
stoical--
And Ramuntcho, standing, not daring to touch her, wept heavy tears,
without noise, turning his head,--while, in the distance, the parish
bell began to ring the curfew, sang the tranquil peace of the village,
filled the air with vibrations soft, protective, advising sound sleep to
those who have morrows--
The following morning, after having confessed, she passed out of
life, silent and haughty, having felt a sort of shame for her
suffering,--while the same bell rang slowly her agony.
And at night, Ramuntcho found himself alone, beside that thing in bed
and cold, which is preserved and looked at for several hours, but which
one must make haste to bury in the earth--
CHAPTER VIII.
Eight days after.
At the fall of night, while a bad mountain squall twisted the branches
of the trees, Ramuntcho entered his deserted house where the gray of
death seemed scattered everywhere. A little of winter had passed over
the Basque land, a little frost, burning the annual flowers, ending
the illusory summer of December. In front of Franchita's door, the
geraniums, the dahlias had just died, and the path which led to the
house, which no one cared for, disappeared under the mass of yellow
leaves.
For Ramuntcho, this first week of mourning had been occupied by the
thousand details that rock sorrow. Proud also, he had desired that all
should be done in a luxurious manner, according to the old usages of
the parish. His mother had been buried in a coffin of black velvet
ornamented with silver nails. Then, there had been mortuary masses,
attended by the neighbors in long capes, the women enveloped and hooded
with black. And all this represented a great deal of expense for him,
who was poor.
Of the sum given formerly, at the time of his birth, by his unknown
father, little remained, the greater part having been lost through
unfaithful bankers. And now, he would have to quit the house, sell the
dear familiar furniture, realize the most money possible for the flight
to America--
This time, he returned home peculiarly disturbed, because he was to do a
thing, postponed from day to day, about which his conscience was not
at rest. He had already examined, picked out, all that belonged to his
mother; but the box containing her papers and her letters was still
intact--and to-night he would open it, perhaps.
He was not sure that death, as many persons think, gives the right to
those who remain to read letters, to penetrate the secrets of those who
have just gone. To burn without looking seemed to him more respectful,
more honest. But it was also to destroy forever the means of discovering
the one whose abandoned son he was.--Then what should he do?--And from
whom could he take advice, since he had no one in the world?
In the large chimney he lit the evening fire: then he got from an upper
room the disquieting box, placed it on a table near the fire, beside his
lamp, and sat down to reflect again. In the face of these papers, almost
sacred, almost prohibited, which he would touch and which death alone
could have placed in his hands, he had in this moment the consciousness,
in a more heartbreaking manner, of the irrevocable departure of his
mother; tears returned to him and he wept there, alone, in the silence--
At last he opened the box--
His arteries beat heavily. Under the surrounding trees, in the obscure
solitude, he felt that forms were moving, to look at him through the
window-panes. He felt breaths strange to his own chest, as if some one
was breathing behind him. Shades assembled, interested in what he was
about to do.--The house was crowded with phantoms--
They were letters, preserved there for more than twenty years, all in
the same handwriting,--one of those handwritings, at once negligent and
easy, which men of the world have and which, in the eyes of the simple
minded, are an indication of great social difference. And at first,
a vague dream of protection, of elevation and of wealth diverted the
course of his thoughts.--He had no doubt about the hand which had
written them, those letters, and he held them tremblingly, not daring to
read them, nor even to look at the name with which they were signed.
One only had retained its envelope; then he read the address: “To Madame
Franchita Duval.”--Oh! yes, he remembered having heard that his mother,
at the time of her disappearance from the Basque country, had taken
that name for a while.--Following this, was an indication of street and
number, which it pained him to read without his being able to understand
why, which made the blood come to his cheeks; then the name of that
large city, wherein he was born.--With fixed eyes, he stayed there,
looking no longer.--And suddenly, he had the horrible vision of that
clandestine establishment: in a suburban apartment, his mother, young,
elegant, mistress of some rich idler, or of some officer perhaps!--In
the regiment he had known some of these establishments, which doubtless
are all alike, and he had found in them for himself unexpected
adventures.--A dizziness seized him, to catch a glimpse thus under a new
aspect of the one whom he had venerated so much; the dear past faltered
behind him, as if to fall into a desolating abyss. And his despair
turned into a sudden execration for the one who had given life to him
through a caprice--
Oh! to burn them, to burn them as quickly as possible, these letters of
misfortune!--And he began to throw them one by one into the fire, where
they were consumed by sudden flames.
A photograph, however, came out of them, fell on the floor; then he
could not refrain from taking it to the lamp to see it.
And his impression was heart-rending, during the few seconds when his
eyes met the half effaced ones of the yellowed image!--It resembled
him!--He found, with profound fear, something of himself in the unknown.
And instinctively he turned round, asking himself if the spectres in the
obscure corners had not come near behind him to look also.
It had hardly an appreciable duration, that silent interview, unique and
supreme, with his father. To the fire also, the image! He threw it, with
a gesture of anger and of terror, among the ashes of the last letters,
and all left soon only a little mass of black dust, extinguishing the
clear flames of the branches.
Finished! The box was empty. He threw on the floor his cap which gave
him a headache, and straightened himself, with perspiration on his
forehead and a buzzing at the temples.