the things of life appeared to him to regain their former balance; he
regained his soft veneration for his mother, whose memory it seemed
to him he had purified, avenged also a little, by this disdainful
execution.
Therefore, his destiny had been fixed to-night forever. He would remain
the Ramuntcho of other times, the “son of Franchita,” player of pelota
and smuggler, free, freed from everything, owing nothing to and asking
nothing from anybody. And he felt serene, without remorse, without
fright, either, in this mortuary house, from which the shades had just
disappeared, peaceful now and friendly--
CHAPTER IX.
At the frontier, in a mountain hamlet. A black night, about one o'clock
in the morning; a winter night inundated by cold and heavy rain. At the
front of a sinister house which casts no light outside, Ramuntcho loads
his shoulders with a heavy smuggled box, under the rippling rain, in the
midst of a tomb-like obscurity. Itchoua's voice commands secretly,--as
if one hardly touched with a bow the last strings of a bass viol,--and
around him, in the absolute darkness, one divines the presence of other
smugglers similarly loaded, ready to start on an adventure.
It is now more than ever Ramuntcho's life, to run almost every night,
especially on the cloudless and moonless nights when one sees nothing,
when the Pyrenees are an immense chaos of shade. Amassing as much money
as he can for his flight, he is in all the smuggling expeditions, as
well in those that bring a suitable remuneration as in those where one
risks death for a hundred cents. And ordinarily, Arrochkoa accompanies
him, without necessity, in sport and for a whim.
They have become inseparable, Arrochkoa, Ramuntcho,--and they talk
freely of their projects about Gracieuse, Arrochkoa seduced especially
by the attraction of some fine prowess, by the joy of taking a nun away
from the church, of undoing the plans of his old, hardened mother,--and
Ramuntcho, in spite of his Christian scruples which affect him still,
making of this dangerous project his only hope, his only reason for
being and for acting. For a month, almost, the attempt has been decided
upon in theory and, in their long talks in the December nights, on the
roads where they walk, or in the corners of the village cider mills
where they sit apart, the means of execution are discussed by them, as
if the question was a simple frontier undertaking. They must act very
quickly, concludes Arrochkoa always, they must act in the surprise of
a first interview which shall be for Gracieuse a very disturbing thing;
they must act without giving her time to think or to recant, they must
try something like kidnapping--
“If you knew,” he says, “what is that little convent of Amezqueta where
they have placed her: four old, good sisters with her, in an isolated
house!--I have my horse, you know, who gallops so quickly; once the nun
is in a carriage with you, who can catch her?--”
And to-night they have resolved to take into their confidence Itchoua
himself, a man accustomed to suspicious adventures, valuable in assaults
at night, and who, for money, is capable of everything.
The place from which they start this time for the habitual smuggling
expedition is named Landachkoa, and it is situated in France at ten
minutes' distance from Spain. The inn, solitary and old, assumes as soon
as the night falls, the air of a den of thieves; at this moment while
the smugglers come out of one door, it is full of Spanish carbineers who
have familiarly crossed the frontier to divert themselves here and who
drink while singing. And the hostess, accustomed to these nocturnal
affairs, has said joyfully, a moment ago, in Basque tongue to Itchoua's
folks:
“It is all right! They are all drunk, you can go out!”
Go out! It is easier to advise than to do! You are drenched at the first
steps and your feet slip on the mud, despite the aid of your sticks,
on the stiff slopes of the paths. They do not see one another; they see
nothing, neither the walls of the hamlet along which they pass nor the
trees afterward, nor the rocks; they are like blind men, groping and
slipping under a deluge, with the music of rain in their ears which
makes them deaf.
And Ramuntcho, who makes this trip for the first time, has no idea of
the passages which they are to go through, strikes here and there his
load against black things which are branches of beeches, or slips with
his two feet, falters, straightens up, catches himself by planting at
random his iron-pointed stick in the soil. They are the last on the
march, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, following the band by ear;--and those
who precede them make no more noise with their sandals than wolves in a
forest.
In all, fifteen smugglers on a distance of fifty metres, in the thick
black of the mountain, under the incessant sprinkling of the shower;
they carry boxes full of jewels, of watches, of chains, of rosaries,
or bundles of Lyons silk, wrapped in oilcloth; in front, loaded with
merchandise less valuable, walk two men who are the skirmishers, those
who will attract, if necessary, the guns of the Spaniards and will then
take flight, throwing away everything. All talk in a low voice, despite
the drumming of the rain which already stifles sounds--
The one who precedes Ramuntcho turns round to warn him:
“Here is a torrent in front of us--” (Its presence would have been
guessed by its noise louder than that of the rain--) “We must cross it!”
“Ah!--Cross it how? Wade in the water?--”
“No, the water is too deep. Follow us. There is a tree trunk over it.”
Groping, Ramuntcho finds that tree trunk, wet, slippery and round. He
stands, advancing on this monkey's bridge in a forest, carrying his
heavy load, while under him the invisible torrent roars. And he crosses,
none knows how, in the midst of this intensity of black and of this
noise of water.
On the other shore they have to increase precaution and silence. There
are no more mountain paths, frightful descents, under the night, more
oppressing, of the woods. They have reached a sort of plain wherein the
feet penetrate; the sandals attached to nervous legs cause a noise of
beaten water. The eyes of the smugglers, their cat-like eyes, more and
more dilated by the obscurity, perceive confusedly that there is free
space around, that there is no longer the closing in of branches. They
breathe better also and walk with a more regular pace that rests them--
But the bark of dogs immobilizes them all in a sudden manner, as if
petrified under the shower. For a quarter of an hour they wait, without
talking or moving; on their chests, the perspiration runs, mingled with
the rain that enters by their shirt collars and falls to their belts.
By dint of listening, they hear the buzz of their ears, the beat of
their own arteries.
And this tension of their senses is, in their trade, what they all like;
it gives to them a sort of joy almost animal, it doubles the life of the
muscles in them, who are beings of the past; it is a recall of the most
primitive human impressions in the forests or the jungles of original
epochs.--Centuries of civilization will be necessary to abolish this
taste for dangerous surprises which impels certain children to play
hide and seek, certain men to lie in ambush, to skirmish in wars, or to
smuggle--
They have hushed, the watch-dogs, quieted or distracted, their attentive
scent preoccupied by something else. The vast silence has returned, less
reassuring, ready to break, perhaps, because beasts are watching. And,
at a low command from Itchoua, the men begin again their march, slower
and more hesitating, in the night of the plain, a little bent, a little
lowered on their legs, like wild animals on the alert.
Before them is the Nivelle; they do not see it, since they see nothing,
but they hear it run, and now long, flexible things are in the way of
their steps, are crushed by their bodies: the reeds on the shores.
The Nivelle is the frontier; they will have to cross it on a series of
slippery rocks, leaping from stone to stone, despite the loads that make
the legs heavy.
But before doing this they halt on the shore to collect themselves and
rest a little. And first, they call the roll in a low voice: all are
there. The boxes have been placed in the grass; they seem clearer
spots, almost perceptible to trained eyes, while, on the darkness in the
background, the men, standing, make long, straight marks, blacker than
the emptiness of the plain. Passing by Ramuntcho, Itchoua has whispered
in his ear:
“When will you tell me about your plan?”
“In a moment, at our return!--Oh, do not fear, Itchoua, I will tell
you!”
At this moment when his chest is heaving and his muscles are in action,
all his faculties doubled and exasperated by his trade, he does not
hesitate, Ramuntcho; in the present exaltation of his strength and of
his combativeness he knows no moral obstacles nor scruples. The idea
which came to his accomplice to associate himself with Itchoua frightens
him no longer. So much the worse! He will surrender to the advice of
that man of stratagem and of violence, even if he must go to the extreme
of kidnapping and housebreaking. He is, to-night, the rebel from whom
has been taken the companion of his life, the adored one, the one who
may not be replaced; he wants her, at the risk of everything.--And while
he thinks of her, in the progressive languor of that halt, he desires
her suddenly with his senses, in a young, savage outbreak, in a manner
unexpected and sovereign--
The immobility is prolonged, the respirations are calmer. And, while the
men shake their dripping caps, pass their hands on their foreheads to
wipe out drops of rain and perspiration that veil the eyes, the first
sensation of cold comes to them, of a damp and profound cold; their wet
clothes chill them, their thoughts weaken; little by little a sort of
torpor benumbs them in the thick darkness, under the incessant winter
rain.
They are accustomed to this, trained to cold and to dampness, they are
hardened prowlers who go to places where, and at hours when, other men
never appear, they are inaccessible to vague frights of the darkness,
they are capable of sleeping without shelter anywhere in the blackest of
rainy nights, in dangerous marshes or hidden ravines--
Now the rest has lasted long enough. This is the decisive instant when
the frontier is to be crossed. All muscles stiffen, ears stretch, eyes
dilate.
First, the skirmishers; then, one after another, the bundle carriers,
the box carriers, each one loaded with a weight of forty kilos, on the
shoulders or on the head. Slipping here and there among the round rocks,
stumbling in the water, everybody crosses, lands on the other shore.
Here they are on the soil of Spain! They have to cross, without gunshots
or bad meetings, a distance of two hundred metres to reach an isolated
farm which is the receiving shop of the chief of the Spanish smugglers,
and once more the game will have been played!
Naturally, it is without light, obscure and sinister, that farm.
Noiselessly and groping they enter in a file; then, on the last who
enter, enormous locks of the door are drawn. At last! Barricaded and
rescued, all! And the treasury of the Queen Regent has been frustrated,
again tonight, of a thousand francs--!
Then, fagots are lighted in the chimney, a candle on the table; they
see one another, they recognize one another, smiling at the success. The
security, the truce of rain over their heads, the flame that dances and
warms, the cider and the whiskey that fill the glasses, bring back to
these men noisy joy after compelled silence. They talk gaily, and the
tall, white-haired, old chief who receives them all at this undue hour,
announces that he will give to his village a beautiful square for the
pelota game, the plans of which have been drawn and the cost of which
will be ten thousand francs.
“Now, tell me your affair,” insists Itchoua, in Ramuntcho's ear. “Oh, I
suspect what it is! Gracieuse, eh?--That is it, is it not?--It is
hard you know.--I do not like to do things against my religion, you
know.--Then, I have my place as a chorister, which I might lose in such
a game.--Let us see, how much money will you give me if I succeed?--”
He had foreseen, Ramuntcho, that this sombre aid would cost him a great
deal, Itchoua being, in truth, a churchman, whose conscience would have
to be bought; and, much disturbed, with a flush on his cheeks, Ramuntcho
grants, after a discussion, a thousand francs. Anyway, if he is piling
up money, it is only to get Gracieuse, and if enough remains for him to
go to America with her, what matters it?--
And now that his secret is known to Itchoua, now that his cherished
project is being elaborated in that obstinate and sharp brain, it seems
to Ramuntcho that he has made a decisive step toward the execution of
his plan, that all has suddenly become real and approaching. Then, in
the midst of the lugubrious decay of the place, among these men who are
less than ever similar to him, he isolates himself in an immense hope of
love.
They drink for a last time together, all around, clinking their
glasses loudly; then they start again, in the thick night and under the
incessant rain, but this time on the highway, in a band and singing.
Nothing in the hands, nothing in the pockets: they are now ordinary
people, returning from a natural promenade.
In the rear guard, at a distance from the singers, Itchoua on his long
legs walks with his hands resting on Ramuntcho's shoulder. Interested
and ardent for success, since the sum has been agreed upon, Itchoua
whispers in Ramuntcho's ear imperious advices. Like Arrochkoa, he wishes
to act with stunning abruptness, in the surprise of a first interview
which will occur in the evening, as late as the rule of a convent will
permit, at an uncertain and twilight hour, when the village shall have
begun to sleep.
“Above all,” he says, “do not show yourself beforehand. She must not
have seen you, she must not even know that you have returned home! You
must not lose the advantage of surprise--”
While Ramuntcho listens and meditates in silence, the others, who lead
the march, sing always the same old song that times their steps. And
thus they re-enter Landachkoa, village of France, crossing the bridge of
the Nivelle, under the beards of the Spanish carbineers.
They have no sort of illusion, the watching carbineers, about what these
men, so wet, have been doing at an hour so black.
CHAPTER X.
The winter, the real winter, extended itself by degrees over the Basque
land, after the few days of frost that had come to annihilate the annual
plants, to change the deceptive aspect of the fields, to prepare the
following spring.
And Ramuntcho acquired slowly his habits of one left alone; in his
house, wherein he lived still, without anybody to serve him, he took
care of himself, as in the colonies or in the barracks, knowing the
thousand little details of housekeeping which careful soldiers practice.
He preserved the pride of dress, dressed himself well, wore the ribbon
of the brave at his buttonhole and a wide crape around his sleeve.
At first he was not assiduous at the village cider mill, where the
men assembled in the cold evenings. In his three years of travel,
of reading, of talking with different people, too many new ideas had
penetrated his already open mind; among his former companions he felt
more outcast than before, more detached from the thousand little things
which composed their life.
Little by little, however, by dint of being alone, by dint of passing
by the halls where the men drank,--on the window-panes of which a lamp
always sketches the shadows of Basque caps,--he had made it a custom to
go in and to sit at a table.
It was the season when the Pyrenean villages, freed from the visitors
which the summers bring, imprisoned by the clouds, the mist, or the
snow, are more intensely as they were in ancient times. In these cider
mills--sole, little, illuminated points, living, in the midst of the
immense, empty darkness of the fields--something of the spirit of former
times is reanimated in winter evenings. In front of the large casks of
cider arranged in lines in the background where it is dark, the lamp,
hanging from the beams, throws its light on the images of saints that
decorate the walls, on the groups of mountaineers who talk and who
smoke. At times someone sings a plaintive song which came from the night
of centuries; the beating of a tambourine recalls to life old, forgotten
rhythms; a guitar reawakens a sadness of the epoch of the Moors.--Or, in
the face of each other, two men, with castanets in their hands, suddenly
dance the fandango, swinging themselves with an antique grace.
And, from these innocent, little inns, they retire early--especially
in these bad, rainy nights--the darkness of which is so peculiarly
propitious to smuggling, every one here having to do some clandestine
thing on the Spanish side.
In such places, in the company of Arrochkoa, Ramuntcho talked over and
commented upon his cherished, sacrilegious project; or,--during the
beautiful moon-light nights which do not permit of undertakings on the
frontier--they talked on the roads for a long time.
Persistent religions scruples made him hesitate a great deal, although
he hardly realized it. They were inexplicable scruples, since he had
ceased to be a believer. But all his will, all his audacity, all his
life, were concentrated and directed, more and more, toward this unique
end.
And the prohibition, ordered by Itchoua, from seeing Gracieuse before
the great attempt, exasperated his impatient dream.
The winter, capricious as it is always in this country, pursued its
unequal march, with, from time to time, surprises of sunlight and of
heat. There were rains of a deluge, grand, healthy squalls which went
up from the Bay of Biscay, plunged into the valleys, bending the trees
furiously. And then, repetitions of the wind of the south, breaths as
warm as in summer, breezes smelling of Africa, under a sky at once high
and sombre, among mountains of an intense brown color. And also, glacial
mornings, wherein one saw, at awakening, summits become snowy and white.
The desire often seized him to finish everything.--But he had the
frightful idea that he might not succeed and might fall again, alone
forever, without a hope in life.
Anyway, reasonable pretexts to wait were not lacking. He had to settle
with men of affairs, he had to sell the house and realize, for his
flight, all the money that he could obtain. He had also to wait for the
answer of Uncle Ignacio, to whom he had announced his emigration and at
whose house he expected to find an asylum.
Thus the days went by, and soon the hasty spring was to ferment. Already
the yellow primrose and the blue gentian, in advance here by several
weeks, were in bloom in the woods and along the paths, in the last suns
of January--
CHAPTER XI.
They are this time in the cider mill of the hamlet of Gastelugain, near
the frontier, waiting for the moment to go out with boxes of jewelry and
weapons.
And it is Itchoua who is talking:
“If she hesitates--and she will not hesitate, be sure of it--but if she
hesitates, well! we will kidnap her.--Let me arrange this, my plan is
all made. It will be in the evening, you understand?--We will bring her
anywhere and imprison her in a room with you.--If it turns out badly--if
I am forced to quit the country after having done this thing to please
you; then, you will have to give me more money than the amount agreed
upon, you understand?--Enough, at least, to let me seek for my bread in
Spain--”
“In Spain!--What? What are you going to do, Itchoua? I hope you have not
in your head the idea to do things that are too grave.”
“Oh, do not be afraid, my friend. I have no desire to assassinate
anybody.”
“Well! You talk of running away--”
“I said this as I would have said anything else, you know. For some
time, business has been bad. And then, suppose the thing turns out badly
and the police make an inquiry. Well, I would prefer to go, that is
sure.--For whenever these men of justice put their noses into anything,
they seek for things that happened long ago, and the inquiry never
ends--”
In his eyes, suddenly expressive, appeared crime and fear. And Ramuntcho
looked with an increase of anxiety at this man, who was believed to be
solidly established in the country with lands in the sunlight, and who
accepted so easily the idea of running away. What sort of a bandit is he
then, to be so much afraid of justice?--And what could be these things
that happened long ago?--After a silence between them, Ramuntcho said in
a lower voice, with extreme distrust:
“Imprison her--you say this seriously, Itchoua?--And where imprison her,
if you please? I have no castle to hide her in--”
Then Itchoua, with the smile of a faun which no one had seen before,
tapped his shoulder:
“Oh, imprison her--for one night only, my son!--It will be enough, you
may believe me.--They are all alike, you see: the first step costs; but
the second one, they make it all alone, and quicker than you may think.
Do you imagine that she would wish to return to the good sisters,
afterward?--”
The desire to slap that dull face passed like an electric shock through
the arm and the hand of Ramuntcho. He constrained himself, however,
through a long habit of respectfulness for the old singer of the
liturgies, and remained silent, with a flush on his cheeks, and his
look turned aside. It revolted him to hear one talk thus of her--and
surprised him that the one who spoke thus was that Itchoua whom he had
always known as the quiet husband of an ugly and old woman. But the
blow struck by the impertinent phrase followed nevertheless, in his
imagination, a dangerous and unforeseen path.--Gracieuse, “imprisoned
a room with him!” The immediate possibility of such a thing, so clearly
presented with a rough and coarse word, made his head swim like a very
violent liquor.
He loved her with too elevated a tenderness, his betrothed, to find
pleasure in brutal hopes. Ordinarily, he expelled from his mind those
images; but now that man had just placed them under his eye, with a
diabolical crudity, and he felt shivers in his flesh, he trembled as if
the weather were cold--
Oh, whether the adventure fell or not under the blow of justice,
well, so much the worse, after all! He had nothing to lose, all was
indifferent to him! And from that evening, in the fever of a new desire,
he felt more boldly decided to brave the rules, the laws, the obstacles
of this world. Saps ascended everywhere around him, on the sides of the
brown Pyrenees; there were longer and more tepid nights; the paths were
bordered with violets and periwinkles.--But religious scruples held him
still. They remained, inexplicably in the depth of his disordered mind:
instinctive horror of profanation; belief, in spite of everything,
in something supernatural enveloping, to defend them, churches and
cloisters--
CHAPTER XII.
The winter had just come to an end.
Ramuntcho,--who had slept for a few hours, in a bad, tired sleep, in
a small room of the new house of his friend Florentino, at
Ururbil,--awakened as the day dawned.
The night,--a night of tempest everywhere, a black and troubled
night,--had been disastrous for the smugglers. Near Cape Figuier, in the
rocks where they had just landed from the sea with silk bundles, they
had been pursued with gunshots, compelled to throw away their loads,
losing everything, some fleeing to the mountain, others escaping by
swimming among the breakers, in order to reach the French shore, in
terror of the prisons of San Sebastian.
At two o'clock in the morning, exhausted, drenched and half drowned,
he had knocked at the door of that isolated house, to ask from the good
Florentino his aid and an asylum.
And on awakening, after all the nocturnal noise of the equinoctial
storm, of the rain, of the groaning branches, twisted and broken, he
perceived that a grand silence had come. Straining his ear, he could
hear no longer the immense breath of the western wind, no longer the
motion of all those things tormented in the darkness. No, nothing except
a far-off noise, regular, powerful, continued and formidable; the roll
of the waters in the depth of that Bay of Biscay--which, since the
beginning, is without truce and troubled; a rhythmic groan, as might be
the monstrous respiration of the sea in its sleep; a series of profound
blows which seemed the blows of a battering ram on a wall, continued
every time by a music of surf on the beaches.--But the air, the trees
and the surrounding things were immovable; the tempest had finished,
without reasonable cause, as it had begun, and the sea alone prolonged
the complaint of it.
To look at that land, that Spanish coast which he would perhaps never
see again, since his departure was so near, he opened his window on the
emptiness, still pale, on the virginity of the desolate dawn.
A gray light emanating from a gray sky; everywhere the same immobility,
tired and frozen, with uncertainties of aspect derived from the night
and from dreams. An opaque sky, which had a solid air and was made
of accumulated, small, horizontal layers, as if one had painted it by
superposing pastes of dead colors.
And underneath, mountains black brown; then Fontarabia in a morose
silhouette, its old belfry appearing blacker and more worn by the years.
At that hour, so early and so freshly mysterious, when the ears of most
men are not yet open, it seemed as if one surprised things in their
heartbreaking colloquy of lassitude and of death, relating to one
another, at the first flush of dawn, all that they do not say when the
day has risen.--What was the use of resisting the storm of last night?
said the old belfry, sad and weary, standing in the background in the
distance; what was the use, since other storms will come, eternally
others, other storms and other tempests, and since I will pass away,
I whom men have elevated as a signal of prayer to remain here for
incalculable years?--I am already only a spectre, come from some other
time; I continue to ring ceremonies and illusory festivals; but men will
soon cease to be lured by them; I ring also knells, I have rung so many
knells for thousands of dead persons whom nobody remembers! And I remain
here, useless, under the effort, almost eternal, of all those western
winds which blow from the sea--
At the foot of the belfry, the church, drawn in gray tints, with an air
of age and abandonment, confessed also that it was empty, that it was
vain, peopled only by poor images made of wood or of stone, by myths
without comprehension, without power and without pity. And all the
houses, piously grouped for centuries around it, avowed that its
protection was not efficacious against death, that it was deceptive and
untruthful--
And especially the clouds, the clouds and the mountains, covered with
their immense, mute attestation what the old city murmured beneath
them; they confirmed in silence the sombre truths: heaven empty as the
churches are, serving for accidental phantasmagoria, and uninterrupted
times rolling their flood, wherein thousands of lives, like
insignificant nothings, are, one after another, dragged and drowned.--A
knell began to ring in that distance which Ramuntcho saw whitening; very
slowly, the old belfry gave its voice, once more, for the end of a life;
someone was in the throes of death on the other side of the frontier,
some Spanish soul over there was going out, in the pale morning, under
the thickness of those imprisoning clouds--and he had almost the precise
notion that this soul would very simply follow its body in the earth
which decomposes--
And Ramuntcho contemplated and listened. At the little window of
that Basque house, which before him had sheltered only generations of
simple-minded and confident people, leaning on the wide sill which the
rubbing of elbows had worn, pushing the old shutter painted green, he
rested his eyes on the dull display of that corner of the world which
had been his and which he was to quit forever. Those revelations which
things made, his uncultured mind heard them for the first time and he
lent to them a frightened attention. An entire new labor of unbelief
was going on suddenly in his mind, prepared by heredity to doubts and to
worry. An entire vision came to him, sudden and seemingly definitive, of
the nothingness of religions, of the nonexistence of the divinities whom
men supplicate.
And then--since there was nothing, how simple it was to tremble still
before the white Virgin, chimerical protector of those convents where
girls are imprisoned--!
The poor agony bell, which exhausted itself in ringing over there so
puerilely to call for useless prayers, stopped at last, and, under the
closed sky, the respiration of the grand waters alone was heard in the
distance, in the universal silence. But the things continued, in the
uncertain dawn, their dialogue without words: nothing anywhere; nothing
in the old churches venerated for so long a time; nothing in the sky
where clouds and mists amass; but always, in the flight of times, the
eternal and exhausting renewal of beings; and always and at once, old
age, death, ashes--
That is what they were saying, in the pale half light, the things so
dull and so tired. And Ramuntcho, who had heard, pitied himself for
having hesitated so long for imaginary reasons. To himself he swore,
with a harsher despair, that this morning he was decided; that he would
do it, at the risk of everything; that nothing would make him hesitate
longer.
CHAPTER XIII.
Weeks have elapsed, in preparations, in anxious uncertainties on the
manner of acting, in abrupt changes of plans and ideas.
Between times, the reply of Uncle Ignacio has reached Etchezar. If his
nephew had spoken sooner, Ignacio has written, he would have been glad
to receive him at his house; but, seeing how he hesitated, Ignacio had
decided to take a wife, although he is already an old man, and now he
has a child two months old. Therefore, there is no protection to be
expected from that side; the exile, when he arrives there, may not find
even a home--
The family house has been sold, at the notary's money questions have
been settled; all the goods of Ramuntcho have been transformed into gold
pieces which are in his hand--
And now is the day of the supreme attempt, the great day,--and already
the thick foliage has returned to the trees, the clothing of the tall
grass covers anew the prairies; it is May.
In the little wagon, which the famous fast horse drags, they roll on the
shady mountain paths, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, toward that village of
Amezqueta. They roll quickly; they plunge into the heart of an infinite
region of trees. And, as the hour goes by, all becomes more peaceful
around them, and more savage; more primitive, the hamlets; more
solitary, the Basque land.
In the shade of the branches, on the borders of the paths, there are
pink foxgloves, silences, ferns, almost the same flora as in Brittany;
these two countries, the Basque and the Breton, resemble each other
by the granite which is everywhere and by the habitual rain; by the
immobility also, and by the continuity of the same religious dream.
Above the two young men who have started for the adventure, thicken
the big, customary clouds, the sombre and low sky. The route which they
follow, in these mountains ever and ever higher, is deliciously green,
dug in the shade, between walls of ferns.
Immobility of several centuries, immobility in beings and in
things,--one has more and more the consciousness of it as one penetrates
farther into this country of forests and of silence. Under this obscure
veil of the sky, where are lost the summits of the grand Pyrenees,
appear and run by, isolated houses, centenary farms, hamlets more and
more rare,--and they go always under the same vault of oaks, of ageless
chestnut trees, which twist even at the side of the path their roots
like mossy serpents. They resemble one another, those hamlets separated
from one another by so much forest, by so many branches, and inhabited
by an antique race, disdainful of all that disturbs, of all that
changes: the humble church, most often without a belfry, with a simple
campanila on its gray facade, and the square, with its wall painted for
that traditional ball-game wherein, from father to son, the men exercise
their hard muscles. Everywhere reigned the healthy peace of rustic
life, the traditions of which in the Basque land are more immutable than
elsewhere.
The few woolen caps which the two bold young men meet on their rapid
passage, incline all in a bow, from general politeness first, and from
acquaintance above all, for they are, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, the two
celebrated pelota players of the country;--Ramuntcho, it is true, had
been forgotten by many people, but Arrochkoa, everybody, from Bayonne to
San Sebastian, knows his face with healthy colors and the turned up ends
of his catlike mustache.
Dividing the journey into two stages, they have slept last night at
Mendichoco. And at present they are rolling quickly, the two young men,
so preoccupied doubtless that they hardly care to regulate the pace of
their vigorous beast.
Itchoua, however, is not with them. At the last moment, a fear has
come to Ramuntcho of this accomplice, whom he felt to be capable of
everything, even of murder; in a sudden terror, he has refused the aid
of that man, who clutched the bridle of the horse to prevent it from
starting; and feverishly, Ramuntcho has thrown gold into his hands, to
pay for his advice, to buy the liberty to act alone, the assurance,
at least, of not committing a crime: piece by piece, to break his
engagement, he has given to Itchoua a half of the agreed price. Then,
when the horse is driven at a gallop, when the implacable figure has
vanished behind a group of trees, Ramuntcho has felt his conscience
lighter--
“You will leave my carriage at Aranotz, at Burugoity, the inn-keeper's,
who understands,” said Arrochkoa, “for, you understand, as soon as you
have accomplished your end I will leave you.--We have business with the
people of Buruzabal, horses to lead into Spain to-night, not far from
Amezqueta, and I promised to be there before ten o'clock--”
What will they do? They do not know, the two allied friends; this will
depend on the turn that things take; they have different projects, all
bold and skilful, according to the cases which might present themselves.
Two places have been reserved, one for Ramuntcho and the other for her,
on board a big emigrant vessel on which the baggage is embarked and
which will start tomorrow night from Bordeaux carrying hundreds of
Basques to America. At this small station of Aranotz, where the carriage
will leave both of them, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse, they will take the
train for Bayonne, at three o'clock in the morning, and, at Bayonne
afterward, the Irun express to Bordeaux. It will be a hasty flight,
which will not give to the little fugitive the time to think, to
regain her senses in her terror,--doubtless also in her intoxication
deliciously mortal--
A gown, a mantilla of Gracieuse are all ready, at the bottom of the
carriage, to replace the veil and the black uniform: things which
she wore formerly, before her vows, and which Arrochkoa found in his
mother's closets. And Ramuntcho thinks that it will be perhaps real,
in a moment, that she will be perhaps there, at his side, very near,
on that narrow seat, enveloped with him in the same travelling
blanket, flying in the midst of night, to belong to him, at once and
forever;--and in thinking of this too much, he feels again a shudder and
a dizziness--
“I tell you that she will follow you,” repeats his friend, striking
him rudely on the leg in protective encouragement, as soon as he sees
Ramuntcho sombre and lost in a dream. “I tell you that she will follow
you, I am sure! If she hesitates, well, leave the rest to me!”
If she hesitates, then they will be violent, they are resolved, oh, not
very violent, only enough to unlace the hands of the old nuns retaining
her.--And then, they will carry her into the small wagon, where
infallibly the enlacing contact and the tenderness of her former friend
will soon turn her young head.
How will it all happen? They do not yet know, relying a great deal on
their spirit of decision which has already dragged them out of dangerous
passes. But what they know is that they will not weaken. And they go
ahead, exciting each other; one would say that they are united now unto
death, firm and decided like two bandits at the hour when the capital
game is to be played.
The land of thick branches which they traverse, under the oppression of
very high mountains which they do not see, is all in ravines, profound
and torn up, in precipices, where torrents roar under the green night of
the foliage. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnut trees become more
and more enormous, living through centuries off a sap ever fresh and
magnificent. A powerful verdure is strewn over that disturbed geology;
for ages it covers and classifies it under the freshness of its
immovable mantle. And this nebulous sky, almost obscure, which is
familiar to the Basque country, adds to the impression which they have
of a sort of universal meditation wherein the things are plunged; a
strange penumbra descends from everywhere, descends from the trees at
first, descends from the thick, gray veils above the branches, descends
from the great Pyrenees hidden behind the clouds.
And, in the midst of this immense peace and of this green night, they
pass, Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa, like two young disturbers going to break
charms in the depths of forests. At all cross roads old, granite
crosses rise, like alarm signals to warn them; old crosses with this
inscription, sublimely simple, which is here something like the device
of an entire race: “O crux, ave, spes unica!”
Soon the night will come. Now they are silent, because the hour is
going, because the moment approaches, because all these crosses on the
road are beginning to intimidate them--
And the day falls, under that sad veil which covers the sky. The valleys
become more savage, the country more deserted. And, at the corners of
roads, the old crosses appear, ever with their similar inscriptions: “O
crux, ave, spes unica!”
Amezqueta, at the last twilight. They stop their carriage at an outskirt
of the village, before the cider mill. Arrochkoa is impatient to go into
the house of the sisters, vexed at arriving so late; he fears that the
door may not be opened to them. Ramuntcho, silent, lets him act.
It is above, on the hill; it is that isolated house which a cross
surmounts and which one sees in relief in white on the darker mass of
the mountain. They recommend that as soon as the horse is rested the
wagon be brought to them, at a turn, to wait for them. Then, both go
into the avenue of trees which leads to that convent and where the
thickness of the May foliage makes the obscurity almost nocturnal.
Without saying anything to each other, without making a noise with
their sandals, they ascend in a supple and easy manner; around them the
profound fields are impregnated by the immense melancholy of the night.
Arrochkoa knocks with his finger on the door of the peaceful house:
“I would like to see my sister, if you please,” he says to an old nun
who opens the door, astonished--
Before he has finished talking, a cry of joy comes from the dark
corridor, and a nun, whom one divines is young in spite of the
envelopment of her dissembling costume, comes and takes his hand. She
has recognized him by his voice,--but has she divined the other who
stays behind and does not talk?--
The Mother Superior has come also, and, in the darkness of the stairway,
she makes them go up to the parlor of the little country convent; then
she brings the cane-seat chairs and everyone sits down, Arrochkoa near
his sister, Ramuntcho opposite,--and they face each other at last, the
two lovers, and a silence, full of the beating of arteries, full of
leaps of hearts, full of fever, descends upon them--
Truly, in this place, one knows not what peace almost sweet, and a
little sepulchral also, envelopes the terrible interview; in the depth
of the chests, the hearts beat with great blows, but the words of love
or of violence, the words die before passing the lips.--And this peace,
more and more establishes itself; it seems as if a white shroud little
by little is covering everything, in order to calm and to extinguish.
There is nothing very peculiar, however, in this humble parlor: four
walls absolutely bare under a coat of whitewash; a wooden ceiling; a
floor where one slips, so carefully waxed it is; on a table, a plaster
Virgin, already indistinct, among all the similar white things of the
background where the twilight of May is dying. And a window without
curtains, open on the grand Pyrenean horizons invaded by night.--But,
from this voluntary poverty, from this white simplicity, is exhaled a
notion of definitive impersonality, of renunciation forever; and the
irremediability of accomplished things begins to manifest itself to the
mind of Ramuntcho, while bringing to him a sort of peace, of sudden and
involuntary resignation.
The two smugglers, immovable on their chairs, appear as silhouettes,
of wide shoulders on all this white of the walls, and of their lost
features one hardly sees the black more intense of the mustache and the
eyes. The two nuns, whose outlines are unified by the veil, seem already
to be two spectres all black--
“Wait, Sister Mary Angelique,” says the Mother Superior to the
transformed young girl who was formerly named Gracieuse, “wait sister
till I light the lamp in order that you may at least see your brother's
face!”
She goes out, leaving them together, and, again, silence falls on
this rare instant, perhaps unique, impossible to regain, when they are
alone--
She comes back with a little lamp which makes the eyes of the smugglers
shine,--and with a gay voice, a kind air, asks, looking at Ramuntcho:
“And this one? A second brother, I suppose?--”
“Oh, no,” says Arrochkoa in a singular tone. “He is only my friend.”
In truth, he is not their brother, that Ramuntcho who stays there,
ferocious and mute.--And how he would frighten the quiet nuns if they
knew what storm brings him here--!
The same silence returns, heavy and disquieting, on these beings who, it
seems, should talk simply of simple things; and the old Mother Superior
remarks it, is astonished by it.--But the quick eyes of Ramuntcho become
immovable, veil themselves as if they are fascinated by some invisible
tamer. Under the harsh envelope, still beating, of his chest, the
calmness, the imposed calmness continues to penetrate and to extend. On
him, doubtless, are acting the mysterious, white powers which are here
in the air; religious heredities which were asleep in the depths of
his being fill him now with unexpected respect and submissiveness; the
antique symbols dominate him: the crosses met in the evening along the
road and that plaster Virgin of the color of snow, immaculate on the
spotless white of the wall--
“Well, my children, talk of the things of Etchezar,” says the Mother
Superior to Gracieuse and to her brother. “We shall leave you alone, if
you wish,” she adds with a sign to Ramuntcho to follow her.
“Oh, no,” protests Arrochkoa, “Let him stay.--No, he is not the one--who
prevents us--”
And the little nun, veiled in the fashion of the Middle Age, lowers her
head, to maintain her eyes hidden in the shade of her austere headdress.
The door remains open, the window remains open; the house, the things
retain their air of absolute confidence, of absolute security, against
violations and sacrilege. Now two other sisters, who are very old, set
a small table, put two covers, bring to Arrochkoa and to his friend a
little supper, a loaf of bread, cheese, cake, grapes from the arbor.
In arranging these things they have a youthful gaiety, a babble almost
childish--and all this is strangely opposed to the ardent violence which
is here, hushed, thrown back into the depth of minds, as under the blows
of some mace covered with white--
And, in spite of themselves, they are seated at the table, the two
smugglers, opposite each other, yielding to insistence and eating
absent-mindedly the frugal things, on a cloth as white as the walls.
Their broad shoulders, accustomed to loads, lean on the backs of the
little chairs and make their frail wood crack. Around them come and
go the Sisters, ever with their discreet talk and their puerile laugh,
which escape, somewhat softened, from under their veils. Alone, she
remains mute and motionless, Sister Mary Angelique: standing near her
brother who is seated, she places her hand on his powerful shoulder;
so lithe beside him that she looks like a saint of a primitive church
picture. Ramuntcho, sombre, observes them both; he had not been able to
see yet the face of Gracieuse, so severely her headdress framed it. They
resemble each other still, the brother and the sister; in their very
long eyes, which have acquired expressions more than ever different
remains something inexplicably similar, persists the same flame, that
flame which impelled one toward adventures and the life of the muscles,
the other toward mystic dreams, toward mortification and annihilation of
flesh. But she has become as frail as he is robust; her breast doubtless
is no more, nor her hips; the black vestment wherein her body remains
hidden falls straight like a furrow enclosing nothing carnal.
And now, for the first time, they are face to face, Gracieuse and
Ramuntcho; their eyes have met and gazed on one another. She does not
lower her head before him; but it is as from an infinite distance that
she looks at him, it is as from behind white mists that none may scale,
as from the other side of an abyss, as from the other side of death;
very soft, nevertheless, her glance indicates that she is as if she
were absent, gone to tranquil and inaccessible other places.--And it is
Ramuntcho at last who, still more tamed, lowers his ardent eyes before
her virgin eyes.
They continue to babble, the Sisters; they would like to retain them
both at Amezqueta for the night: the weather, they say, is so black,
and a storm threatens.--M. the Cure, who went out to take communion to
a patient in the mountain, will come back; he has known Arrochkoa at
Etchezar when a vicar there; he would be glad to give him a room in the
parish house--and one to his friend also, of course--
But no, Arrochkoa refuses, after a questioning glance at Ramuntcho.
It is impossible to stay in the village; they will even go at once,
or after a few moments of conversation, for they are expected on the
Spanish frontier.--Gracieuse who, at first, in her mortal disturbance
of mind, had not dared to talk, begins to question her brother. Now in
Basque, then in French, she asks for news of those whom she has forever
abandoned:
“And mother? All alone now in the house, even at night?”
“Oh, no,” says Arrochkoa, “Catherine watches over her and sleeps at the
house.”
“And how is your child, Arrochkoa, has he been christened? What is his
name? Lawrence, doubtless, like his grandfather.”
Etchezar, their village, is separated from Amezqueta by some sixty
kilometres, in a land without more means of communication than in the
past centuries:
“Oh, in spite of the distance,” says the little nun, “I get news of
you sometimes. Last month, people here had met on the market place of
Hasparren, women of our village; that is how I learned--many things.--At
Easter I had hoped to see you; I was told that there would be a
ball-game at Erricalde and that you would come to play there; then I
said to myself that perhaps you would come here--and, while the festival
lasted, I looked often at the road through this window, to see if you
were coming--”
And she shows the window, open on the blackness of the savage
country--from which ascends an immense silence, with, from time to
time, the noise of spring, intermittent musical notes of crickets and
tree-toads.
Hearing her talk so quietly, Ramuntcho feels confounded by this
renunciation of all things; she appears to him still more irrevocably
changed, far-off--poor little nun!--Her name was Gracieuse; now her name
is Sister Mary Angelique, and she has no relatives; impersonal here, in
this little house with white walls, without terrestrial hope and without
desire, perhaps--one might as well say that she has departed for the
regions of the grand oblivion of death. And yet, she smiles, quite
serene now and apparently not even suffering.
Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho, questions him with a piercing eye
accustomed to fathom the black depths--and, tamed himself by all this
unexpected peace, he understands very well that his bold comrade dares
no longer, that all the projects have fallen, that all is useless
and inert in presence of the invisible wall with which his sister is
surrounded. At moments, pressed to end all in one way or in another, in
a haste to break this charm or to submit to it and to fly before it, he
pulls his watch, says that it is time to go, because of the friends who
are waiting for them.--The Sisters know well who these friends are
and why they are waiting but they are not affected by this: Basques
themselves, daughters and granddaughters of Basques, they have the blood
of smugglers in their veins and consider such things indulgently--
At last, for the first time, Gracieuse titters the name of Ramuntcho;
not daring, however, to address him directly, she asks her brother, with
a calm smile:
“Then he is with you, Ramuntcho, now? You work together?”
A silence follows, and Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho.
“No,” says the latter, in a slow and sombre voice, “no--I, I go
to-morrow to America--”
Every word of this reply, harshly scanned, is like a sound of trouble
and of defiance in the midst of that strange serenity. She leans more
heavily on her brother's shoulder, the little nun, and Ramuntcho,
conscious of the profound blow which he has struck, looks at her and
envelopes her with his tempting eyes, having regained his audacity,
attractive and dangerous in the last effort of his heart full of love,
of his entire being of youth and of flame made for tenderness.--Then,
for an uncertain minute, it seems as if the little convent had trembled;
it seems as if the white powers of the air recoiled, went out like
sad, unreal mists before this young dominator, come here to hurl the
triumphant appeal of life. And the silence which follows is the heaviest
of all the silent moments which have interrupted already that species of
drama played almost without words--
At last, Sister Mary Angelique talks, and talks to Ramuntcho himself.
Really it does not seem as if her heart had just been torn supremely
by the announcement of that departure, nor as if she had just shuddered
under that lover's look.--With a voice which little by little becomes
firmer in softness, she says very simple things, as to any friend.
“Oh, yes--Uncle Ignacio?--I had always thought that you would go to
rejoin him there.--We shall all pray the Holy Virgin to accompany you in
your voyage--”
And it is the smuggler who lowers the head, realizing that all is ended,
that she is lost forever, the little companion of his childhood; that
she has been buried in an inviolable shroud.--The words of love and of
temptation which he had thought of saying, the projects which he
had revolved in his mind for months, all these seemed insensate,
sacrilegious, impossible things, childish bravadoes.--Arrochkoa, who
looks at him attentively, is under the same irresistible and light
charm; they understand each other and, to one another, without words,
they confess that there is nothing to do, that they will never dare--
Nevertheless an anguish still human appears in the eyes of Sister Mary
Angelique when Arrochkoa rises for the definite departure: she prays,
in a changed voice, for them to stay a moment longer. And Ramuntcho
suddenly feels like throwing himself on his knees in front of her; his
head on the hem of her veil, sobbing all the tears that stifle him; like
begging for mercy, like begging for mercy also of that Mother Superior
who has so soft an air; like telling both of them that this sweetheart
of his childhood was his hope, his courage, his life, and that people
must have a little pity, people must give her back to him, because,
without her, there is no longer anything.--All that his heart contains
that is infinitely good is exalted at present into an immense necessity
to implore, into an outbreak of supplicating prayer and also into a
confidence in the kindness, in the pity of others--
And who knows, if he had dared formulate that great prayer of pure
tenderness, who knows what he might have awakened of kindness also, and
of tenderness and of humanity in the poor, black-veiled girl?--Perhaps
this old Mother Superior herself, this old, dried-up girl with childish
smile and grave, pure eyes, would have opened her arms to him, as to a
son, understanding everything, forgiving everything, despite the rules
and despite the vows? And perhaps Gracieuse might have been returned
to him, without kidnapping, without deception, almost excused by her
companions of the cloister. Or at last, if that was impossible, she
would have bade him a long farewell, consoling, softened by a kiss of
immaterial love--
But no, he stays there mute on his chair. Even that prayer he cannot
make. And it is the hour to go, decidedly. Arrochkoa is up, agitated,
calling him with an imperious sign of the head. Then he straightens up
also his proud bust and takes his cap to follow Arrochkoa. They express
their thanks for the little supper which was given to them and they
say good-night, timidly. During their entire visit they were very
respectful, almost timid, the two superb smugglers. And, as if hope had
not just been undone, as if one of them was not leaving behind him his
life, they descend quietly the neat stairway, between the white walls,
while the good Sisters light the way with their little lamp.
“Come, Sister Mary Angelique,” gaily proposes the Mother Superior, in
her frail, infantile voice, “we shall escort them to the end of our
avenue, you know, near the village.”
Is she an old fairy, sure of her power, or a simple and unconscious
woman, playing without knowing it, with a great, devouring fire?--It was
all finished; the parting had been accomplished; the farewell accepted;
the struggle stifled under white wadding,--and now the two who adored
each other are walking side by side, outside, in the tepid night of
spring!--in the amorous, enveloping night, under the cover of the new
leaves and on the tall grass, among all the saps that ascend in the
midst of the sovereign growth of universal life.
They walk with short steps, through this exquisite obscurity, as in
silent accord, to make the shaded path last longer, both mute, in the
ardent desire and the intense fear of contact of their clothes, of a
touch of their hands. Arrochkoa and the Mother Superior follow them
closely, on their heels; without talking, nuns with their sandals,
smugglers with their rope soles, they go through these soft, dark spots
without making more noise than phantoms, and their little cortege, slow
and strange, descends toward the wagon in a funereal silence. Silence
also around them, everywhere in the grand, ambient black, in the depth
of the mountains and the woods. And, in the sky without stars, sleep the
big clouds, heavy with all the water that the soil awaits and which
will fall to-morrow to make the woods still more leafy, the grass still
higher; the big clouds above their heads cover all the splendor of
the southern summer which so often, in their childhood, charmed them
together, disturbed them together, but which Ramuntcho will doubtless
never see again and which in the future Gracieuse will have to look at
with eyes of one dead, without understanding nor recognizing it--
There is no one around them, in the little obscure alley, and the
village seems asleep already. The night has fallen quite; its grand
mystery is scattered everywhere, on the mountains and the savage
valleys.--And, how easy it would be to execute what these two young men
have resolved, in that solitude, with that wagon which is ready and that
fast horse--!
However, without having talked, without having touched each other, they
come, the lovers, to that turn of the path where they must bid each
other an eternal farewell. The wagon is there, held by a boy; the
lantern is lighted and the horse impatient. The Mother Superior stops:
it is, apparently, the last point of the last walk which they will
take together in this world,--and she feels the power, that old nun, to
decide that it will be thus, without appeal. With the same little, thin
voice, almost gay, she says:
“Come, Sister, say good-bye.”
And she says that with the assurance of a Fate whose decrees of death
are not disputable.
In truth, nobody attempts to resist her order, impassibly given. He
is vanquished, the rebellious Ramuntcho, oh, quite vanquished by the
tranquil, white powers; trembling still from the battle which has just
come to an end in him, he lowers his head, without will now, and almost
without thought, as under the influence of some sleeping potion--
“Come, Sister, say good-bye,” the old, tranquil Fate has said. Then,
seeing that Gracieuse has only taken Arrochkoa's hand, she adds:
“Well, you do not kiss your brother?--”
Doubtless, the little Sister Mary Angelique asks for nothing better,
to kiss him with all her heart, with all her soul; to clasp him, her
brother, to lean on his shoulder and to seek his protection, at that
hour of superhuman sacrifice when she must let the cherished one
leave her without even a word of love.--And still, her kiss has in it
something frightened, at once drawn back; the kiss of a nun, somewhat
similar to the kiss of one dead.--When will she ever see him again, that
brother, who is not to leave the Basque country, however? When will
she have news of her mother, of the house, of the village, from some
passer-by who will stop here, coming from Etchezar?--
“We will pray,” she says again, “to the Holy Virgin to protect you
in your long voyage--” And how they go; slowly they turn back, like
silent shades, toward the humble convent which the cross protects, and
the two tamed smugglers, immovable on the road, look at their veils,
darker than the night of the trees, disappearing in the obscure avenue.
Oh! she is wrecked also, the one who will disappear in the darkness
of the little, shady hill.--But she is nevertheless soothed by white,
peaceful vapors, and all that she suffers will soon be quieted under a
sort of sleep. To-morrow she will take again, until death, the course of
her strangely simple existence; impersonal, devoted to a series of daily
duties which never change, absorbed in a reunion of creatures almost
neutral, who have abdicated everything, she will be able to walk with
eyes lifted ever toward the soft, celestial mirage--
O crux, ave, spes unica--!
To live, without variety or truce to the end, between the white walls of
a cell always the same, now here, then elsewhere, at the pleasure of a
strange will, in one of those humble village convents to which one
has not even the leisure to become attached. On this earth, to possess
nothing and to desire nothing, to wait for nothing, to hope for nothing.
To accept as empty and transitory the fugitive hours of this world, and
to feel freed from everything, even from love, as much as by death.--The
mystery of such lives remains forever unintelligible to those young men
who are there, made for the daily battle, beautiful beings of instinct
and of strength, a prey to all the desires; created to enjoy life and to
suffer from it, to love it and to continue it--
O crux, ave, spes unica!--One sees them no longer, they have re-entered
their little, solitary convent.
The two men have not exchanged even a word on their abandoned
undertaking, on the ill-defined cause which for the first time has
undone their courage; they feel, toward one another, almost a sense of
shame of their sudden and insurmountable timidity.
For an instant their proud heads were turned toward the nuns slowly
fleeing; now they look at each other through the night.
They are going to part, and probably forever: Arrochkoa puts into his
friends hands the reins of the little wagon which, according to his
promise, he lends to him:
“Well, my poor Ramuntcho!” he says, in a tone of commiseration hardly
affectionate.
And the unexpressed end of the phrase signifies clearly:
“Go, since you have failed; and I have to go and meet my friends--”
Ramuntcho would have kissed him with all his heart for the last
farewell,--and in this embrace of the brother of the beloved one, he
would have shed doubtless good, hot tears which, for a moment at least,
would have cured him a little.
But no, Arrochkoa has become again the Arrochkoa of the bad days, the
gambler without soul, that only bold things interest. Absentmindedly, he
touches Ramuntcho's hand:
“Well, good-bye!--Good luck--”
And, with silent steps, he goes toward the smugglers, toward the
frontier, toward the propitious darkness.
Then Ramuntcho, alone in the world now, whips the little, mountain horse
who gallops with his light tinkling of bells.--That train which will
pass by Aranotz, that vessel which will start from Bordeaux--an instinct
impels Ramuntcho not to miss them. Mechanically he hastens, no longer
knowing why, like a body without a mind which continues to obey an
ancient impulsion, and, very quickly, he who has no aim and no hope in
the world, plunges into the savage country, into the thickness of the
woods, in all that profound blackness of the night of May, which the
nuns, from their elevated window, see around them--
For him the native land is closed, closed forever; finished are the
delicious dreams of his first years. He is a plant uprooted from the
dear, Basque soil and which a breath of adventure blows elsewhere.
At the horse's neck, gaily the bells tinkle, in the silence of the
sleeping woods; the light of the lantern, which runs hastily, shows to
the sad fugitive the under side of branches, fresh verdure of oaks; by
the wayside, flowers of France; from distance to distance, the walls of
a familiar hamlet, of an old church,--all the things which he will never
see again, unless it be, perhaps, in a doubtful and very distant old
age--
In front of his route, there is America, exile without probable return,
an immense new world, full of surprises and approached now without
courage: an entire life, very long, doubtless, during which his mind
plucked from here will have to suffer and to harden over there; his
vigor spend and exhaust itself none knows where, in unknown labors and
struggles--
Above, in their little convent, in their sepulchre with walls so white,
the tranquil nuns recite their evening prayers--
O crux, ave, spes unica--!
THE END.