The turns of the path, the houses, the least trees, all recalled hours of other times to Ramuntcho, hours wherein Gracieuse was mingled. And then, at each reminiscence, at each step, engraved itself and hammered itself in his mind, under a new form, this verdict without recourse: "It is finished, you are alone forever, Gracieuse has been taken away from you and is in prison--" The rents in his heart, every accident in the path renewed and changed them. And, in the depth of his being, as a constant basis for his reflections, this other anxiety endured: his mother, his mother very ill, in mortal danger, perhaps--!

He met people who stopped him, with a kind and welcoming air, who talked to him in the dear Basque tongue--ever alert and sonorous despite its incalculable antiquity; old Basque caps, old white heads, liked to talk of the ball-game to this fine player returned to his cradle. And then, at once, after the first words of greeting, smiles went out, in spite of this clear sun in this blue sky, and all were disturbed by the thought of Gracieuse in a veil and of Franchita dying.

A violent flush of blood went up to his face when he caught sight of Dolores, at a distance, going into her home. Very decrepit, that one, and wearing a prostrate air! She had recognized him, for she turned quickly her obstinate and hard head, covered by a mourning mantilla.

With a sentiment of pity at seeing her so undone, he reflected that she had struck herself with the same blow, and that she would be alone now in her old age and at her death--

On the square, he met Marcos Iragola who informed him that he was married, like Florentino--and with the little friend of his childhood, he also.

"I did not have to serve in the army," Iragola explained, "because we are Guipuzcoans, immigrants in France; so I could marry her earlier!"

He, twenty-one years old; she eighteen; without lands and without a penny, Marcos and Pilar, but joyfully a.s.sociated all the same, like two sparrows building their nest. And the very young husband added laughingly:

"What would you? Father said: 'As long as you do not marry I warn you that I shall give you a little brother every year.' And he would have done it! There are already fourteen of us, all living--"

Oh, how simple and natural they are! How wise and humbly happy!--Ramuntcho quitted him with some haste, with a heart more bruised for having spoken to him, but wishing very sincerely that he should be happy in his improvident, birdlike, little home.

Here and there, folks were seated in front of their doors, in that sort of atrium of branches which precedes all the houses of this country.

And their vaults of plane-trees, cut in the Basque fashion, which in the summer are so impenetrable all open worked in this season, let fall on them sheafs of light. The sun flamed, somewhat destructive and sad, above those yellow leaves which were drying up--

And Ramuntcho, in his slow promenade, felt more and more what intimate ties, singularly persistent, would attach him always to this region of the earth, harsh and enclosed, even if he were there alone, abandoned, without friends, without a wife and without a mother--

Now, the high ma.s.s rings! And the vibrations of that bell impress him with a strange emotion that he did not expect. Formerly, its familiar appeal was an appeal to joy and to pleasure--

He stops, he hesitates, in spite of his actual religious unbelief and in spite of his grudge against that church which has taken his betrothed away from him. The bell seems to invite him to-day in so special a manner, with so peaceful and caressing a voice: "Come, come; let yourself be rocked as your ancestors were; come, poor, desolate being, let yourself be caught by the lure which will make your tears fall without bitterness, and will help you to die--"

Undecided, resisting still, he walks, however, toward the church--when Arrochkoa appears!

Arrochkoa, whose catlike mustache has lengthened a great deal and whose feline expression is accentuated, runs to him with extended hands, with an effusion that he did not expect, in an enthusiasm, perhaps sincere, for that ex-sergeant who has such a grand air, who wears the ribbon of a medal and whose adventures have made a stir in the land:

"Ah, my Ramuntcho, when did you arrive?--Oh, if I could have prevented--What do you think of my old, hardened mother and of all those church bigots?--Oh, I did not tell you: I have a son, since two months; a fine little fellow! We have so many things to say, my poor friend, so many things!--"

The bell rings, rings, fills the air more and more with its soft appeal, very grave and somewhat imposing also.

"You are not going there, I suppose?" asks Arrochkoa, pointing to the church.

"No, oh, no," replies Ramuntcho, sombrely decided.

"Well come then, let us go in here and taste the new cider of your country!--"

To the smugglers' cider mill, he brings him; both, near the open window, sit as formerly, looking outside;--and this place also, these old benches, these casks in a line in the back, these same images on the wall, are there to recall to Ramuntcho the delicious times of the past, the times that are finished.

The weather is adorably beautiful; the sky retains a rare limpidity; through the air pa.s.ses that special scent of falling seasons, scent of woods despoiled, of dead leaves that the sun overheats on the soil. Now, after the absolute calm of the morning, rises a wind of autumn, a chill of November, announcing clearly, but with a melancholy almost charming, that the winter is near--a southern winter, it is true, a softened winter, hardly interrupting the life of the country. The gardens and all the old walls are still ornamented with roses--!

At first they talk of indifferent things while drinking their cider, of Ramuntcho's travels, of what happened in the country during his absence, of the marriages which occurred or were broken. And, to those two rebels who have fled from the church, all the sounds of the ma.s.s come during their talk, the sounds of the small bells and the sounds of the organ, the ancient songs that fill the high, sonorous nave--

At last, Arrochkoa returns to the burning subject:

"Oh, if you had been here it would not have occurred!--And even now, if she saw you--"

Ramuntcho looks at him then, trembling at what he imagines he understands:

"Even now?--What do you mean?"

"Oh, women--with them, does one ever know?--She cared a great deal for you and it was hard for her.--In these days there is no law to keep her there!--How little would I care if she broke her vows--"

Ramuntcho turns his head, lowers his eyes, says nothing, strikes the soil with his foot. And, in the silence, the impious thing which he had hardly dared to formulate to himself, seems to him little by little less chimerical, attainable, almost easy.--No, it is not impossible to regain her. And, if need be, doubtless, Arrochkoa, her own brother, would lend a hand. Oh, what a temptation and what a new disturbance in his mind--!

Drily he asks, "Where is she?--Far from here?"

"Far enough, yes. Over there, toward Navarre, five or six hours of a carriage drive. They have changed her convent twice. She lives at Amezqueta now, beyond the oak forests of Oyanzabal; the road is through Mendichoco; you know, we must have gone through it together one night with Itchoua."

The high ma.s.s is ended.--Groups pa.s.s: women, pretty girls, elegant in demeanor, among whom Gracieuse is no more: many Basque caps lowered on sunburnt foreheads. And all these faces turn to look at the two cider drinkers at their window. The wind, that blows stronger, makes dance around their gla.s.ses large, dead, plane-tree leaves.

A woman, already old, casts at them, from under her black cloth mantilla, a sad and evil glance:

"Ah," says Arrochkoa, "here is mother! And she looks at us crosswise.--She may flatter herself for her work!--She punished herself for she will end in solitude now.--Catherine--who is at Elsagarray's, you know--works by the day for her; otherwise, she would have n.o.body to talk to in the evening--"

A ba.s.s voice, behind them, interrupts them, with a Basque greeting, hollow like a sound in a cavern, while a large and heavy hand rests on Ramuntcho's shoulder as if to take possession of him: Itchoua, Itchoua who has just finished chanting his liturgy!--Not changed at all, this one; he has always his same ageless face, always his colorless mask which is at once that of a monk and that of a highwayman, and his same eyes, set in, hidden, absent. His mind also must have remained similar, his mind capable of impa.s.sible murder at the same time as devout fetichism.

"Ah," he says, in a tone which wishes to be that of a good fellow, "you have returned to us, my Ramuntcho! Then we are going to work together, eh? Business is brisk with Spain now, you know, and arms are needed at the frontier. You are one of us, are you not?"

"Perhaps," replies Ramuntcho. "We may talk of it--"

For several moments his departure for America has become a faint idea in his mind.--No!--He would rather stay in his native land, begin again his former life, reflect and wait obstinately. Anyway, now that he knows where she is, that village of Amezqueta, at a distance of five or six hours from here, haunts him in a dangerous way, and he hugs all sorts of sacrilegious projects which, until to-day, he would never have dared hardly to conceive.

CHAPTER IV.

At noon, he returned to his isolated house to see his mother.

The febrile and somewhat artificial improvement of the morning had continued. Nursed by the old Doyanburu, Franchita said that she felt better, and, in the fear that Ramuntcho might become dreamy, she made him return to the square to attend the Sunday ball-game.

The breath of the wind became warm again, blew from the south; none of the shivers of a moment ago remained; on the contrary, a summer sun and atmosphere, on the reddened woods, on the rusty ferns, on the roads where continued to fall the sad leaves. But the sky was gathering thick clouds, which suddenly came out from the rear of the mountains as if they had stayed there in ambush to appear all at the same signal.

The ball-game had not yet been arranged and groups were disputing violently when he reached the square. Quickly, he was surrounded, he was welcomed, designated by acclamation to go into the game and sustain the honor of his county. He did not dare, not having played for three years and distrusting his unaccustomed arm. At last, he yielded and began to undress--but to whom would he trust his waistcoat now?--The image reappeared to him, suddenly, of Gracieuse, seated on the nearest steps and extending her hands to receive it. To whom would he throw his waistcoat to-day? It is intrusted ordinarily to some friend, as the toreadors do with their gilt silk mantles.--He threw it at random, this time, anywhere, on the granite of the old benches flowered with belated scabwort--

The match began. Out of practice at first, uncertain, he missed several times the little bounding thing which is to be caught in the air.

Then, he went to his work with a rage, regained his former ease and became himself again superbly. His muscles had gained in strength what they had perhaps lost in skill; again he was applauded, he knew the physical intoxication of moving, of leaping, of feeling his muscles play like supple and violent springs, of hearing around him the ardent murmur of the crowd.

But then came the instant of rest which interrupts ordinarily the long disputed games; the moment when one sits halting, the blood in ebulition, the hands reddened, trembling,--and when one regains the course of ideas which the game suppresses.

Then, he realized the distress of being alone.

Above the a.s.sembled heads, above the woolen caps and the hair ornamented with kerchiefs, was accentuated that stormy sky which the southern winds, when they are about to finish, bring always. The air had a.s.sumed an absolute limpidity, as if it had become rarified, rarified unto emptiness. The mountains seemed to have advanced extraordinarily; the Pyrenees were crushing the village; the Spanish summits or the French summits were there, all equally near, as if pasted on one another, exaggerating their burned, brown colors, their intense and sombre, violet tints. Large clouds, which seemed as solid as terrestrial things, were displayed in the form of bows, veiling the sun, casting an obscurity which was like an eclipse. And here and there, through some rent, bordered with dazzling silver, one could see the profound blue green of a sky almost African. All this country, the unstable climate of which changes between a morning and an evening, became for several hours strangely southern in aspect, in temperature and in light.

Ramuntcho breathed that dry and suave air, come from the South in order to vivify the lungs. It was the true weather of his native land. It was even the characteristic weather of that land of the Bay of Biscay, the weather which he liked best formerly, and which to-day filled him with physical comfort--as much as with disturbance of mind, for all that was preparing, all that was ama.s.sing above, with airs of ferocious menace, impressed him with the sentiment of a heaven deaf to prayers, without thoughts as without master, a simple focus of storms, of blind forces creating, recreating and destroying. And, during these minutes of halting meditation, where men in Basque caps of a temperament other than his, surrounded him to congratulate him, he made no reply, he did not listen, he felt only the ephemeral plenitude of his own vigor, of his youth, of his will, and he said to himself that he wished to use harshly and desperately all things, to try anything, without the obstacle of vain fears, of vain church scruples, in order to take back the young girl whom his soul and his flesh desired, who was the unique one and the betrothed--