Ramuntcho Part 11

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 att.i.tude of her son, who, apparently, never saw Gracieuse and yet never talked of her.

Then, while was ama.s.sing 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, blus.h.i.+ng and embarra.s.sed, 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 a.s.sured.--She knew her Ramuntcho well enough to know that he would not change his mind and that Gracieuse would never be abandoned by him.

The silence between them was prolonged, she standing before him, barring the way:

"And what have you done together?" she decided to ask. "Tell me the truth, Ramuntcho, what wrong have you done?--"

"What wrong?--Oh! nothing, mother, nothing wrong, I swear to you--"

He replied this without irritation at being questioned, and bearing the look of his mother with eyes of frankness. It was true, and she believed him.

But, as she stayed in front of him, her hand on the door-latch, he said, with dumb violence:

"You are not going to prevent me from going to her, since I shall leave in three days!"

Then, in presence of this young will in revolt, the mother, enclosing in herself the tumult of her contradictory thoughts, lowered her head and, without a word, stood aside to let him pa.s.s.

CHAPTER XXV.

It was their last evening, for, the day before yesterday, at the Mayor's office of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he had, with a hand trembling a little, signed his engagement for three years in the Second naval infantry, whose garrison was a military port of the North.

It was their last evening,--and they had said that they would make it longer than usual,--it would last till midnight, Gracieuse had decided: midnight, which in the villages is an unseasonable and black hour, an hour after which, she did not know why, all seemed to the little betrothed graver and guiltier.

In spite of the ardent desire of their senses, the idea had not come to one nor to the other that, during this last meeting, under the oppression of parting, something more might be attempted.

On the contrary, at the instant so full of concentration of their farewell, they felt more chaste still, so eternal was their love.

Less prudent, however, since they had not to care for the morrow, they dared to talk there, on their lovers' bench, as they had never done before. They talked of the future, of a future which was for them very distant, because, at their age, three years seem infinite.

In three years, at his return, she would be twenty; then, if her mother persisted to refuse in an absolute manner, at the end of a year she would use her right of majority, it was between them an agreed and a sworn thing.

The means of correspondence, during the long absence of Ramuntcho, preoccupied them a great deal: between them, everything was so complicated by obstacles and secrets!--Arrochkoa, their only possible intermediary, had promised his help; but he was so changeable, so uncertain!--Oh, if he were to fail!--And then, would he consent to send sealed letters?--If he did not consent there would be no pleasure in writing.--In our time, when communications are easy and constant, there are no more of these complete separations similar to the one which theirs would be; they were to say to each other a very solemn farewell, like the one which the lovers of other days said, the lovers of the days when there were lands without post-offices, and distances that frightened one. The fortunate time when they should see each other again appeared to them situated far off, far off, in the depths of duration; yet, because of the faith which they had in each other, they expected this with a tranquil a.s.surance, as the faithful expect celestial life.

But the least things of their last evening acquired in their minds a singular importance; as this farewell came near, all grew and was exaggerated for them, as happens in the expectation of death. The slight sounds and the aspects of the night seemed to them particular and, in spite of them, were engraving themselves forever in their memory. The song of the crickets had a characteristic which it seemed to them they had never heard before. In the nocturnal sonority, the barking of a watch-dog, coming from some distant farm, made them s.h.i.+ver with a melancholy fright. And Ramuntcho was to carry with him in his exile, to preserve later with a desolate attachment, a certain stem of gra.s.s plucked from the garden negligently and with which he had played unconsciously the whole evening.

A phase of their life finished with that day: a lapse of time had occurred, their childhood had pa.s.sed--

Of recommendations, they had none very long to exchange, so intensely was each one sure of what the other might do during the separation. They had less to say to each other than other engaged people have, because they knew mutually their most intimate thoughts. After the first hour of conversation, they remained hand in hand in grave silence, while were consumed the inexorable minutes of the end.

At midnight, she wished him to go, as she had decided in advance, in her little thoughtful and obstinate head. Therefore, after having embraced each other for a long time, they quitted each other, as if the separation were, at this precise minute, an ineluctable thing which it was impossible to r.e.t.a.r.d. And while she returned to her room with sobs that he heard, he scaled over the wall and, in coming out of the darkness of the foliage, found himself on the deserted road, white with lunar rays. At this first separation, he suffered less than she, because he was going, because it was he that the morrow, full of uncertainty, awaited. While he walked on the road, powdered and clear, the powerful charm of change, of travel, dulled his sensitiveness; almost without any precise thought, he looked at his shadow, which the moon made clear and harsh, marching in front of him. And the great Gizune dominated impa.s.sibly everything, with its cold and spectral air, in all this white radiance of midnight.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The parting day, good-byes to friends here and there; joyful wishes of former soldiers returned from the regiment. Since the morning, a sort of intoxication or of fever, and, in front of him, everything unthought-of in life.

Arrochkoa, very amiable on that last day, had offered to drive him in a wagon to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and had arranged to go at sunset, in order to arrive there just in time for the night train.

The night having come, inexorably, Franchita wished to accompany her son to the square, where the Detcharry wagon was waiting for him, and here her face, despite her will, was drawn by sorrow, while he straightened himself, in order to preserve the swagger which becomes recruits going to their regiment:

"Make a little place for me, Arrochkoa," she said abruptly. "I will sit between you to the chapel of Saint-b.i.t.c.hentcho; I will return on foot--"

And they started at the setting sun, which, on them as on all things, scattered the magnificence of its gold and of its red copper.

After a wood of oaks, the chapel of Saint-b.i.t.c.hentcho pa.s.sed, and the mother wished to remain. From one turn to another, postponing every time the great separation, she asked to be driven still farther.

"Mother, when we reach the top of the Issaritz slope you must go down!"

he said tenderly. "You hear, Arrochkoa, you will stop where I say; I do not want mother to go further--"

At this Issaritz slope the horse had himself slackened his pace. The mother and the son, their eyes burned with suppressed tears, held each other's hands, and they were going slowly, slowly, in absolute silence, as if it were a solemn ascent toward some Calvary.

At last, at the top of the slope, Arrochkoa, who seemed mute also, pulled the reins slightly, with a simple little: "Ho!--" discreet as a lugubrious signal which one hesitates to give--and the carriage was stopped.

Then, without a word, Ramuntcho jumped to the road, helped his mother to descend, gave a long kiss to her, then remounted briskly to his seat:

"Go, Arrochkoa, quickly, race, let us go!"

And in two seconds, in the rapid descent, he lost sight of the one whose face at last was covered with tears.