CHAPTER XIII.
Weeks have elapsed, in preparations, in anxious uncertainties on the
manner of acting, in abrupt changes of plans and ideas.
Between times, the reply of Uncle Ignacio has reached Etchezar. If his
nephew had spoken sooner, Ignacio has written, he would have been glad to
receive him at his house; but, seeing how he hesitated, Ignacio had
decided to take a wife, although he is already an old man, and now he has
a child two months old. Therefore, there is no protection to be expected
from that side; the exile, when he arrives there, may not find even a
home--
The family house has been sold, at the notary's money questions have been
settled; all the goods of Ramuntcho have been transformed into gold
pieces which are in his hand--
And now is the day of the supreme attempt, the great day,--and already
the thick foliage has returned to the trees, the clothing of the tall
grass covers anew the prairies; it is May.
In the little wagon, which the famous fast horse drags, they roll on the
shady mountain paths, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, toward that village of
Amezqueta. They roll quickly; they plunge into the heart of an infinite
region of trees. And, as the hour goes by, all becomes more peaceful
around them, and more savage; more primitive, the hamlets; more solitary,
the Basque land.
In the shade of the branches, on the borders of the paths, there are pink
foxgloves, silences, ferns, almost the same flora as in Brittany; these
two countries, the Basque and the Breton, resemble each other by the
granite which is everywhere and by the habitual rain; by the immobility
also, and by the continuity of the same religious dream.
Above the two young men who have started for the adventure, thicken the
big, customary clouds, the sombre and low sky. The route which they
follow, in these mountains ever and ever higher, is deliciously green,
dug in the shade, between walls of ferns.
Immobility of several centuries, immobility in beings and in things,--one
has more and more the consciousness of it as one penetrates farther into
this country of forests and of silence. Under this obscure veil of the
sky, where are lost the summits of the grand Pyrenees, appear and run by,
isolated houses, centenary farms, hamlets more and more rare,--and they
go always under the same vault of oaks, of ageless chestnut trees, which
twist even at the side of the path their roots like mossy serpents. They
resemble one another, those hamlets separated from one another by so much
forest, by so many branches, and inhabited by an antique race, disdainful
of all that disturbs, of all that changes: the humble church, most often
without a belfry, with a simple campanila on its gray facade, and the
square, with its wall painted for that traditional ball-game wherein,
from father to son, the men exercise their hard muscles. Everywhere
reigned the healthy peace of rustic life, the traditions of which in the
Basque land are more immutable than elsewhere.
The few woolen caps which the two bold young men meet on their rapid
passage, incline all in a bow, from general politeness first, and from
acquaintance above all, for they are, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, the two
celebrated pelota players of the country;--Ramuntcho, it is true, had
been forgotten by many people, but Arrochkoa, everybody, from Bayonne to
San Sebastian, knows his face with healthy colors and the turned up ends
of his catlike mustache.
Dividing the journey into two stages, they have slept last night at
Mendichoco. And at present they are rolling quickly, the two young men,
so preoccupied doubtless that they hardly care to regulate the pace of
their vigorous beast.
Itchoua, however, is not with them. At the last moment, a fear has come
to Ramuntcho of this accomplice, whom he felt to be capable of
everything, even of murder; in a sudden terror, he has refused the aid of
that man, who clutched the bridle of the horse to prevent it from
starting; and feverishly, Ramuntcho has thrown gold into his hands, to
pay for his advice, to buy the liberty to act alone, the assurance, at
least, of not committing a crime: piece by piece, to break his
engagement, he has given to Itchoua a half of the agreed price. Then,
when the horse is driven at a gallop, when the implacable figure has
vanished behind a group of trees, Ramuntcho has felt his conscience
lighter--
"You will leave my carriage at Aranotz, at Burugoity, the inn-keeper's,
who understands," said Arrochkoa, "for, you understand, as soon as you
have accomplished your end I will leave you.--We have business with the
people of Buruzabal, horses to lead into Spain to-night, not far from
Amezqueta, and I promised to be there before ten o'clock--"
What will they do? They do not know, the two allied friends; this will
depend on the turn that things take; they have different projects, all
bold and skilful, according to the cases which might present themselves.
Two places have been reserved, one for Ramuntcho and the other for her,
on board a big emigrant vessel on which the baggage is embarked and which
will start tomorrow night from Bordeaux carrying hundreds of Basques to
America. At this small station of Aranotz, where the carriage will leave
both of them, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse, they will take the train for
Bayonne, at three o'clock in the morning, and, at Bayonne afterward, the
Irun express to Bordeaux. It will be a hasty flight, which will not give
to the little fugitive the time to think, to regain her senses in her
terror,--doubtless also in her intoxication deliciously mortal--
A gown, a mantilla of Gracieuse are all ready, at the bottom of the
carriage, to replace the veil and the black uniform: things which she
wore formerly, before her vows, and which Arrochkoa found in his mother's
closets. And Ramuntcho thinks that it will be perhaps real, in a moment,
that she will be perhaps there, at his side, very near, on that narrow
seat, enveloped with him in the same travelling blanket, flying in the
midst of night, to belong to him, at once and forever;--and in thinking
of this too much, he feels again a shudder and a dizziness--
"I tell you that she will follow you," repeats his friend, striking him
rudely on the leg in protective encouragement, as soon as he sees
Ramuntcho sombre and lost in a dream. "I tell you that she will follow
you, I am sure! If she hesitates, well, leave the rest to me!"
If she hesitates, then they will be violent, they are resolved, oh, not
very violent, only enough to unlace the hands of the old nuns retaining
her.--And then, they will carry her into the small wagon, where
infallibly the enlacing contact and the tenderness of her former friend
will soon turn her young head.
How will it all happen? They do not yet know, relying a great deal on
their spirit of decision which has already dragged them out of dangerous
passes. But what they know is that they will not weaken. And they go
ahead, exciting each other; one would say that they are united now unto
death, firm and decided like two bandits at the hour when the capital
game is to be played.
The land of thick branches which they traverse, under the oppression of
very high mountains which they do not see, is all in ravines, profound
and torn up, in precipices, where torrents roar under the green night of
the foliage. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnut trees become more and
more enormous, living through centuries off a sap ever fresh and
magnificent. A powerful verdure is strewn over that disturbed geology;
for ages it covers and classifies it under the freshness of its immovable
mantle. And this nebulous sky, almost obscure, which is familiar to the
Basque country, adds to the impression which they have of a sort of
universal meditation wherein the things are plunged; a strange penumbra
descends from everywhere, descends from the trees at first, descends from
the thick, gray veils above the branches, descends from the great
Pyrenees hidden behind the clouds.
And, in the midst of this immense peace and of this green night, they
pass, Ramuntcho and Arrochkoa, like two young disturbers going to break
charms in the depths of forests. At all cross roads old, granite crosses
rise, like alarm signals to warn them; old crosses with this inscription,
sublimely simple, which is here something like the device of an entire
race: "O crux, ave, spes unica!"
Soon the night will come. Now they are silent, because the hour is going,
because the moment approaches, because all these crosses on the road are
beginning to intimidate them--
And the day falls, under that sad veil which covers the sky. The valleys
become more savage, the country more deserted. And, at the corners of
roads, the old crosses appear, ever with their similar inscriptions: "O
crux, ave, spes unica!"
Amezqueta, at the last twilight. They stop their carriage at an outskirt
of the village, before the cider mill. Arrochkoa is impatient to go into
the house of the sisters, vexed at arriving so late; he fears that the
door may not be opened to them. Ramuntcho, silent, lets him act.
It is above, on the hill; it is that isolated house which a cross
surmounts and which one sees in relief in white on the darker mass of the
mountain. They recommend that as soon as the horse is rested the wagon be
brought to them, at a turn, to wait for them. Then, both go into the
avenue of trees which leads to that convent and where the thickness of
the May foliage makes the obscurity almost nocturnal. Without saying
anything to each other, without making a noise with their sandals, they
ascend in a supple and easy manner; around them the profound fields are
impregnated by the immense melancholy of the night.
Arrochkoa knocks with his finger on the door of the peaceful house:
"I would like to see my sister, if you please," he says to an old nun who
opens the door, astonished--
Before he has finished talking, a cry of joy comes from the dark
corridor, and a nun, whom one divines is young in spite of the
envelopment of her dissembling costume, comes and takes his hand. She has
recognized him by his voice,--but has she divined the other who stays
behind and does not talk?--
The Mother Superior has come also, and, in the darkness of the stairway,
she makes them go up to the parlor of the little country convent; then
she brings the cane-seat chairs and everyone sits down, Arrochkoa near
his sister, Ramuntcho opposite,--and they face each other at last, the
two lovers, and a silence, full of the beating of arteries, full of leaps
of hearts, full of fever, descends upon them--
Truly, in this place, one knows not what peace almost sweet, and a little
sepulchral also, envelopes the terrible interview; in the depth of the
chests, the hearts beat with great blows, but the words of love or of
violence, the words die before passing the lips.--And this peace, more
and more establishes itself; it seems as if a white shroud little by
little is covering everything, in order to calm and to extinguish.
There is nothing very peculiar, however, in this humble parlor: four
walls absolutely bare under a coat of whitewash; a wooden ceiling; a
floor where one slips, so carefully waxed it is; on a table, a plaster
Virgin, already indistinct, among all the similar white things of the
background where the twilight of May is dying. And a window without
curtains, open on the grand Pyrenean horizons invaded by night.--But,
from this voluntary poverty, from this white simplicity, is exhaled a
notion of definitive impersonality, of renunciation forever; and the
irremediability of accomplished things begins to manifest itself to the
mind of Ramuntcho, while bringing to him a sort of peace, of sudden and
involuntary resignation.
The two smugglers, immovable on their chairs, appear as silhouettes, of
wide shoulders on all this white of the walls, and of their lost features
one hardly sees the black more intense of the mustache and the eyes. The
two nuns, whose outlines are unified by the veil, seem already to be two
spectres all black--
"Wait, Sister Mary Angelique," says the Mother Superior to the
transformed young girl who was formerly named Gracieuse, "wait sister
till I light the lamp in order that you may at least see your brother's
face!"
She goes out, leaving them together, and, again, silence falls on this
rare instant, perhaps unique, impossible to regain, when they are alone--
She comes back with a little lamp which makes the eyes of the smugglers
shine,--and with a gay voice, a kind air, asks, looking at Ramuntcho:
"And this one? A second brother, I suppose?--"
"Oh, no," says Arrochkoa in a singular tone. "He is only my friend."
In truth, he is not their brother, that Ramuntcho who stays there,
ferocious and mute.--And how he would frighten the quiet nuns if they
knew what storm brings him here!--
The same silence returns, heavy and disquieting, on these beings who, it
seems, should talk simply of simple things; and the old Mother Superior
remarks it, is astonished by it.--But the quick eyes of Ramuntcho become
immovable, veil themselves as if they are fascinated by some invisible
tamer. Under the harsh envelope, still beating, of his chest, the
calmness, the imposed calmness continues to penetrate and to extend. On
him, doubtless, are acting the mysterious, white powers which are here in
the air; religious heredities which were asleep in the depths of his
being fill him now with unexpected respect and submissiveness; the
antique symbols dominate him: the crosses met in the evening along the
road and that plaster Virgin of the color of snow, immaculate on the
spotless white of the wall--
"Well, my children, talk of the things of Etchezar," says the Mother
Superior to Gracieuse and to her brother. "We shall leave you alone, if
you wish," she adds with a sign to Ramuntcho to follow her.
"Oh, no," protests Arrochkoa, "Let him stay.--No, he is not the one--who
prevents us--"
And the little nun, veiled in the fashion of the Middle Age, lowers her
head, to maintain her eyes hidden in the shade of her austere headdress.
The door remains open, the window remains open; the house, the things
retain their air of absolute confidence, of absolute security, against
violations and sacrilege. Now two other sisters, who are very old, set a
small table, put two covers, bring to Arrochkoa and to his friend a
little supper, a loaf of bread, cheese, cake, grapes from the arbor. In
arranging these things they have a youthful gaiety, a babble almost
childish--and all this is strangely opposed to the ardent violence which
is here, hushed, thrown back into the depth of minds, as under the blows
of some mace covered with white--
And, in spite of themselves, they are seated at the table, the two
smugglers, opposite each other, yielding to insistence and eating
absent-mindedly the frugal things, on a cloth as white as the walls.
Their broad shoulders, accustomed to loads, lean on the backs of the
little chairs and make their frail wood crack. Around them come and go
the Sisters, ever with their discreet talk and their puerile laugh, which
escape, somewhat softened, from under their veils. Alone, she remains
mute and motionless, Sister Mary Angelique: standing near her brother who
is seated, she places her hand on his powerful shoulder; so lithe beside
him that she looks like a saint of a primitive church picture. Ramuntcho,
sombre, observes them both; he had not been able to see yet the face of
Gracieuse, so severely her headdress framed it. They resemble each other
still, the brother and the sister; in their very long eyes, which have
acquired expressions more than ever different remains something
inexplicably similar, persists the same flame, that flame which impelled
one toward adventures and the life of the muscles, the other toward
mystic dreams, toward mortification and annihilation of flesh. But she
has become as frail as he is robust; her breast doubtless is no more, nor
her hips; the black vestment wherein her body remains hidden falls
straight like a furrow enclosing nothing carnal.
And now, for the first time, they are face to face, Gracieuse and
Ramuntcho; their eyes have met and gazed on one another. She does not
lower her head before him; but it is as from an infinite distance that
she looks at him, it is as from behind white mists that none may scale,
as from the other side of an abyss, as from the other side of death; very
soft, nevertheless, her glance indicates that she is as if she were
absent, gone to tranquil and inaccessible other places.--And it is
Ramuntcho at last who, still more tamed, lowers his ardent eyes before
her virgin eyes.
They continue to babble, the Sisters; they would like to retain them both
at Amezqueta for the night: the weather, they say, is so black, and a
storm threatens.--M. the Cure, who went out to take communion to a
patient in the mountain, will come back; he has known Arrochkoa at
Etchezar when a vicar there; he would be glad to give him a room in the
parish house--and one to his friend also, of course--
But no, Arrochkoa refuses, after a questioning glance at Ramuntcho. It is
impossible to stay in the village; they will even go at once, or after a
few moments of conversation, for they are expected on the Spanish
frontier.--Gracieuse who, at first, in her mortal disturbance of mind,
had not dared to talk, begins to question her brother. Now in Basque,
then in French, she asks for news of those whom she has forever
abandoned:
"And mother? All alone now in the house, even at night?"
"Oh, no," says Arrochkoa, "Catherine watches over her and sleeps at the
house."
"And how is your child, Arrochkoa, has he been christened? What is his
name? Lawrence, doubtless, like his grandfather."
Etchezar, their village, is separated from Amezqueta by some sixty
kilometres, in a land without more means of communication than in the
past centuries:
"Oh, in spite of the distance," says the little nun, "I get news of you
sometimes. Last month, people here had met on the market place of
Hasparren, women of our village; that is how I learned--many things.--At
Easter I had hoped to see you; I was told that there would be a ball-game
at Erricalde and that you would come to play there; then I said to myself
that perhaps you would come here--and, while the festival lasted, I
looked often at the road through this window, to see if you were
coming--"
And she shows the window, open on the blackness of the savage
country--from which ascends an immense silence, with, from time to time,
the noise of spring, intermittent musical notes of crickets and
tree-toads.
Hearing her talk so quietly, Ramuntcho feels confounded by this
renunciation of all things; she appears to him still more irrevocably
changed, far-off--poor little nun!--Her name was Gracieuse; now her name
is Sister Mary Angelique, and she has no relatives; impersonal here, in
this little house with white walls, without terrestrial hope and without
desire, perhaps--one might as well say that she has departed for the
regions of the grand oblivion of death. And yet, she smiles, quite serene
now and apparently not even suffering.
Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho, questions him with a piercing eye
accustomed to fathom the black depths--and, tamed himself by all this
unexpected peace, he understands very well that his bold comrade dares no
longer, that all the projects have fallen, that all is useless and inert
in presence of the invisible wall with which his sister is surrounded. At
moments, pressed to end all in one way or in another, in a haste to break
this charm or to submit to it and to fly before it, he pulls his watch,
says that it is time to go, because of the friends who are waiting for
them.--The Sisters know well who these friends are and why they are
waiting but they are not affected by this: Basques themselves, daughters
and granddaughters of Basques, they have the blood of smugglers in their
veins and consider such things indulgently--
At last, for the first time, Gracieuse titters the name of Ramuntcho; not
daring, however, to address him directly, she asks her brother, with a
calm smile:
"Then he is with you, Ramuntcho, now? You work together?"
A silence follows, and Arrochkoa looks at Ramuntcho.
"No," says the latter, in a slow and sombre voice, "no--I, I go to-morrow
to America--"
Every word of this reply, harshly scanned, is like a sound of trouble and
of defiance in the midst of that strange serenity. She leans more heavily
on her brother's shoulder, the little nun, and Ramuntcho, conscious of
the profound blow which he has struck, looks at her and envelopes her
with his tempting eyes, having regained his audacity, attractive and
dangerous in the last effort of his heart full of love, of his entire
being of youth and of flame made for tenderness.--Then, for an uncertain
minute, it seems as if the little convent had trembled; it seems as if
the white powers of the air recoiled, went out like sad, unreal mists
before this young dominator, come here to hurl the triumphant appeal of
life. And the silence which follows is the heaviest of all the silent
moments which have interrupted already that species of drama played
almost without words--
At last, Sister Mary Angelique talks, and talks to Ramuntcho himself.
Really it does not seem as if her heart had just been torn supremely by
the announcement of that departure, nor as if she had just shuddered
under that lover's look.--With a voice which little by little becomes
firmer in softness, she says very simple things, as to any friend.
"Oh, yes--Uncle Ignacio?--I had always thought that you would go to
rejoin him there.--We shall all pray the Holy Virgin to accompany you in
your voyage--"
And it is the smuggler who lowers the head, realizing that all is ended,
that she is lost forever, the little companion of his childhood; that she
has been buried in an inviolable shroud.--The words of love and of
temptation which he had thought of saying, the projects which he had
revolved in his mind for months, all these seemed insensate,
sacrilegious, impossible things, childish bravadoes.--Arrochkoa, who
looks at him attentively, is under the same irresistible and light charm;
they understand each other and, to one another, without words, they
confess that there is nothing to do, that they will never dare--
Nevertheless an anguish still human appears in the eyes of Sister Mary
Angelique when Arrochkoa rises for the definite departure: she prays, in
a changed voice, for them to stay a moment longer. And Ramuntcho suddenly
feels like throwing himself on his knees in front of her; his head on the
hem of her veil, sobbing all the tears that stifle him; like begging for
mercy, like begging for mercy also of that Mother Superior who has so
soft an air; like telling both of them that this sweetheart of his
childhood was his hope, his courage, his life, and that people must have
a little pity, people must give her back to him, because, without her,
there is no longer anything.--All that his heart contains that is
infinitely good is exalted at present into an immense necessity to
implore, into an outbreak of supplicating prayer and also into a
confidence in the kindness, in the pity of others--
And who knows, if he had dared formulate that great prayer of pure
tenderness, who knows what he might have awakened of kindness also, and
of tenderness and of humanity in the poor, black-veiled girl?--Perhaps
this old Mother Superior herself, this old, dried-up girl with childish
smile and grave, pure eyes, would have opened her arms to him, as to a
son, understanding everything, forgiving everything, despite the rules
and despite the vows? And perhaps Gracieuse might have been returned to
him, without kidnapping, without deception, almost excused by her
companions of the cloister. Or at last, if that was impossible, she would
have bade him a long farewell, consoling, softened by a kiss of
immaterial love--
But no, he stays there mute on his chair. Even that prayer he cannot
make. And it is the hour to go, decidedly. Arrochkoa is up, agitated,
calling him with an imperious sign of the head. Then he straightens up
also his proud bust and takes his cap to follow Arrochkoa. They express
their thanks for the little supper which was given to them and they say
good-night, timidly. During their entire visit they were very respectful,
almost timid, the two superb smugglers. And, as if hope had not just been
undone, as if one of them was not leaving behind him his life, they
descend quietly the neat stairway, between the white walls, while the
good Sisters light the way with their little lamp.
"Come, Sister Mary Angelique," gaily proposes the Mother Superior, in her
frail, infantile voice, "we shall escort them to the end of our avenue,
you know, near the village."
Is she an old fairy, sure of her power, or a simple and unconscious
woman, playing without knowing it, with a great, devouring fire?--It was
all finished; the parting had been accomplished; the farewell accepted;
the struggle stifled under white wadding,--and now the two who adored
each other are walking side by side, outside, in the tepid night of
spring!--in the amorous, enveloping night, under the cover of the new
leaves and on the tall grass, among all the saps that ascend in the midst
of the sovereign growth of universal life.
They walk with short steps, through this exquisite obscurity, as in
silent accord, to make the shaded path last longer, both mute, in the
ardent desire and the intense fear of contact of their clothes, of a
touch of their hands. Arrochkoa and the Mother Superior follow them
closely, on their heels; without talking, nuns with their sandals,
smugglers with their rope soles, they go through these soft, dark spots
without making more noise than phantoms, and their little cortege, slow
and strange, descends toward the wagon in a funereal silence. Silence
also around them, everywhere in the grand, ambient black, in the depth of
the mountains and the woods. And, in the sky without stars, sleep the big
clouds, heavy with all the water that the soil awaits and which will fall
to-morrow to make the woods still more leafy, the grass still higher; the
big clouds above their heads cover all the splendor of the southern
summer which so often, in their childhood, charmed them together,
disturbed them together, but which Ramuntcho will doubtless never see
again and which in the future Gracieuse will have to look at with eyes of
one dead, without understanding nor recognizing it--
There is no one around them, in the little obscure alley, and the village
seems asleep already. The night has fallen quite; its grand mystery is
scattered everywhere, on the mountains and the savage valleys.--And, how
easy it would be to execute what these two young men have resolved, in
that solitude, with that wagon which is ready and that fast horse!--
However, without having talked, without having touched each other, they
come, the lovers, to that turn of the path where they must bid each other
an eternal farewell. The wagon is there, held by a boy; the lantern is
lighted and the horse impatient. The Mother Superior stops: it is,
apparently, the last point of the last walk which they will take together
in this world,--and she feels the power, that old nun, to decide that it
will be thus, without appeal. With the same little, thin voice, almost
gay, she says:
"Come, Sister, say good-bye."
And she says that with the assurance of a Fate whose decrees of death are
not disputable.
In truth, nobody attempts to resist her order, impassibly given. He is
vanquished, the rebellious Ramuntcho, oh, quite vanquished by the
tranquil, white powers; trembling still from the battle which has just
come to an end in him, he lowers his head, without will now, and almost
without thought, as under the influence of some sleeping potion--
"Come, Sister, say good-bye," the old, tranquil Fate has said. Then,
seeing that Gracieuse has only taken Arrochkoa's hand, she adds:
"Well, you do not kiss your brother?--"
Doubtless, the little Sister Mary Angelique asks for nothing better, to
kiss him with all her heart, with all her soul; to clasp him, her
brother, to lean on his shoulder and to seek his protection, at that hour
of superhuman sacrifice when she must let the cherished one leave her
without even a word of love.--And still, her kiss has in it something
frightened, at once drawn back; the kiss of a nun, somewhat similar to
the kiss of one dead.--When will she ever see him again, that brother,
who is not to leave the Basque country, however? When will she have news
of her mother, of the house, of the village, from some passer-by who will
stop here, coming from Etchezar?--
"We will pray," she says again, "to the Holy Virgin to protect you in
your long voyage--"
--And how they go; slowly they turn back, like silent shades, toward the
humble convent which the cross protects, and the two tamed smugglers,
immovable on the road, look at their veils, darker than the night of the
trees, disappearing in the obscure avenue.
Oh! she is wrecked also, the one who will disappear in the darkness of
the little, shady hill.--But she is nevertheless soothed by white,
peaceful vapors, and all that she suffers will soon be quieted under a
sort of sleep. To-morrow she will take again, until death, the course of
her strangely simple existence; impersonal, devoted to a series of daily
duties which never change, absorbed in a reunion of creatures almost
neutral, who have abdicated everything, she will be able to walk with
eyes lifted ever toward the soft, celestial mirage--
O crux, ave, spes unica!--
To live, without variety or truce to the end, between the white walls of
a cell always the same, now here, then elsewhere, at the pleasure of a
strange will, in one of those humble village convents to which one has
not even the leisure to become attached. On this earth, to possess
nothing and to desire nothing, to wait for nothing, to hope for nothing.
To accept as empty and transitory the fugitive hours of this world, and
to feel freed from everything, even from love, as much as by death.--The
mystery of such lives remains forever unintelligible to those young men
who are there, made for the daily battle, beautiful beings of instinct
and of strength, a prey to all the desires; created to enjoy life and to
suffer from it, to love it and to continue it--
O crux, ave, spes unica!--One sees them no longer, they have re-entered
their little, solitary convent.
The two men have not exchanged even a word on their abandoned
undertaking, on the ill-defined cause which for the first time has undone
their courage; they feel, toward one another, almost a sense of shame of
their sudden and insurmountable timidity.
For an instant their proud heads were turned toward the nuns slowly
fleeing; now they look at each other through the night.
They are going to part, and probably forever: Arrochkoa puts into his
friends hands the reins of the little wagon which, according to his
promise, he lends to him:
"Well, my poor Ramuntcho!" he says, in a tone of commiseration hardly
affectionate.
And the unexpressed end of the phrase signifies clearly:
"Go, since you have failed; and I have to go and meet my friends--"
Ramuntcho would have kissed him with all his heart for the last
farewell,--and in this embrace of the brother of the beloved one, he
would have shed doubtless good, hot tears which, for a moment at least,
would have cured him a little.
But no, Arrochkoa has become again the Arrochkoa of the bad days, the
gambler without soul, that only bold things interest. Absentmindedly, he
touches Ramuntcho's hand:
"Well, good-bye!--Good luck--"
And, with silent steps, he goes toward the smugglers, toward the
frontier, toward the propitious darkness.
Then Ramuntcho, alone in the world now, whips the little, mountain horse
who gallops with his light tinkling of bells.--That train which will pass
by Aranotz, that vessel which will start from Bordeaux--an instinct
impels Ramuntcho not to miss them. Mechanically he hastens, no longer
knowing why, like a body without a mind which continues to obey an
ancient impulsion, and, very quickly, he who has no aim and no hope in
the world, plunges into the savage country, into the thickness of the
woods, in all that profound blackness of the night of May, which the
nuns, from their elevated window, see around them--
For him the native land is closed, closed forever; finished are the
delicious dreams of his first years. He is a plant uprooted from the
dear, Basque soil and which a breath of adventure blows elsewhere.
At the horse's neck, gaily the bells tinkle, in the silence of the
sleeping woods; the light of the lantern, which runs hastily, shows to
the sad fugitive the under side of branches, fresh verdure of oaks; by
the wayside, flowers of France; from distance to distance, the walls of a
familiar hamlet, of an old church,--all the things which he will never
see again, unless it be, perhaps, in a doubtful and very distant old
age--
In front of his route, there is America, exile without probable return,
an immense new world, full of surprises and approached now without
courage: an entire life, very long, doubtless, during which his mind
plucked from here will have to suffer and to harden over there; his vigor
spend and exhaust itself none knows where, in unknown labors and
struggles--
Above, in their little convent, in their sepulchre with walls so white,
the tranquil nuns recite their evening prayers--
O crux, ave, spes unica!--
THE END.
