This is the rule of the game: when one of the champions of the two camps lets the ball fall, it is a point earned by the adverse camp,--and ordinarily the limit is sixty points. After each point, the t.i.tled crier chants with a full voice in his old time tongue: "The but has so much, the refil has so much, gentlemen!" (The but is the camp which played first, the refil is the camp opposed to the but.) And the crier's long clamor drags itself above the noise of the crowd, which approves or murmurs.

On the square, the zone gilt and reddened by the sun diminishes, goes, devoured by the shade; more and more the great screen of the Gizune predominates over everything, seems to enclose in this little corner of the world at its feet, the very special life and the ardor of these mountaineers--who are the fragments of a people very mysteriously unique, without a.n.a.logy among nations--The shade of night marches forward and invades in silence, soon it will be sovereign; in the distance only a few summits still lighted above so many darkened valleys, are of a violet luminous and pink.

Ramuntcho plays as, in his life, he had never played before; he is in one of those instants when one feels tempered by strength, light, weighing nothing, and when it is a pure joy to move, to extend one's arms, to leap. But Arrochkoa weakens, the vicar is fettered two or three times by his black ca.s.sock, and the adverse camp, at first distanced, little by little catches up, then, in presence of this game so valiantly disputed, clamor redoubles and caps fly in the air, thrown by enthusiastic hands.

Now the points are equal on both sides; the crier announces thirty for each one of the rival camps and he sings the old refrain which is of tradition immemorial in such cases: "Let bets come forward! Give drink to the judges and to the players." It is the signal for an instant of rest, while wine shall be brought into the arena at the cost of the village. The players sit down, and Ramuntcho takes a place beside Gracieuse, who throws on his shoulders, wet with perspiration, the waistcoat which she was keeping for him, Then he asks of his little friend to undo the thongs which hold the glove of wood, wicker and leather on his reddened arm. And he rests in the pride of his success, seeing only smiles of greeting on the faces of the girls at whom he looks. But he sees also, on the side opposed to the players' wall, on the side of the approaching darkness, the archaic a.s.semblage of Basque houses, the little square of the village with its kalsomined porches and its old plane-trees, then the old, ma.s.sive belfry of the church, and, higher than everything, dominating everything, crushing everything, the abrupt ma.s.s of the Gizune from which comes so much shade, from which descends on this distant village so hasty an impression of night--Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons, it impresses--And Ramuntcho, in his juvenile triumph, is troubled by the sentiment of this, by this furtive and vague attraction of other places so often mingled with his troubles and with his joys--

The game continues and his thoughts are lost in the physical intoxication of beginning the struggle again. From instant to instant, clack! the snap of the pelotas, their sharp noise against the glove which throws them or the wall which receives them, their same noise giving the notion of all the strength displayed--Clack! it will snap till the hour of twilight, the pelota, animated furiously by arms powerful and young. At times the players, with a terrible shock, stop it in its flight, with a shock that would break other muscles than theirs.

Most often, sure of themselves, they let it quietly touch the soil, almost die: it seems as if they would never catch it: and clack! it goes off, however, caught just in time, thanks to a marvellous precision of the eye, and strikes the wall, ever with the rapidity of a bullet--When it wanders on the benches, on the ma.s.s of woolen caps and of pretty hair ornamented with silk kerchiefs, all the heads then, all the bodies, are lowered as if moved by the wind of its pa.s.sage: for it must not be touched, it must not be stopped, as long as it is living and may still be caught; then, when it is really lost, dead, some one of the a.s.sistants does himself the honor to pick it up and throw it back to the players.

The night falls, falls, the last golden colors scatter with serene melancholy over the highest summits of the Basque country. In the deserted church, profound silence is established and antique images regard one another alone through the invasion of night--Oh! the sadness of ends of festivals, in very isolated villages, as soon as the sun sets--!

Meanwhile Ramuntcho is more and more the great conqueror. And the plaudits, the cries, redouble his happy boldness; each time he makes a point the men, standing now on the old, graded, granite benches, acclaim him with southern fury.

The last point, the sixtieth--It is Ramuntcho's and he has won the game!

Then there is a sudden crumbling into the arena of all the Basque caps which ornamented the stone amphitheatre; they press around the players who have made themselves immovable, suddenly, in tired att.i.tudes. And Ramuntcho unfastens the thongs of his glove in the middle of a crowd of expansive admirers; from all sides, brave and rude hands are stretched to grasp his or to strike his shoulder amicably.

"Have you asked Gracieuse to dance with you this evening?" asks Arrochkoa, who in this instant would do anything for him.

"Yes, when she came out of the high ma.s.s I spoke to her--She has promised."

"Good! I feared that mother--Oh! I would have arranged it, in any case; you may believe me."

A robust old man with square shoulders, with square jaws, with a beardless, monkish face, before whom all bowed with respect, comes also: it is Haramburu, a player of the olden time who was celebrated half a century ago in America for the game of rebot, and who earned a small fortune. Ramuntcho blushes with pleasure at the compliment of this old man, who is hard to please. And beyond, standing on the reddish benches, among the long gra.s.ses and the November scabwort, his little friend, whom a group of young girls follows, turns back to smile at him, to send to him with her hand a gentle adios in the Spanish fashion. He is a young G.o.d in this moment, Ramuntcho; people are proud to know him, to be among his friends, to get his waistcoat for him, to talk to him, to touch him.

Now, with the other pelotaris, he goes to the neighboring inn, to a room where are placed the clean clothes of all and where careful friends accompany them to rub their bodies, wet with perspiration.

And, a moment afterward, elegant in a white shirt, his cap on the side, he comes out of the door, under the plane-trees shaped like vaults, to enjoy again his success, see the people pa.s.s, continue to gather compliments and smiles.

The autumnal day has declined, it is evening at present. In the lukewarm air, bats glide. The mountaineers of the surrounding villages depart one by one; a dozen carriages are harnessed, their lanterns are lighted, their bells ring and they disappear in the little shady paths of the valleys. In the middle of the limpid penumbra may be distinguished the women, the pretty girls seated on benches in front of the houses, under the vaults of the plane-trees; they are only clear forms, their Sunday costumes make white spots in the twilight, pink spots--and the pale blue spot which Ramuntcho looks at is the new gown of Gracieuse.--Above all, filling the sky, the gigantic Gizune, confused and sombre, is as if it were the centre and the source of the darkness, little by little scattered over all things. And at the church, suddenly the pious bells ring, recalling to distracted minds the enclosure where the graves are, the cypress trees around the belfry, and the entire grand mystery of the sky, of prayer, of inevitable death.

Oh! the sadness of ends of festivals in very isolated villages, when the sun ceases to illuminate, and when it is autumn--

They know very well, these men who were so ardent a moment ago in the humble pleasures of the day, that in the cities there are other festivals more brilliant, more beautiful and less quickly ended; but this is something separate; it is the festival of the country, of their own country, and nothing can replace for them these furtive instants whereof they have thought for so many days in advance--Lovers who will depart toward the scattered houses flanking the Pyrenees, couples who to-morrow will begin over their monotonous and rude life, look at one another before separating, look at one another under the falling night, with regretful eyes that say: "Then, it is finished already? Then, that is all?--"

CHAPTER V.

Eight o'clock in the evening. They have dined at the cider mill, all the players except the vicar, under the patronage of Itchoua; they have lounged for a long time afterward, languid in the smoke of smuggled cigarettes and listening to the marvellous improvisations of the two Iragola brothers, of the Mendiazpi mountain--while outside, on the street, the girls in small groups holding one another's arms, looked at the windows, found pleasure in observing on the smoky panes the round shadows of the heads of the men covered with similar caps--

Now, on the square, the bra.s.s band plays the first measures of the fandango, and the young men, the young girls, all those of the village and several also of the mountain who have remained to dance, arrive in impatient groups. There are some dancing already on the road, not to lose anything.

And soon the fandango turns, turns, in the light of the new moon the horns of which seem to pose, lithe and light, on the enormous and heavy mountain. In the couples that dance without ever touching each other, there is never a separation; before one another always and at an equal distance, the boy and the girl make evolutions with a rhythmic grace, as if they were tied together by some invisible magnet.

It has gone into hiding, the crescent of the moon, fallen, one would think, in the black mountain; then lanterns are brought and hooked to the trunks of the plane-trees and the young men can see better their partners who, opposite them swing with an air of fleeing continually, but without increasing their distance ever: almost all pretty, their hair elegantly dressed, a kerchief on the neck, and wearing with ease gowns in the fashion of to-day. The men, somewhat grave always, accompany the music with snaps of their fingers in the air: shaven and sunburnt faces to which labor in the fields, in smuggling or at sea, has given a special thinness, almost ascetic; still, by the ampleness of their brown necks, by the width of their shoulders, one divines their great strength, the strength of that old, sober and religious race.

The fandango turns and oscillates, to the tune of an ancient waltz. All the arms, extended and raised, agitate themselves in the air, rise or fall with pretty, cadenced motions following the oscillations of bodies.

The rope soled sandals make this dance silent and infinitely light; one hears only the frou-frou of gowns, and ever the snap of fingers imitating the noise of castanets. With a Spanish grace, the girls, whose wide sleeves expand like wings, swing their tightened waists above their vigorous and supple hips--

Facing one another, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse said nothing at first, captivated by the childish joy of moving quickly in cadence, to the sound of music. It is very chaste, that manner of dancing without the slightest touch of bodies.

But there were also, in the course of the evening, waltzes and quadrilles, and even walks arm-in-arm during which the lovers could touch each other and talk.

"Then, my Ramuntcho," said Gracieuse, "it is of that game that you expect to make your future, is it not?"

They were walking now arm-in-arm, under the plane-trees shedding their leaves in the night of November, lukewarm as a night of May, during an interval of silence when the musicians were resting.

"Yes," replied Ramuntcho, "in our country it is a trade, like any other, where one may earn a living, as long as strength lasts--and one may go from time to time to South America, you know, as Irun and Gorosteguy have done, and bring back twenty, thirty thousand francs for a season, earned honestly at Buenos Ayres."

"Oh, the Americas--" exclaimed Gracieuse in a joyful enthusiasm--"the Americas, what happiness! It was always my wish to go across the sea to those countries!--And we would look for your uncle Ignacio, then go to my cousin, Bidegaina, who has a farm on the Uruguay, in the prairies--"

She ceased talking, the little girl who had never gone out of that village which the mountains enclose; she stopped to think of these far-off lands which haunted her young head because she had, like most Basques, nomadic ancestors--folks who are called here Americans or Indians, who pa.s.s their adventurous lives on the other side of the ocean and return to the cherished village only very late, to die. And, while she dreamed, her nose in the air, her eyes in the black of the clouds and of the summits, Ramuntcho felt his blood running faster, his heart beating quicker in the intense joy of what she had just said so spontaneously. And, inclining his head toward her, he asked, as if to jest, in a voice infinitely soft and childish:

"We would go? Is that what you said: we would go, you with me? This signifies therefore that you would consent, a little later, when we become of age, to marry me?"

He perceived through the darkness the gentle black light of Gracieuse's eyes, which rose toward him with an expression of astonishment and of reproach.

"Then--you did not know?"

"I wanted to make you say it, you see--You had never said it to me, do you know?--"

He held tighter the arm of his little betrothed and their walk became slower. It is true that they had never said it, not only because it seemed to them that it was not necessary to say, but especially because they were stopped at the moment of speaking by a sort of terror--the terror of being mistaken about each other's sentiment--and now they knew, they were sure. Then they had the consciousness of having pa.s.sed together the grave and solemn threshold of life. And, leaning on one another, they faltered, almost, in their slackened promenade, like two children intoxicated by youthfulness, joy and hope.

"But do you think your mother will consent?" said Ramuntcho timidly, after the long, delightful silence--

"Ah, that is the trouble," replied the little girl with a sigh of anxiety--"Arrochkoa, my brother, will be for us, it is probable. But mother?--Will mother consent?--But, it will not happen soon, in any case--You have to serve in the army."

"No, if you do not want me to! No, I need not serve! I am a Guipuzcoan, like my mother; I shall be enrolled only if I wish to be--Whatever you say, I'll do--"

"My Ramuntcho, I would like better to wait for you longer and that you become naturalized, and that you become a soldier like the others. I tell you this, since you ask--"

"Truly, is it what you wish? Well, so much the better. Oh, to be a Frenchman or a Spaniard is indifferent to me. I shall do as you wish. I like as well one as the other: I am a Basque like you, like all of us; I care not for the rest! But as for being a soldier somewhere, on this side of the frontier or on the other, yes, I prefer it. In the first place, one who goes away looks as if he were running away; and then, it would please me to be a soldier, frankly."

"Well, my Ramuntcho, since it is all the same to you, serve as a soldier in France, to please me."

"It is understood, Gatchutcha!--You will see me wearing red trousers.

I shall call on you in the dress of a soldier, like Bidegarray, like Joachim. As soon as I have served my three years, we will marry, if your mother consents!"

After a moment of silence Gracieuse said, in a low, solemn voice:

"Listen, my Ramuntcho--I am like you: I am afraid of her--of my mother--But listen--if she refuses, we shall do together anything, anything that you wish, for this is the only thing in the world in which I shall not obey her--"

Then, silence returned between them, now that they were engaged, the incomparable silence of young joys, of joys new and not yet tried, which need to hush, which need to meditate in order to understand themselves better in their profoundness. They walked in short steps and at random toward the church, in the soft obscurity which the lanterns troubled no longer, intoxicated by their innocent contact and by feeling that they were walking together in the path where no one had followed them--

But the noise of the bra.s.s instruments suddenly arose anew, in a sort of slow waltz, oddly rhythmic. And the two children, at the fandango's appeal, without having consulted each other, and as if it was a compulsory thing which may not be disputed, ran, not to lose a moment, toward the place where the couples were dancing. Quickly, quickly placing themselves opposite each other, they began again to swing in measure, without talking to each other, with the same pretty gestures of their arms, the same supple motions of their hips. From time to time, without loss of step or distance, both ran, in a direct line like arrows. But this was only an habitual variation of the dance,--and, ever in measure, quickly, as if they were gliding, they returned to their starting point.

Gracieuse had in dancing the same pa.s.sionate ardor as in praying at the white chapels,--the same ardor which later doubtless, she would have in embracing Ramuntcho when caresses between them would not be forbidden.