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 pa.s.sing 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 ama.s.sing 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.body: 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s.

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 pa.s.sion, 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--!