Wearing all the uniform national cap, the men come down the exterior6 stairway; the women, slower to be captivated by the lure7 of the blue sky, retaining still under the mourning veil a little of the dream of the church, come out of the lower porticoes8 in black troops; around a grave freshly closed, some stop and weep.
The southern wind, which is the great magician of the Basque country, blows softly. The autumn of yesterday has gone and it is forgotten. Lukewarm breaths pass through the air, vivifying, healthier than those of May, having the odor of hay and the odor of flowers. Two singers of the highway are there, leaning on the graveyard9 wall, and they intone, with a tambourine10 and a guitar, an old seguidilla of Spain, bringing here the warm and somewhat Arabic gaieties of the lands beyond the frontiers.
And in the midst of all this intoxication11 of the southern November, more delicious in this country than the intoxication of the spring, Ramuntcho, having come down one of the first, watches the coming out of the sisters in order to greet Gracieuse.
The sandal peddler has come also to this closing of the mass, and displays among the roses of the tombs his linen12 foot coverings ornamented13 with woolen14 flowers. Young men, attracted by the dazzling embroideries15, gather around him to select colors.
The bees and the flies buzz as in June; the country has become again, for a few hours, for a few days, for as long as this wind will blow, luminous16 and warm. In front of the mountains, which have assumed violent brown or sombre green tints17, and which seem to have advanced to-day until they overhang the church, houses of the village appear in relief, very neat, very white under their coat of kalsomine,—old Pyrenean houses with their wooden balconies and on their walls intercrossings of beams in the fashion of the olden time. In the southwest, the visible portion of Spain, the denuded18 and red peak familiar to smugglers, stands straight and near in the beautiful clear sky.
Gracieuse does not appear yet, retarded20 doubtless by the nuns21 in some altar service. As for Franchita, who never mingles22 in the Sunday festivals, she takes the path to her house, silent and haughty23, after a smile to her son, whom she will not see again until to-night after the dances have come to an end.
A group of young men, among whom is the vicar who has just taken off his golden ornaments24, forms itself at the threshold of the church, in the sun, and seems to be plotting grave projects.—They are the great players of the country, the fine flower of the lithe25 and the strong; it is for the pelota game of the afternoon that they are consulting, and they make a sign to Ramuntcho who pensively26 comes to them. Several old men come also and surround them, caps crushed on white hair and faces clean shaven like those of monks27: champions of the olden time, still proud of their former successes, and sure that their counsel shall be respected in the national game, which the men here attend with pride as on a field of honor.—After a courteous28 discussion, the game is arranged; it will be immediately after vespers; they will play the “blaid” with the wicker glove, and the six selected champions, divided into two camps, shall be the vicar, Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa, Gracieuse's brother, against three famous men of the neighboring villages: Joachim of Mendiazpi; Florentino of Espelette, and Irrubeta of Hasparren—
Now comes the “convoy”, which comes out of the church and passes by them, so black in this feast of light, and so archaic29, with the envelope of its capes30, of its caps and of its veils. They are expressive32 of the Middle Age, these people, while they pass in a file, the Middle Age whose shadow the Basque country retains. And they express, above all, death, as the large funereal33 slabs34, with which the nave is paved, express it, as the cypress35 trees and the tombs express it, and all the things in this place, where the men come to pray, express it: death, always death.—But a death very softly neighboring life, under the shield of the old consoling symbols—for life is there marked also, almost equally sovereign, in the warm rays which light up the cemetery36, in the eyes of the children who play among the roses of autumn, in the smile of those beautiful brown girls who, the mass being finished, return with steps indolently supple37 toward the village; in the muscles of all this youthfulness of men, alert and vigorous, who shall soon exercise at the ball-game their iron legs and arms.—And of this group of old men and of boys at the threshold of a church, of this mingling38, so peacefully harmonious39, of death and of life, comes the benevolent40 lesson, the teaching that one must enjoy in time strength and love; then, without obstinacy41 in enduring, submit to the universal law of passing and dying, repeating with confidence, like these simple-minded and wise men, the same prayers by which the agonies of the ancestors were cradled.—
It is improbably radiant, the sun of noon in this yard of the dead. The air is exquisite42 and one becomes intoxicated43 by breathing it. The Pyrenean horizons have been swept of their clouds, their least vapors44, and it seems as if the wind of the south had brought here the limpidities of Andalusia or of Africa.
The Basque guitar and tambourine accompany the sung seguilla, which the beggars of Spain throw, like a slight irony46 into this lukewarm breeze, above the dead. And boys and girls think of the fandango of to-night, feel ascending47 in them the desire and the intoxication of dancing.—
At last here come the sisters, so long expected by Ramuntcho; with them advance Gracieuse and her mother, Dolores, who is still in widow's weeds, her face invisible under a black cape31 closed by a crape veil.
What can this Dolores be plotting with the Mother Superior?—Ramuntcho, knowing that these two women are enemies, is astonished and disquiet48 to-day to see them walk side by side. Now they even stop to talk aside, so important and secret doubtless is what they are saying; their similar black caps, overhanging like wagon-hoods, touch each other and they talk sheltered under them; a whispering of phantoms49, one would say, under a sort of little black vault50.—And Ramuntcho has the sentiment of something hostile plotted against him under these two wicked caps.
When the colloquy51 comes to an end, he advances, touches his cap for a salute52, awkward and timid suddenly in presence of this Dolores, whose harsh look under the veil he divines. This woman is the only person in the world who has the power to chill him, and, never elsewhere than in her presence, he feels weighing upon him the blemish53 of being the child of an unknown father, of wearing no other name than that of his mother.
To-day, however, to his great surprise, she is more cordial than usual, and she says with a voice almost amiable54: “Good-morning, my boy!” Then he goes to Gracieuse, to ask her with a brusque anxiety: “To-night, at eight o'clock, say if you will be on the square to dance with me?”
For some time, every Sunday had brought to him the same fear of being deprived of dancing with her in the evening. In the week he hardly ever saw her. Now that he was becoming a man, the only occasion for him to have her company was this ball on the green of the square, in the light of the stars or of the moon.
They had fallen in love with each other five years ago, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse, when they were still children. And such loves, when by chance the awakening55 of the senses confirms instead of destroying them, become in young heads something sovereign and exclusive.
They had never thought of saying this to each other, they knew it so well; never had they talked together of the future which did not appear possible to one without the other. And the isolation56 of this mountain village where they lived, perhaps also the hostility57 of Dolores to their naive, unexpressed projects, brought them more closely together—
“To-night, at eight o'clock, say if you will be on the square to dance with me?”
“Yes—” replies the little girl, fixing on her friend eyes of sadness, a little frightened, as well as of ardent58 tenderness.
“Sure?” asked Ramuntcho again, whom these eyes make anxious.
“Yes, sure!”
So, he is quieted again this time, knowing that if Gracieuse has said and decided59 something one may count on it. And at once the weather seems to him more beautiful, the Sunday more amusing, life more charming—
The dinner hour calls the Basques now to the houses or to the inns, and, under the light, somewhat gloomy, of the noon sun, the village seems deserted60.
Ramuntcho goes to the cider mill which the smugglers and pelota players frequent. There, he sits at a table, his cap still drawn61 over his eyes, with his friends: Arrochkoa, two or three others of the mountains and the somber62 Itchoua, their chief.
A festive63 meal is prepared for them, with fish of the Nivelle, ham and hares. In the foreground of the hall, vast and dilapidated, near the windows, are the tables, the oak benches on which they are seated; in the background, in a penumbra64, are the enormous casks filled with new cider.
In this band of Ramuntcho, which is there entire, under the piercing eye of its chief, reigns65 an emulation66 of audacity67 and a reciprocal, fraternal devotion; during their night expeditions especially, they are all one to live or to die.
Leaning heavily, benumbed in the pleasure of resting after the fatigues68 of the night and concentrated in the expectation of satiating their robust69 hunger, they are silent at first, hardly raising their heads to look through the window-panes at the passing girls. Two are very young, almost children like Ramuntcho: Arrochkoa and Florentino. The others have, like Itchoua, hardened faces, eyes in ambuscade under the frontal arcade70, expressing no certain age; their aspect reveals a past of fatigues, in the unreasonable71 obstinacy to pursue this trade of smuggling72, which hardly gives bread to the less skilful73.
Then, awakened74 little by little by the smoking dishes, by the sweet cider, they talk; soon their words interlace, light, rapid and sonorous75, with an excessive rolling of the r. They talk in their mysterious language, the origin of which is unknown and which seems to the men of the other countries in Europe more distant than Mongolian or Sanskrit. They tell stories of the night and of the frontier, stratagems76 newly invented and astonishing deceptions77 of Spanish carbineers. Itchoua, the chief, listens more than he talks; one hears only at long intervals78 his profound voice of a church singer vibrate. Arrochkoa, the most elegant of all, is in striking contrast with his comrades of the mountain. (His name was Jean Detcharry, but he was known only by his surname, which the elders of his family transmitted from father to son for centuries.) A smuggler19 for his pleasure, he, without any necessity, and possessing beautiful lands in the sunlight; the face fresh and pretty, the blonde mustache turned up in the fashion of cats, the eye feline79 also, the eye caressing80 and fleeting81; attracted by all that succeeds, by all that amuses, by all that shines; liking82 Ramuntcho for his triumphs in the ball-game, and quite disposed to give to him the hand of his sister, Gracieuse, even if it were only to oppose his mother, Dolores. And Florentino, the other great friend of Ramuntcho is, on the contrary, the humblest of the band; an athletic84, reddish fellow, with wide and low forehead, with good eyes of resignation, soft as those of beasts of burden; without father or mother, possessing nothing in the world except a threadbare costume and three pink cotton shirts; unique lover of a little fifteen year old orphan85, as poor as he and as primitive86.
At last Itchoua deigns87 to talk in his turn. He relates, in a tone of mystery and of confidence, a certain tale of the time of his youth, in a black night, on the Spanish territory, in the gorges88 of Andarlaza. Seized by two carbineers at the turn in a dark path, he had disengaged himself by drawing his knife to stab a chest with it: half a second, a resisting flesh, then, crack! the blade entering brusquely, a jet of warm blood on his hand, the man fallen, and he, fleeing in the obscure rocks—
And the voice which says these things with implacable tranquility, is the same which for years sings piously91 every Sunday the liturgy92 in the old sonorous church,—so much so that it seems to retain a religious and almost sacred character—!
“When you are caught”—adds the speaker, scrutinizing93 them all with his eyes, become piercing again—“When you are caught—What is the life of a man worth in such a case? You would not hesitate, either, I suppose, if you were caught—?”
“Sure not,” replied Arrochkoa, in a tone of infantile bravado94, “Sure not! In such a case to take the life of a carabinero no one would hesitate!—”
The debonair95 Florentino, turned from Itchoua his disapproving96 eyes. Florentino would hesitate; he would not kill. This is divined in the expression of his face.
“You would not hesitate,” repeated Itchoua, scrutinizing Ramuntcho this time in a special manner; “you would not hesitate, either, I suppose, if you were caught, would you?”
“Surely,” replied Ramuntcho, submissively. “Oh, no, surely—”
But his look, like that of Florentino, has turned from Itchoua. A terror comes to him of this man, of this imperious and cold influence, so completely felt already; an entire soft and refined side of his nature is awakened, made disquiet and in revolt.
Silence has followed the tale, and Itchoua, discontented with the effect of it, proposes a song in order to change the course of ideas.
The purely97 material well-being98 which comes after dinner, the cider which has been drunk, the cigarettes which are lighted and the songs that begin, bring back quickly confident joy in these children's heads. And then, there are in the band the two brothers Iragola, Marcos and Joachim, young men of the mountain above Mendiazpi, who are renowned99 extemporary speakers in the surrounding country and it is a pleasure to hear them, on any subject, compose and sing verses which are so pretty.
“Let us see,” says Itchoua, “you, Marcos, are a sailor who wishes to pass his life on the ocean and seek fortune in America; you, Joachim, are a farm hand who prefers not to quit his village and his soil here. Each of you will discuss alternately, in couplets of equal length, the pleasures of his trade to the tune100—to the tune of the 'Iru Damacho'. Go on.”
They looked at each other, the two brothers, half turned toward each other on the oak bench where they sit; an instant of reflection, during which an imperceptible agitation101 of the eyelids102 alone betrays the working of their minds; then, brusquely Marcos, the elder, begins, and they will never stop. With their shaven cheeks, their handsome profiles, their chins which advance somewhat imperiously above the powerful muscles of the neck, they recall, in their grave immobility, the figures engraved103 on the Roman medals. They sing with a certain effort of the throat, like the muezzins in the mosques104, in high tones. When one has finished his couplet, without a second of hesitation105 or silence, the other begins; more and more their minds are animated106 and inflamed107. Around the smugglers' table many other caps have gathered and all listen with admiration108 to the witty109 or sensible things which the two brothers know how to say, ever with the needed cadence110 and rhyme.
At the twentieth stanza111, at last, Itchoua interrupts them to make them rest and he orders more cider.
“How have you learned?” asked Ramuntcho of the Iragola brothers. “How did the knack112 come to you?”
“Oh!” replies Marcos, “it is a family trait, as you must know. Our father, our grandfather were extemporary composers who were heard with pleasure in all the festivals of the Basque country, and our mother also was the daughter of a grand improvisator of the village of Lesaca. And then, every evening in taking back the oxen or in milking the cows, we practice, or at the fireside on winter nights. Yes, every evening, we make compositions in this way on subjects which one of us imagines, and it is our greatest pleasure—”
But when Florentino's turn to sing comes he, knowing only the old refrains of the mountain, intones in an Arabic falsetto voice the complaint of the linen weaver113; and then Ramuntcho, who had sung it the day before in the autumn twilight114, sees again the darkened sky of yesterday, the clouds full of rain, the cart drawn by oxen going down into a sad and closed valley, toward a solitary115 farm—and suddenly the unexplained anguish116 returns to him, the one which he had before; the fear of living and of passing thus always in these same villages, under the oppression of these same mountains; the notion and the confused desire for other places; the anxiety for unknown distances—His eyes, become lifeless and fixed117, look inwardly; for several strange minutes he feels that he is an exile, from what country he does not know, disinherited, of what he does not know, sad in the depths of his soul; between him and the men who surround him have come suddenly irreducible, hereditary118 barriers—
Three o'clock. It is the hour when vespers, the last office of the day, comes to an end; the hour when leave the church, in a meditation119 grave as that of the morning, all the mantillas of black cloth concealing120 the beautiful hair of the girls and the form of their waists, all the woolen caps similarly lowered on the shaven faces of men, on their eyes piercing or somber, still plunged121 in the old time dreams.
It is the hour when the games are to begin, the dances, the pelota and the fandango. All this is traditional and immutable122.
The light of the day becomes more golden, one feels the approach of night. The church, suddenly empty, forgotten, where persists the odor of incense123, becomes full of silence, and the old gold of the background shines mysteriously in the midst of more shade; silence also is scattered124 around on the tranquil89 enclosure of the dead, where the folks this time passed without stopping, in their haste to go elsewhere.
On the square of the ball-game, people are beginning to arrive from everywhere, from the village itself and from the neighboring hamlets, from the huts of the shepherds or of the smugglers who perch125 above, on the harsh mountains. Hundreds of Basque caps, all similar, are now reunited, ready to judge the players, to applaud or to murmur126; they discuss the chances, comment upon the relative strength of the players and make big bets of money. And young girls, young women gather also, having nothing of the awkwardness of the peasants in other provinces of France, elegant, refined, graceful127 in costumes of the new fashions; some wearing on their hair the silk kerchief, rolled and arranged like a small cap; others bareheaded, their hair dressed in the most modern manner; most of them pretty, with admirable eyes and very long eyebrows—This square, always solemn and ordinarily somewhat sad, is filled to-day, Sunday, with a lively and gay crowd.
The most insignificant128 hamlet in the Basque country has a square for the ball-game, large, carefully kept, in general near the church, under oaks.
But here, this is a central point and something like the Conservatory129 of French ball-players, of those who become celebrated130, in South America as well as in the Pyrenees, and who, in the great international games, oppose the champions of Spain. So the place is particularly beautiful and pompous131, surprising in so distant a village. It is paved with large stones, between which grass grows expressing its antiquity132 and giving to it an air of being abandoned. On the two sides are extended, for the spectators, long benches—made of the red granite133 of the neighboring mountain and, at this moment, all overgrown with autumn scabwort.
And in the back, the old monumental wall rises, against which the balls will strike. It has a rounded front which seems to be the silhouette134 of a dome135 and bears this inscription136, half effaced137 by time: “Blaidka haritzea debakatua.” (The blaid game is forbidden.)
Still, the day's game is to be the blaid; but the venerable inscription dates from the time of the splendor138 of the national game, degenerated140 at present, as all things degenerate139. It had been placed there to preserve the tradition of the “rebot”, a more difficult game, exacting141 more agility142 and strength, and which has been perpetuated143 only in the Spanish province of Guipuzcoa.
While the graded benches are filling up, the paved square, which the grass makes green, and which has seen the lithe and the vigorous men of the country run since the days of old, remains144 empty. The beautiful autumn sun, at its decline, warms and lights it. Here and there some tall oaks shed their leaves above the seated spectators. Beyond are the high church and the cypress trees, the entire sacred corner, from which the saints and the dead seem to be looking at a distance, protecting the players, interested in this game which is the passion still of an entire race and characterises it—
At last they enter the arena145, the Pelotaris, the six champions among whom is one in a cassock: the vicar of the parish. With him are some other personages: the crier, who, in an instant, will sing the points; the five judges, selected among the experts of different villages to intervene in cases of litigation, and some others carrying extra balls and sandals. At the right wrist the players attach with thongs146 a strange wicker thing resembling a large, curved fingernail which lengthens147 the forearm by half. It is with this glove (manufactured in France by a unique basket-maker of the village of Ascain) that they will have to catch, throw and hurl148 the pelota,—a small ball of tightened149 cord covered with sheepskin, which is as hard as a wooden ball.
Now they try the balls, selecting the best, limbering, with a few points that do not count, their athletic arms. Then, they take off their waistcoats and carry them to preferred spectators; Ramuntcho gives his to Gracieuse, seated in the first row on the lower bench. And all, except the priest, who will play in his black gown, are in battle array, their chests at liberty in pink cotton shirts or light thread fleshings.
The assistants know them well, these players; in a moment, they shall be excited for or against them and will shout at them, frantically150, as it happens with the toreadors.
At this moment the village is entirely151 animated by the spirit of the olden time; in its expectation of the pleasure, in its liveliness, in its ardor152, it is intensely Basque and very old,—under the great shade of the Gizune, the overhanging mountain, which throws over it a twilight charm.
And the game begins in the melancholy153 evening. The ball, thrown with much strength, flies, strikes the wall in great, quick blows, then rebounds154, and traverses the air with the rapidity of a bullet.
This wall in the background, rounded like a dome's festoon on the sky, has become little by little crowned with heads of children,—little Basques, little cats, ball-players of the future, who soon will precipitate155 themselves like a flight of birds, to pick up the ball every time when, thrown too high, it will go beyond the square and fall in the fields.
The game becomes gradually warmer as arms and legs are limbered, in an intoxication of movement and swiftness. Already Ramuntcho is acclaimed156. And the vicar also shall be one of the fine players of the day, strange to look upon with his leaps similar to those of a cat, and his athletic gestures, imprisoned158 in his priest's gown.
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 adverse159 camp,—and ordinarily the limit is sixty points. After each point, the titled 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 murmurs160.
On the square, the zone gilt161 and reddened by the sun diminishes, goes, devoured162 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 analogy 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 fettered163 two or three times by his black cassock, and the adverse camp, at first distanced, little by little catches up, then, in presence of this game so valiantly164 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 perspiration165, the waistcoat which she was keeping for him, Then he asks of his little friend to undo166 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 assemblage of Basque houses, the little square of the village with its kalsomined porches and its old plane-trees, then the old, massive belfry of the church, and, higher than everything, dominating everything, crushing everything, the abrupt167 mass of the Gizune from which comes so much shade, from which descends168 on this distant village so hasty an impression of night—Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons169, it impresses—And Ramuntcho, in his juvenile170 triumph, is troubled by the sentiment of this, by this furtive171 and vague attraction of other places so often mingled172 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 mass 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 passage: 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 assistants 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 serene173 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 isolated174 villages, as soon as the sun sets—!
Meanwhile Ramuntcho is more and more the great conqueror175. And the plaudits, the cries, redouble his happy boldness; each time he makes a point the men, standing176 now on the old, graded, granite benches, acclaim157 him with southern fury.
The last point, the sixtieth—It is Ramuntcho's and he has won the game!
Then there is a sudden crumbling177 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 attitudes. 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 amicably178.
“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 mass I spoke179 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 jaws180, with a beardless, monkish181 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 grasses 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 god 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 afterward182, elegant in a white shirt, his cap on the side, he comes out of the door, under the plane-trees shaped like vaults183, to enjoy again his success, see the people pass, continue to gather compliments and smiles.
The autumnal day has declined, it is evening at present. In the lukewarm air, bats glide184. 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 limpid45 penumbra may be distinguished185 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 pious90 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 illuminate186, and when it is autumn—
They know very well, these men who were so ardent a moment ago in the humble83 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 monotonous187 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?—”
