CHAPTER XVII.
The next day, Sunday, they went together religiously to hear one of the
masses of the clear morning, in order to return to Etchezar the same day,
immediately after the grand ball-game. It was this return, much more than
the game, that interested Gracieuse and Ramuntcho, for it was their hope
that Pantchika and her mother would remain at Erribiague while they would
go, pressed against each other, in the very small carriage of the
Detcharry family, under the indulgent and slight watchfulness of
Arrochkoa, five or six hours of travel, all three alone, on the spring
roads, under the new foliage, with amusing halts in unknown villages--
At eleven o'clock in the morning, on that beautiful Sunday, the square
was encumbered by mountaineers come from all the summits, from all the
savage, surrounding hamlets. It was an international match, three players
of France against three of Spain, and, in the crowd of lookers-on, the
Spanish Basques were more numerous; there were large sombreros,
waistcoats and gaiters of the olden time.
The judges of the two nations, designated by chance, saluted each other
with a superannuated politeness, and the match began, in profound
silence, under an oppressive sun which annoyed the players, in spite of
their caps, pulled down over their eyes.
Ramuntcho soon, and after him Arrochkoa, were acclaimed as victors. And
people looked at the two little strangers, so attentive, in the first
row, so pretty also with their elegant pink waists, and people said:
"They are the sweethearts of the two good players." Then Gracieuse, who
heard everything, felt proud of Ramuntcho.
Noon. They had been playing for almost an hour. The old wall, with its
summit curved like a cupola, was cracking from dryness and from heat,
under its paint of yellow ochre. The grand Pyrenean masses, nearer here
than at Etchezar, more crushing and more high, dominated from everywhere
these little, human groups, moving in a deep fold of their sides. And the
sun fell straight on the heavy caps of the men, on the bare heads of the
women, heating the brains, increasing enthusiasm. The passionate crowd
yelled, and the pelotas were flying, when, softly, the angelus began to
ring. Then an old man, all wrinkled, all burned, who was waiting for this
signal, put his mouth to the clarion--his old clarion of a Zouave in
Africa--and rang the call to rest. And all, the women who were seated
rose; all the caps fell, uncovering hair black, blonde or white, and the
entire people made the sign of the cross, while the players, with chests
and foreheads streaming with perspiration, stopped in the heat of the
game and stood in meditation with heads bent--
At two o'clock, the game having come to an end gloriously for the French,
Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho went in their little wagon, accompanied and
acclaimed by all the young men of Erribiague; then Gracieuse sat between
the two, and they started for their long, charming trip, their pockets
full of the gold which they had earned, intoxicated by their joy, by the
noise and by the sunlight.
And Ramuntcho, who retained the taste of yesterday's kiss, felt like
shouting to them: "This little girl who is so pretty, as you see, is
mine! Her lips are mine, I had them yesterday and will take them again
to-night!"
They started and at once found silence again, in the shaded valleys
bordered by foxglove and ferns--
To roll for hours on the small Pyrenean roads, to change places almost
every day, to traverse the Basque country, to go from one village to
another, called here by a festival, there by an adventure on the
frontier--this was now Ramuntcho's life, the errant life which the
ball-game made for him in the day-time and smuggling in the night-time.
Ascents, descents, in the midst of a monotonous display of verdure. Woods
of oaks and of beeches, almost inviolate, and remaining as they were in
the quiet centuries.--When he passed by some antique house, hidden in
these solitudes of trees, he stopped to enjoy reading, above the door,
the traditional legend inscribed in the granite: "Ave Maria! in the year
1600, or in the year 1500, such a one, from such a village, has built
this house, to live in it with such a one, his wife."
Very far from all human habitation, in a corner of a ravine, where it was
warmer than elsewhere, sheltered from all breezes, they met a peddler of
holy images, who was wiping his forehead. He had set down his basket,
full of those colored prints with gilt frames that represent saints with
Euskarian legends, and with which the Basques like to adorn their old
rooms with white walls. And he was there, exhausted from fatigue and
heat, as if wrecked in the ferns, at a turn of those little, mountain
routes which run solitary under oaks.
Gracieuse came down and bought a Holy Virgin.
"Later," she said to Ramuntcho, "we shall put it in our house as a
souvenir--"
And the image, dazzling in its gold frame, went with them under the long,
green vaults--
They went out of their path, for they wished to pass by a certain valley
of the Cherry-trees, not in the hope of finding cherries in it, in April,
but to show to Gracieuse the place, which is renowned in the entire
Basque country.
It was almost five o'clock, the sun was already low, when they reached
there. It was a shaded and calm region, where the spring twilight
descended like a caress on the magnificence of the April foliage. The air
was cool and suave, fragrant with hay, with acacia. Mountains--very high,
especially toward the north, to make the climate there softer, surrounded
it on all sides, investing it with a melancholy mystery of closed Edens.
And, when the cherry-trees appeared, they were a gay surprise, they were
already red.
There was nobody on these paths, above which the grand cherry-trees
extended like a roof, their branches dripping with coral.
Here and there were some summer houses, still uninhabited, some deserted
gardens, invaded by the tall grass and the rose bushes.
Then, they made their horse walk; then, each one in his turn,
transferring the reins and standing in the wagon, amused himself by
eating these cherries from the trees while passing by them and without
stopping. Afterward, they placed bouquets of them in their buttonholes,
they culled branches of them to deck the horse's head, the harness and
the lantern. The equipage seemed ornamented for some festival of youth
and of joy--
"Now let us hurry," said Gracieuse. "If only it be light enough, at
least, when we reach Etchezar, for people to see us pass, ornamented as
we are!"
As for Ramuntcho, he thought of the meeting place in the evening, of the
kiss which he would dare to repeat, similar to that of yesterday, taking
Gracieuse's lip between his lips like a cherry--
