CHAPTER XX.
Ramuntcho, that evening, had come to the meeting place earlier than
usual--with more hesitation also in his walk, for one risks, on these
June evenings, to find girls belated along the paths, or boys behind the
hedges on love expeditions.
And by chance she was already alone, looking outside, without waiting for
him, however.
At once she noticed his agitated demeanor and guessed that something new
had happened. Not daring to come too near, he made a sign to her to come
quickly, jump over the window-sill, and meet him in the obscure alley
where they talked without fear. Then, as soon as she was near him, in the
nocturnal shade of the trees, he put his arm around her waist and
announced to her, brusquely, the great piece of news which, since the
morning, troubled his young head and that of Franchita, his mother.
"Uncle Ignacio has written."
"True? Uncle Ignacio!"
She knew that that adventurous uncle, that American uncle, who had
disappeared for so many years, had never thought until now of sending
more than a strange good-day by a passing sailor.
"Yes! And he says that he has property there, which requires attention,
large prairies, herds of horses; that he has no children, that if I wish
to go and live near him with a gentle Basque girl married to me here, he
would be glad to adopt both of us.--Oh! I think mother will come
also.--So, if you wish.--We could marry now.--You know they marry people
as young as we, it is allowed.--Now that I am to be adopted by my uncle
and I shall have a real situation in life, your mother will consent, I
think.--And as for military service, we shall not care for that, shall
we?--"
They sat on the mossy rocks, their heads somewhat dizzy, troubled by the
approach and the unforeseen temptation of happiness. So, it would not be
in an uncertain future, after his term as a soldier, it would be almost
at once; in two months, in one month, perhaps, that communion of their
minds and of their flesh, so ardently desired and now so forbidden, might
be accomplished without sin, honestly in the eyes of all, permitted and
blessed.--Oh! they had never looked at this so closely.--And they pressed
against each other their foreheads, made heavy by too many thoughts,
fatigued suddenly by a sort of too delicious delirium.--Around them, the
odor of the flowers of June ascended from the earth, filling the night
with an immense suavity. And, as if there were not enough scattered
fragrance, the jessamine, the honeysuckle on the walls exhaled from
moment to moment, in intermittent puffs, the excess of their perfume; one
would have thought that hands swung in silence censers in the darkness,
for some hidden festival, for some enchantment magnificent and secret.
There are often and everywhere very mysterious enchantments like this,
emanating from nature itself, commanded by one knows not what sovereign
will with unfathomable designs, to deceive us all, on the road to death--
"You do not reply, Gracieuse, you say nothing to me--"
He could see that she was intoxicated also, like him, and yet he divined
by her manner of remaining mute so long, that shadows were amassing over
his charming and beautiful dream.
"But," she asked at last, "your naturalization papers. You have received
them, have you not?"
"Yes, they arrived last week, you know very well, and it was you who said
that I should apply for them--"
"Then you are a Frenchman to-day.--Then, if you do not do your military
service you are a deserter."
"Yes.--A deserter, no; but refractory, I think it is called.--It isn't
better, since one cannot come back.--I was not thinking of that--"
How she was tortured now to have caused this thought, to have impelled
him herself to this act which made soar over his hardly seen joy a threat
so black! Oh, a deserter, he, her Ramuntcho! That is, banished forever
from the dear, Basque country!--And this departure for America becomes
suddenly frightfully grave, solemn, similar to a death, since he could
not possibly return!--Then, what was there to be done?--
Now they were anxious and mute, each one preferring to submit to the will
of the other, and waiting, with equal fright, for the decision which
should be taken, to go or to remain. From the depths of their two young
hearts ascended, little by little, a similar distress, poisoning the
happiness offered over there, in that America from which they would never
return.--And the little, nocturnal censers of jessamine, of honeysuckle,
of linden, continued to throw into the air exquisite puffs to intoxicate
them; the darkness that enveloped them seemed more and more caressing and
soft; in the silence of the village and of the country, the tree-toads
gave, from moment to moment, their little flute-note, which seemed a very
discreet love call, under the velvet of the moss; and, through the black
lace of the foliage, in the serenity of a June sky which one thought
forever unalterable, they saw scintillate, like a simple and gentle dust
of phosphorus, the terrifying multitude of the worlds.
The curfew began to ring, however, at the church. The sound of that bell,
at night especially, was for them something unique on earth. At this
moment, it was something like a voice bringing, in their indecision, its
advice, its counsel, decisive and tender. Mute still, they listened to it
with an increasing emotion, of an intensity till then unknown, the brown
head of the one leaning on the brown head of the other. It said, the
advising voice, the dear, protecting voice: "No, do not go forever; the
far-off lands are made for the time of youth; but you must be able to
return to Etchezar: it is here that you must grow old and die; nowhere in
the world could you sleep as in this graveyard around the church, where
one may, even when lying under the earth, hear me ring again--" They
yielded more and more to the voice of the bell, the two children whose
minds were religious and primitive. And Ramuntcho felt on his cheek a
tear of Gracieuse:
"No," he said at last, "I will not desert; I think that I would not have
the courage to do it--"
"I thought the same thing as you, my Ramuntcho," she said. "No, let us
not do that. I was waiting for you to say it--"
Then he realized that he also was crying, like her--
The die was cast, they would permit to pass by happiness which was within
their reach, almost under their hands; they would postpone everything to
a future uncertain and so far off!--
And now, in the sadness, in the meditation of the great decision which
they had taken, they communicated to each other what seemed best for them
to do:
"We might," she said, "write a pretty letter to your uncle Ignacio; write
to him that you accept, that you will come with a great deal of pleasure
immediately after your military service; you might even add, if you wish,
that the one who is engaged to you thanks him and will be ready to follow
you; but that decidedly you cannot desert."
"And why should you not talk to your mother now, Gatchutcha, only to know
what she would think?--Because now, you understand, I am not as I was, an
abandoned child--"
--Slight steps behind them, in the path--and above the wall, the
silhouette of a young man who had come on the tips of his sandals, as if
to spy upon them!
"Go, escape, my Ramuntcho, we will meet to-morrow evening!--"
In half a second, there was nobody: he was hidden in a bush, she had fled
into her room.
Ended was their grave interview! Ended until when? Until to-morrow or
until always?--On their farewells, abrupt or prolonged, frightened or
peaceful, every time, every night, weighed the same uncertainty of their
meeting again--
