Books: Ramuntcho

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And as soon as Gracieuse entered there, at night, in the dying ring of
the bells--leaving the pale half-light of the graveyard full of roses for
the starry night of the wax tapers which reigned already in the church,
quitting the odor of hay and of roses for that of incense and of the
tall, cut lilies, passing from the lukewarm and living air outside to
that heavy and sepulchral cold that centuries amass in old sanctuaries--a
particular calm came at once to her mind, a pacifying of all her desires,
a renunciation of all her terrestrial joys. Then, when she had knelt,
when the first canticles had taken their flight under the vault,
infinitely sonorous, little by little she fell into an ecstasy, a state
of dreaming, a visionary state which confused, white apparitions
traversed: whiteness, whiteness everywhere; lilies, thousands of sheafs
of lilies, and white wings, shivers of white wings of angels--

Oh! to remain for a long time in that state, to forget all things, and to
feel herself pure, sanctified and immaculate, under that glance,
ineffably fascinating and soft, under that glance, irresistibly
appealing, which the Holy Virgin, in long white vestments, let fall from
the height of the tabernacle!--

But, when she went outside, when the night of spring re-enveloped her
with tepid breezes of life, the memory of the meeting which she had
promised the day before, the day before as well as every day, chased like
the wind of a storm the visions of the church. In the expectation of
Ramuntcho, in the expectation of the odor of his hair, of the touch of
his mustache, of the taste of his lips, she felt near faltering, like one
wounded, among the strange companions who accompanied her, among the
peaceful and spectral black nuns.

And when the hour had come, in spite of all her resolutions she was
there, anxious and ardent, listening to the least noise, her heart
beating if a branch of the garden moved in the night--tortured by the
least tardiness of the beloved one.

He came always with his same silent step of a rover at night, his
waistcoat on his shoulder, with as much precaution and artifice as for
the most dangerous act of smuggling.

In the rainy nights, so frequent in the Basque spring-time, she remained
in her room on the first floor, and he sat on the sill of the open
window, not trying to go in, not having the permission to do so. And they
stayed there, she inside, he outside, their arms laced, their heads
touching each other, the cheek of one resting on the cheek of the other.

When the weather was beautiful, she jumped over this low window-sill to
wait for him outside, and their long meetings, almost without words,
occurred on the garden bench. Between them there were not even those
continual whisperings familiar to lovers; no, there were rather silences.
At first they did not dare to talk, for fear of being discovered, for the
least murmurs of voices at night are heard. And then, as nothing new
threatened their lives, what need had they to talk? What could they have
said which would have been better than the long contact of their joined
hands and of their heads resting against each other?

The possibility of being surprised kept them often on the alert, in an
anxiety which made more delicious afterward the moments when they forgot
themselves more, their confidence having returned.--Nobody frightened
them as much as Arrochkoa, a smart, nocturnal prowler himself, and always
so well-informed about the goings and comings of Ramuntcho--In spite of
his indulgence, what would he do, if he discovered them?--

Oh, the old stone benches, under branches, in front of the doors of
isolated houses, when fall the lukewarm nights of spring!--Theirs was a
real lovers' hiding place, and there was for them, every night, a music,
for, in all the stones of the neighbors' wall lived those singing
tree-toads, beasts of the south, which, as soon as night fell, gave from
moment to moment a little, brief note, discreet, odd, having the tone of
a crystal bell and of a child's throat. Something similar might be
produced by touching here and there, without ever resting on them, the
scales of an organ with a celestial voice. There were tree-toads
everywhere, responding to one another in different tones; even those
which were under their bench, close by them, reassured by their
immobility, sang also from time to time; then that little sound, brusque
and soft, so near, made them start and smile. All the exquisite,
surrounding obscurity was animated by that music, which continued in the
distance, in the mystery of the leaves and of the stones, in the depths
of all the small, black holes of rocks or walls; it seemed like chivies
in miniature, or rather, a sort of frail concert somewhat mocking--oh!
not very mocking, and without any maliciousness--led timidly by
inoffensive gnomes. And this made the night more living and more loving--

After the intoxicated audacities of the first nights, fright took a
stronger hold of them, and, when one of them had something special to
say, one led the other by the hand without talking; this meant that they
had to walk softly, softly, like marauding cats, to an alley behind the
house where they could talk without fear.

"Where shall we live, Gracieuse?" asked Ramuntcho one night.

"At your house, I had thought."

"Ah! yes, so thought I--only I thought it would make you sad to be so far
from the parish, from the church and the square--"

"Oh--with you, I could find anything sad?--"

"Then, we would send away those who live on the first floor and take the
large room which opens on the road to Hasparitz--"

It was an increased joy for him to know that Gracieuse would accept his
house, to be sure that she would bring the radiance of her presence into
that old, beloved home, and that they would make their nest there for
life--

CHAPTER XIX.

Here come the long, pale twilights of June, somewhat veiled like those of
May, less uncertain, however, and more tepid still. In the gardens, the
rose-laurel which is beginning to bloom in profusion is becoming already
magnificently pink. At the end of each work day, the good folks sit
outside, in front of their doors, to look at the night falling--the night
which soon confuses, under the vaults of the plane-trees, their groups
assembled for benevolent rest. And a tranquil melancholy descends over
villages, in those interminable evenings--

For Ramuntcho, this is the epoch when smuggling becomes a trade almost
without trouble, with charming hours, marching toward summits through
spring clouds; crossing ravines, wandering in lands of springs and of
wild fig-trees; sleeping, waiting for the agreed hour, with carbineers
who are accomplices, on carpets of mint and pinks.--The good odor of
plants impregnated his clothes, his waistcoat which he never wore, but
used as a pillow or a blanket--and Gracieuse would say to him at night:
"I know where you went last night, for you smell of mint of the mountain
above Mendizpi"--or: "You smell of absinthe of the Subernoa morass."

Gracieuse regretted the month of Mary, the offices of the Virgin in the
nave, decked with white flowers. In the twilights without rain, with the
sisters and some older pupils of their class, she sat under the porch of
the church, against the low wall of the graveyard from which the view
plunges into the valleys beneath. There they talked, or played the
childish games in which nuns indulge.

There were also long and strange meditations, meditations to which the
fall of day, the proximity of the church, of the tombs and of their
flowers, gave soon a serenity detached from material things and as if
free from all alliance with the senses. In her first mystic dreams as a
little girl,--inspired especially by the pompous rites of the cult, by
the voice of the organ, the white bouquets, the thousand flames of the
wax tapers--only images appeared to her--very radiant images, it is true:
altars resting on mists, golden tabernacles where music vibrated and
where fell grand flights of angels. But those visions gave place now to
ideas: she caught a glimpse of that peace and that supreme renunciation
which the certainty of an endless celestial life gives; she conceived, in
a manner more elevated than formerly, the melancholy joy of abandoning
everything in order to become an impersonal part of that entirety of
nuns, white, or blue, or black, who, from the innumerable convents of
earth, make ascend toward heaven an immense and perpetual intercession
for the sins of the world--

However, as soon as night had fallen quite, the course of her thoughts
came down every evening fatally toward intoxicating and mortal things.
Her wait, her feverish wait, began, more impatient from moment to moment.
She felt anxious that her cold companions with black veils should return
into the sepulchre of their convent and that she should be alone in her
room, free at last, in the house fallen asleep, ready to open her window
and listen to the slight noise of Ramuntcho's footsteps.

The kiss of lovers, the kiss on the lips, was now a thing possessed and
of which they had not the strength to deprive themselves. And they
prolonged it a great deal, not wishing, through charming scruples, to
accord more to each other.

Anyway, if the intoxication which they gave to each other thus was a
little too carnal, there was between them that absolute tenderness,
infinite, unique, by which all things are elevated and purified.

CHAPTER XX.

Ramuntcho, that evening, had come to the meeting place earlier than
usual--with more hesitation also in his walk, for one risks, on these
June evenings, to find girls belated along the paths, or boys behind the
hedges on love expeditions.

And by chance she was already alone, looking outside, without waiting for
him, however.

At once she noticed his agitated demeanor and guessed that something new
had happened. Not daring to come too near, he made a sign to her to come
quickly, jump over the window-sill, and meet him in the obscure alley
where they talked without fear. Then, as soon as she was near him, in the
nocturnal shade of the trees, he put his arm around her waist and
announced to her, brusquely, the great piece of news which, since the
morning, troubled his young head and that of Franchita, his mother.

"Uncle Ignacio has written."

"True? Uncle Ignacio!"

She knew that that adventurous uncle, that American uncle, who had
disappeared for so many years, had never thought until now of sending
more than a strange good-day by a passing sailor.

"Yes! And he says that he has property there, which requires attention,
large prairies, herds of horses; that he has no children, that if I wish
to go and live near him with a gentle Basque girl married to me here, he
would be glad to adopt both of us.--Oh! I think mother will come
also.--So, if you wish.--We could marry now.--You know they marry people
as young as we, it is allowed.--Now that I am to be adopted by my uncle
and I shall have a real situation in life, your mother will consent, I
think.--And as for military service, we shall not care for that, shall
we?--"

They sat on the mossy rocks, their heads somewhat dizzy, troubled by the
approach and the unforeseen temptation of happiness. So, it would not be
in an uncertain future, after his term as a soldier, it would be almost
at once; in two months, in one month, perhaps, that communion of their
minds and of their flesh, so ardently desired and now so forbidden, might
be accomplished without sin, honestly in the eyes of all, permitted and
blessed.--Oh! they had never looked at this so closely.--And they pressed
against each other their foreheads, made heavy by too many thoughts,
fatigued suddenly by a sort of too delicious delirium.--Around them, the
odor of the flowers of June ascended from the earth, filling the night
with an immense suavity. And, as if there were not enough scattered
fragrance, the jessamine, the honeysuckle on the walls exhaled from
moment to moment, in intermittent puffs, the excess of their perfume; one
would have thought that hands swung in silence censers in the darkness,
for some hidden festival, for some enchantment magnificent and secret.

There are often and everywhere very mysterious enchantments like this,
emanating from nature itself, commanded by one knows not what sovereign
will with unfathomable designs, to deceive us all, on the road to death--

"You do not reply, Gracieuse, you say nothing to me--"

He could see that she was intoxicated also, like him, and yet he divined
by her manner of remaining mute so long, that shadows were amassing over
his charming and beautiful dream.

"But," she asked at last, "your naturalization papers. You have received
them, have you not?"

"Yes, they arrived last week, you know very well, and it was you who said
that I should apply for them--"

"Then you are a Frenchman to-day.--Then, if you do not do your military
service you are a deserter."

"Yes.--A deserter, no; but refractory, I think it is called.--It isn't
better, since one cannot come back.--I was not thinking of that--"

How she was tortured now to have caused this thought, to have impelled
him herself to this act which made soar over his hardly seen joy a threat
so black! Oh, a deserter, he, her Ramuntcho! That is, banished forever
from the dear, Basque country!--And this departure for America becomes
suddenly frightfully grave, solemn, similar to a death, since he could
not possibly return!--Then, what was there to be done?--

Now they were anxious and mute, each one preferring to submit to the will
of the other, and waiting, with equal fright, for the decision which
should be taken, to go or to remain. From the depths of their two young
hearts ascended, little by little, a similar distress, poisoning the
happiness offered over there, in that America from which they would never
return.--And the little, nocturnal censers of jessamine, of honeysuckle,
of linden, continued to throw into the air exquisite puffs to intoxicate
them; the darkness that enveloped them seemed more and more caressing and
soft; in the silence of the village and of the country, the tree-toads
gave, from moment to moment, their little flute-note, which seemed a very
discreet love call, under the velvet of the moss; and, through the black
lace of the foliage, in the serenity of a June sky which one thought
forever unalterable, they saw scintillate, like a simple and gentle dust
of phosphorus, the terrifying multitude of the worlds.

The curfew began to ring, however, at the church. The sound of that bell,
at night especially, was for them something unique on earth. At this
moment, it was something like a voice bringing, in their indecision, its
advice, its counsel, decisive and tender. Mute still, they listened to it
with an increasing emotion, of an intensity till then unknown, the brown
head of the one leaning on the brown head of the other. It said, the
advising voice, the dear, protecting voice: "No, do not go forever; the
far-off lands are made for the time of youth; but you must be able to
return to Etchezar: it is here that you must grow old and die; nowhere in
the world could you sleep as in this graveyard around the church, where
one may, even when lying under the earth, hear me ring again--" They
yielded more and more to the voice of the bell, the two children whose
minds were religious and primitive. And Ramuntcho felt on his cheek a
tear of Gracieuse:

"No," he said at last, "I will not desert; I think that I would not have
the courage to do it--"

"I thought the same thing as you, my Ramuntcho," she said. "No, let us
not do that. I was waiting for you to say it--"

Then he realized that he also was crying, like her--

The die was cast, they would permit to pass by happiness which was within
their reach, almost under their hands; they would postpone everything to
a future uncertain and so far off!--

And now, in the sadness, in the meditation of the great decision which
they had taken, they communicated to each other what seemed best for them
to do:

"We might," she said, "write a pretty letter to your uncle Ignacio; write
to him that you accept, that you will come with a great deal of pleasure
immediately after your military service; you might even add, if you wish,
that the one who is engaged to you thanks him and will be ready to follow
you; but that decidedly you cannot desert."

"And why should you not talk to your mother now, Gatchutcha, only to know
what she would think?--Because now, you understand, I am not as I was, an
abandoned child--"

--Slight steps behind them, in the path--and above the wall, the
silhouette of a young man who had come on the tips of his sandals, as if
to spy upon them!

"Go, escape, my Ramuntcho, we will meet to-morrow evening!--"

In half a second, there was nobody: he was hidden in a bush, she had fled
into her room.

Ended was their grave interview! Ended until when? Until to-morrow or
until always?--On their farewells, abrupt or prolonged, frightened or
peaceful, every time, every night, weighed the same uncertainty of their
meeting again--

CHAPTER XXI.

The bell of Etchezar, the same dear, old bell, that of the tranquil
curfew, that of the festivals and that of the agonies, rang joyously in
the beautiful sun of June. The village was decorated with white cloths,
white embroideries, and the procession of the Fete-Dieu passed slowly, on
a green strewing of fennel seed and of reeds cut from the marshes.

The mountains seemed near and sombre, somewhat ferocious in their brown
tones, above this white parade of little girls marching on a carpet of
cut leaves and grass.

All the old banners of the church were there, illuminated by that sun
which they had known for centuries but which they see only once or twice
a year, on the consecrated days.

The large one, that of the Virgin, in white silk embroidered with pale
gold, was borne by Gracieuse, who walked in white dress, her eyes lost in
a mystic dream. Behind the young girls, came the women, all the women of
the village, wearing black veils, including Dolores and Franchita, the
two enemies. Men, numerous enough, closed this cortege, tapers in their
hands, heads uncovered--but there were especially gray hairs, faces with
expressions vanquished and resigned, heads of old men.

Gracieuse, holding high the banner of the Virgin, became at this hour one
of the Illuminati; she felt as if she were marching, as after death,
toward the celestial tabernacles. And when, at instants, the reminiscence
of Ramuntcho's lips traversed her dream, she had the impression, in the
midst of all this white, of a sharp stain, delicious still. Truly, as her
thoughts became more elevated from day to day, what brought her back to
him was less her senses, capable in her of being tamed, than true,
profound tenderness, the one which resists time and deceptions of the
flesh. And this tenderness was augmented by the fact that Ramuntcho was
less fortunate than she and more abandoned in life, having had no
father--

CHAPTER XXII.

"Well, Gatchutcha, you have at last spoken to your mother of Uncle
Ignacio?" asked Ramuntcho, very late, the same night, in the alley of the
garden, under rays of the moon.

"Not yet, I have not dared.--How could I explain that I know all these
things, since I am supposed not to talk with you ever, and she has
forbidden me to do so?--Think, if I were to make her suspicious!--There
would be an end to everything, we could not see each other again! I would
like better to wait until you left the country, then all would be
indifferent to me--"

"It is true!--let us wait, since I am to go."

He was going away, and already they could count the evenings which would
be left to them.

Now that they had permitted their immediate happiness to escape, the
happiness offered to them in the prairies of America, it seemed
preferable to them to hasten the departure of Ramuntcho for the army, in
order that he might return sooner. So they had decided that he would
enlist in the naval infantry, the only part of the service where one may
elect to serve for a period as short as three years. And as they needed,
in order to be certain not to be lacking in courage, a precise epoch,
considered for a long time in advance, they had fixed the end of
September, after the grand series of ball-games.

They contemplated this separation of three years duration with an
absolute confidence in the future, so sure they thought they were of each
other, and of themselves, and of their imperishable love. But it was,
however, an expectation which already filled their hearts strangely; it
threw an unforeseen melancholy over things which were ordinarily the most
indifferent, on the flight of days, on the least indications of the next
season, on the coming into life of certain plants, on the coming into
bloom of certain species of flowers, on all that presaged the arrival and
the rapid march of their last summer.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Already the fires of St. John have flamed, joyful and red in a clear,
blue night, and the Spanish mountain seemed to burn, that night, like a
sheaf of straw, so many were the bonfires lighted on its sides. It has
begun, the season of light, of heat and of storms, at the end of which
Ramuntcho must depart.

And the saps, which in the spring went up so quickly, become languid
already in the complete development of the verdure, in the wide bloom of
the flowers. And the sun, more and more burning, overheats all the heads
covered with Basque caps, excites ardor and passion, causes to rise
everywhere, in those Basque villages, ferments of noisy agitation and of
pleasure. While, in Spain, begin the grand bull-fights, this is here the
epoch of so many ball-games, of so many fandangoes danced in the evening,
of so much pining of lovers in the tepid voluptuousness of nights!--

Soon will come the warm splendor of the southern July. The Bay of Biscay
has become very blue and the Cantabric coast has for a time put on its
fallow colors of Morocco or of Algeria.

With the heavy rains alternates the marvellously beautiful weather which
gives to the air absolute limpidities. And there are days also when
somewhat distant things are as if eaten by light, powdered with sun dust;
then, above the woods and the village of Etchezar, the Gizune, very
pointed, becomes more vaporous and more high, and, on the sky, float, to
make it appear bluer, very small clouds of a gilded white with a little
mother-of-pearl gray in their shades.

And the springs run thinner and rarer under the thickness of the ferns,
and, along the routes, go more slowly, driven by half nude men, the
ox-carts which a swarm of flies surrounds.

At this season, Ramuntcho, in the day-time, lived his agitated life of a
pelotari, running with Arrochkoa from village to village, to organize
ball-games and play them.

But, in his eyes, evenings alone existed.

Evenings!--In the odorous and warm darkness of the garden, to be seated
very near Gracieuse; to put his arm around her, little by little to draw
her to him and hold her against his breast, and remain thus for a long
time without saying anything, his chin resting on her hair, breathing the
young and healthy scent of her body.

He enervated himself dangerously, Ramuntcho, in these prolonged contacts
which she did not prohibit. Anyway, he divined her surrendered enough to
him now, and confident enough, to permit everything; but he did not wish
to attempt supreme communion, through childish reserve, through respect
for his betrothed, through excess and profoundness of love. And it
happened to him at times to rise abruptly, to stretch himself--in the
manner of a cat, she said, as formerly at Erribiague--when he felt a
dangerous thrill and a more imperious temptation to leave life with her
in a moment of ineffable death--

CHAPTER XXIV.

Franchita, however, was astonished by the unexplained attitude of her
son, who, apparently, never saw Gracieuse and yet never talked of her.
Then, while was amassing in her the sadness of his coming departure for
military service, she observed him, with her peasant's patience and
muteness.

One evening, one of the last evenings, as he was going away, mysterious
and in haste, long before the hour of the nocturnal contraband, she
straightened before him, her eyes fixed on his:

"Where are you going, my son?"

And seeing him turn his head, blushing and embarrassed, she acquired a
sudden certainty:

"It is well, now I know.--Oh! I know!--"

She was moved even more than he, at her discovery of this great
secret.--The idea had not even come to her that it was not Gracieuse,
that it might be another girl. She was too far-seeing. And her scruples
as a Christian were awakened, her conscience was frightened at the evil
that they might have done, as rose from the depth of her heart a
sentiment of which she was ashamed as if it were a crime, a sort of
savage joy.--For, in fine--if their carnal union was accomplished, the
future of her son was assured.--She knew her Ramuntcho well enough to
know that he would not change his mind and that Gracieuse would never be
abandoned by him.

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