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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King of Camargue, by Jean Aicard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: King of Camargue
+
+Author: Jean Aicard
+
+Illustrator: Louis V. Ruet
+             George Roux
+
+Translator: George B. Ives
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2010 [EBook #33867]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING OF CAMARGUE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sam W. and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     BIBLIOTHEQUE
+                  DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
+                       DU ROMAN
+                     CONTEMPORAIN
+
+
+                  _KING OF CAMARGUE_
+
+
+                      JEAN AICARD
+
+
+            PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY
+          GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+        COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON
+
+
+
+                   THIS EDITION OF
+
+                   KING OF CAMARGUE
+
+            HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
+                          BY
+
+                    GEORGE B. IVES
+
+
+                  THE ETCHINGS ARE BY
+
+                     LOUIS V. RUET
+
+
+                    AND DRAWINGS BY
+
+                      GEORGE ROUX
+
+
+
+
+                    CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
+                          DU
+                  ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN
+
+
+                      ROMANCISTS
+
+
+
+
+                     THIS EDITION
+
+             DEDICATED TO THE HONOR OF THE
+
+                  ACADEMIE FRANCAISE
+
+   IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED
+                SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS
+
+                      NUMBER 358
+
+
+
+
+                    THE ROMANCISTS
+
+                      JEAN AICARD
+
+                   KING OF CAMARGUE
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Chapter VI
+
+    _This woman had a way of looking at people that disconcerted
+    them. You would say that a sharp, threatening flame shot from
+    her eyes. It penetrated your being, searched your heart, and
+    you were powerless against it._]
+
+
+
+
+TO EMILE TRELAT
+
+
+My Very Dear Friend:
+
+Permit me to dedicate this book to you, whose incomparable friendship
+has been to the poet, obstinate in his idealism, of hourly assistance,
+a constant proof of the reality of true generosity and kindness of
+heart.
+
+                                                Jean Aicard.
+
+    _La Garde, near Toulon, April 11, 1890._
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+        I LIVETTE AND ZINZARA                              3
+
+       II IN CAMARGUE                                     13
+
+      III THE DROVERS                                     21
+
+       IV THE SEDEN                                       27
+
+        V THE LOVERS                                      39
+
+       VI RAMPAL                                          51
+
+      VII THE MEETING                                     57
+
+     VIII ON THE BENCH                                    73
+
+       IX THE PRAYER                                      83
+
+        X THE TERRACE                                     91
+
+       XI THE HIDING-PLACE                                99
+
+      XII A SORCERESS                                    121
+
+     XIII THE SNAKE-CHARMER                              143
+
+      XIV JOUSTING                                       165
+
+       XV MONSIEUR LE CURE'S ARCHAEOLOGY                  177
+
+      XVI ON THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH                      205
+
+     XVII THE OLD WOMAN                                  219
+
+    XVIII THE BLESSED RELICS                             231
+
+      XIX THE BRANDING                                   247
+
+       XX THE SNARE                                      261
+
+      XXI HERODIAS                                       279
+
+     XXII IN THE NEST                                    291
+
+    XXIII THE PURSUIT                                    303
+
+     XXIV IN THE GARGATE                                 323
+
+      XXV THE PHANTOM                                    331
+
+          NOTES                                          345
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+KING OF CAMARGUE
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+    RAMPAL AND THE GIPSY                           _Fronts._
+
+    RENAUD IN THE TOILS OF THE QUEEN                      64
+
+    LIVETTE AND RENAUD                                    88
+
+    LIVETTE WATCHES ON THE CHURCH ROOF                   216
+
+    THE GIPSY'S COUCH                                    312
+
+
+
+
+KING OF CAMARGUE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+LIVETTE AND ZINZARA
+
+
+A shadow suddenly darkened the narrow window. Livette, who was running
+hither and thither, setting the table for supper, in the lower room of
+the farm-house of the Chateau d'Avignon, gave a little shriek of
+terror, and looked up.
+
+The girl had an instinctive feeling that it was neither father nor
+grandmother, nor any of her dear ones, but some stranger, who sought
+amusement by thus taking her by surprise.
+
+Nor a stranger, either, for that matter,--it was hardly possible!--But
+how was it that the dogs did not yelp? Ah! this Camargue is frequented
+by bad people, especially at this season, toward the end of May, on
+account of the festival of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, which attracts,
+like a fair, such a crowd of people, thieves and gulls, and so many
+mischievous gipsies!
+
+The figure that was leaning on the outside of the window-sill,
+shutting out the light, looked to Livette like a black mass, sharply
+outlined against the blue sky; but by the thick, curly hair,
+surmounted by a tinsel crown, by the general contour of the bust, by
+the huge ear-rings with an amulet hanging at the ends, Livette
+recognized a certain gipsy woman who was universally known as the
+Queen, and who, for nearly two weeks, had been suddenly appearing to
+people at widely distant points on the island, always unexpectedly, as
+if she rose out of the ditches or clumps of thorn-broom or the water
+of the swamps, to say to the laborers, preferably the women: "Give me
+this or that;" for the Queen, as a general rule, would not accept what
+people chose to offer her, but only what she chose that they should
+offer her.
+
+"Give me a little oil in a bottle, Livette," said the young gipsy,
+darting a dark, flashing glance at the pretty girl with the fair,
+sun-flecked hair.
+
+Livette, charitable as she was at every opportunity, at once felt that
+she must be on her guard against this vagabond, who knew her name. Her
+father and grandmother had gone to Arles, to see the notary, who would
+soon have to be drawing up the papers for her marriage to Renaud, the
+handsomest drover in all Camargue. She was alone in the house.
+Distrust gave her strength to refuse.
+
+"Our Camargue isn't an olive country," said she curtly, "oil is scarce
+here. I haven't any."
+
+"But I see some in the jar at the bottom of the cupboard, beside the
+water-pitcher."
+
+Livette turned hastily toward the cupboard. It was closed; but, in
+truth, the stock of olive oil was there in a jar beside the one in
+which they kept Rhone water for their daily needs.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Livette.
+
+"The lie came from your mouth like a vile black wasp from a
+garden-flower, little one!" said the motionless figure, still leaning
+heavily on the window-sill, evidently determined to remain. "The oil
+is where I say it is, and more than twenty-five litres too; I can see
+it from here. Come, come, take a clean bottle and the tin funnel and
+give me quickly what I want. I'll tell you, in exchange, what I see in
+your future."
+
+"It's a deadly sin to seek to know what God doesn't wish us to know,"
+said Livette, "and you can guess that oil is kept in cupboards and
+still be no more of a sorceress than I am. Go about your business,
+good-wife. I can give you some of this bread, fresh baked last night,
+if you wish, but I tell you I haven't any oil."
+
+"And why do they call you Livette," said the Queen calmly, "if it
+isn't on account of the field of old olive-trees--the oldest and
+finest in the country--owned by your father, near Avignon? There you
+were born. There you remained until you were ten years old, and at
+that age--seven years ago, a mystic number--you came here, where your
+father was made farmer, overseer of drovers, manager of everything, by
+the Avignonese master of this 'Chateau d'Avignon,' the finest in all
+Camargue.--'Livettes! livettes!' that's the way you used to ask for
+_olivettes_, olives, when you were a baby. You were very fond of them,
+and the nickname clung to you. A pretty nickname, on my word, and one
+that suits you well, for if you're not dark like the ripe olive,
+you're fair as the virgin oil, a pearl of amber in the sunlight, and
+then you are not yet ripe. Your face is oval, and not stupidly round
+like a Norman apple. You have the pallor of the olive-leaves seen from
+below.--And that you may soon see them so, little one, is the blessing
+I ask for you, as the cures of your chapels say, where they take us in
+for pity. Be compassionate as they are, in the name of your Lord Jesus
+Christ, and give me some oil quickly, I say--in the name of extreme
+unction and the garden of agony!"
+
+The gipsy had said all this without stopping to breathe, in a dull,
+monotonous, muffled voice, but she added abruptly in loud, piercing,
+incisive tones: "Do you understand what I say?" imparting to those
+simple words an extraordinarily imperious and violent expression.
+Livette hastily crossed herself.
+
+"Come, enough of this!" said she, "I have nothing here for you, and we
+keep the oil of extreme unction for better Christians! Begone, pagan,
+begone!" she added, trying to counterfeit courage.
+
+"Of the three holy women," continued the gipsy, "who took ship, after
+the death of Jesus Christ, to escape the crucifying Jews, one was
+like myself, an Egyptian and a fortune-teller. She knew the science of
+the Magi, of those with whom great Moses contended for mastery in
+witchcraft. She could, at will, order the frogs to be more numerous
+than the drops of water in the swamps, and she held in her hand a rod
+which, at her word, would change to a viper. Before Jesus she bowed,
+as did Magdalen, and Jesus loved her too. In the tempest, as they were
+crossing the sea, her wand pointed out the course to follow, and, to
+do that with safety, had no need to be very long. Must you have more
+pledges of my power and my knowledge? What more must I tell you to
+induce you to give me the oil I need so much? If you were a man, I
+would say: 'Look! I am dark, but I am beautiful! I am a descendant of
+that Sara the Egyptian who, when the boat of the three holy women drew
+near the sands of Camargue, paid the boatman by showing him her
+undefiled body, stripped naked, with no thought of evil and without
+sin, but knowing well that true beauty is rare and that the mere sight
+of it is better than all the treasures of Solomon. So be it!'"
+
+Livette was thoroughly alarmed. The gipsy's assurance, her hollow,
+penetrating voice, imperious by fits and starts, these strange tales
+filled with evil words on sacred subjects, this devilish mixture of
+things pagan and things mystic, the consciousness of her own
+loneliness, all combined to terrify her. She lost her head.
+
+"Away with you, away with you," she cried, "queen of robbers! queen
+of brigands! away with you, or I will call for help!"
+
+"Your drover won't hear you; he's tending his drove to-day beside the
+Vaccares. Come, give me the oil, I say, or I'll throw this black wand
+on the ground, and you will see how snakes bite!"
+
+But Livette, brave and determined, said: "No!" shuddering as she said
+it, and, to glean a little comfort, cast a glance at the low beam
+along which her father's gun was hanging. The gipsy saw the glance.
+
+"Oh! I am not afraid of your gun," said she, "and to prove it--wait a
+moment!"
+
+She left the window. The light streamed into the room, bringing a
+little courage to Livette's terrified heart, as she followed the gipsy
+with her eyes. In the bright light of that beautiful May evening, the
+gipsy woman stood out, a tall figure, against the distant, unbroken
+horizon line of the Camargue desert, which could be seen through a
+vista between the lofty trees of the park.
+
+Livette felt a thrill of joy as she saw a troop of mares trotting
+along the horizon, followed by their driver, spear in air--Jacques
+Renaud, her fiance, without doubt.--But how far away he was! the
+horses, from where she stood, looked smaller than a flock of little
+goats. And her eyes came back to the gipsy queen. A few steps from the
+farm-house, in front of the seigniorial chateau, a huge square
+structure, with numerous windows, long closed,--a structure of the
+sort that arouses thoughts of neglect and death and the grave,--the
+gipsy stood on tiptoe, drawing down the lowest branch of a thorn-tree.
+The thorns were long, as long as one's finger. With a twig of a tree
+of that species the crown of the Crucified One was made.
+
+She broke off a twig thickset with thorns, bent it into a circle,
+twisting the two ends together like serpents, and returned to the
+window.
+
+Livette noticed at that moment that the two watch-dogs were following
+the gipsy, with their tails between their legs, their noses close to
+her heels, with little affectionate whines. And she, the gipsy Queen,
+as slender as haughty, erect upon her legs, in a ragged skirt with
+ample folds through the holes in which could be seen a bright red
+petticoat, her bust enveloped in orange-colored rags crossed below her
+well-rounded breasts, her amulets tinkling at her ears, medallions
+jangling on her forehead, which was encircled by a gaudy fillet of
+copper,--she, the Queen, came forward, holding in her hand the crown
+of long stiff thorns, to which a few tiny green leaves clung in
+quivering festoons;--and in a low, very low tone, she murmured the
+same caressing plaint that the two great cowed dogs were murmuring,
+saying to them, in their own language, mysterious things they
+understood.
+
+"Take this," said the gipsy, "let your kind heart be rewarded as it
+deserves! Misfortune, which is at work for you, will soon make itself
+known to you. How, may God tell you! In love, the wind that blows for
+you is poisoned by the swamps. The charity your God enjoins is, so
+they say, another form of love that brings true love good fortune. And
+here is my queenly gift!"
+
+She threw the crown of thorns through the window at Livette's feet.
+
+"Madame!" exclaimed Livette in dismay.
+
+But the gipsy had disappeared.
+
+Infinite distress filled the poor child's heart. With her eyes fixed
+on the crown, Livette recalled the legends in which the good Lord
+Jesus appears disguised as a beggar--and in which He rewards those who
+have received Him with sweet compassion.
+
+In one of those legends, the Poor Man, welcomed with harsh words,
+subjected to mockery and cowardly insults, struck with staves and
+goblets and bottles thrown by drunken revellers--at last, standing
+against the wall, begins to be transformed into a Christ upon the
+Cross, bleeding at the holes in his hands and feet!--And, sick with
+terror, she asked herself if she had not received with unkindness one
+of the three holy women who, after the death of Jesus, crossed the sea
+in a boat to the shores of Camargue, using their skirts for sails, and
+assisted by the oars of a boatman, whom one of their number, Sara the
+Egyptian, paid in heathen coin, by allowing him to see, as the price
+of a Christian action, her undefiled body, entirely naked, upon the
+self-same spot on which the church stands to-day.
+
+Slowly she picked up the crown and threw it into the fire over which
+the soup was stewing. Before it melted into ashes, the crown of thorns
+seemed for a moment to be pure gold.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN CAMARGUE
+
+
+Every year, at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the village that stands at
+the southern end of Camargue, above the marshes, on a sand beach, the
+line of which is constantly changed by the action of the waves and
+high winds, every year, the feast of Saintes-Maries is celebrated on
+May 24th; and at the time of that festival the gipsies flock to
+Camargue in large numbers, impelled by a curious sort of piety,
+mingled with a desire to pilfer the pilgrims.
+
+Legends, like trees, spring from the soil,--are its expression, so to
+speak. They are also its essence. At every step in Camargue, you find
+the everlasting legend of the holy women, just as you everlastingly
+see there the same tamarisk-trees, confused, against the horizon, with
+the same mirages.
+
+The two Marys, so runs the legend, Jacobe, Salome, and--according to
+some authorities--Magdalen, and with them their bondwomen, Marcella
+and Sara, adrift on the sea in a boat without masts or sails, pursued
+by the accursed Jews, after the Saviour's death, spread to the breeze
+strips of their skirts and their long, thin veils, and the wind
+carried them to this beach at Camargue.
+
+There a church was built. The sacred bones, found by King Rene, were
+enclosed in a reliquary, which has never ceased to perform miracles.
+And every year, from every corner of Provence, from the Comtat and
+from Languedoc, the last of the believers throng to the spot, bringing
+their aspirations and their prayers, dragging with them their sick
+friends and kindred, or their own wretchedness, their wounds and their
+lamentations.
+
+Nothing more strange can be imagined than this land of desolation,
+traversed every year by a multitude of cripples on their way to hope!
+
+From afar, at the end of the desert tract, can be seen the
+battlemented church that tells of the wars of long ago, of Saracen
+invasions, of the precarious life led by the poor in the Middle Ages.
+It stands there with its turrets and its bell-tower, which, like the
+stumps of gigantic masts, tower above the cluster of houses grouped
+about it; and the village, cut at about mid-height of the lower houses
+by the horizon line of the sea, seems drifting like a phantom ship
+among the billows of sand, like the boat of the holy women of the
+olden time, doomed to founder at last in the desolation of the desert.
+
+In this Camargue everything is strange. There are ponds like the huge
+central pond, the Vaccares, in the centre of which one can wade with
+ease; there are tracts of land where the pedestrian sinks out of sight
+and is drowned. Here deception is easy. Yonder green slime that you
+take for a level plain--beware!--men are drowned therein; those vast
+stretches of water which seem to you small seas--return that way
+to-morrow; they will have evaporated, leaving only a mirror of white
+salt that crackles beneath your feet. Yonder, do you see the calm,
+deep water? and trees on the shore? Ah! no, you can run along the
+surface of that water; it is dry land; the mirage alone formed those
+trees, just as it showed you the little child walking a league away,
+apparently near at hand and very tall. A land of visions, dreams, and
+hard work. A land of sedentary folk, who inhabit a vast space on the
+shore of endless waters, with an infinity of variations of mirages,
+sunbeams, reflections, and bright colors. A land of fever, where
+strong men daily bring wild bulls to earth. A land of leave-takings,
+for it is on the confines of an almost uninhabited land, on the shore
+of that great blue and white thoroughfare, the sea; just at the point
+where the Rhone, coming from the mountains, sets out upon its long
+journey to the bottomless waters, where the sun will take it up again
+to restore it to its source. An impressive land, which one feels to be
+the end of so many things; of the great city-making river, of the
+great expiring Faith, which flies to the sands to breathe its last,
+with its dying waves beating at the foundations of a poor
+battlemented church, amid the psalms, mingled with lamentations of a
+dying race.
+
+The ceremony of May 24th, at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, is
+unquestionably one of the most barbarous spectacles which men of
+modern times are permitted to witness.
+
+Since science made the conquest of men's minds, the faith of the last
+believers has changed. The most bigoted know, of course, that God can
+manifest Himself when and how He pleases, but they also know that He
+never pleases, in our positive days, to modify the movements of the
+vast mechanism of His creation, not even for the lowly pleasure of
+proving His existence to His creatures. The faith of civilized men no
+longer expects anything from Heaven in this world.
+
+Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on the 24th of May, is the rendezvous of the
+last savages of the Faith.
+
+They who come to pray to the holy women for health of body and of
+heart are unpolished creatures of a primitive belief. They believe,
+and that is the whole of it. A cry, a prayer, and, in reply, the
+saints can give them what they have not: eyes, legs, arms, life! And
+they ask them to perform a miracle as artlessly as a condemned man
+implores his pardon from the head of the State. That their prayers
+should be granted is quite as possible, almost more probable, for the
+saints have more pity. The few thousands of believers--it is long
+since their numbers have been added to--who pay a visit to the saints
+every year, see one or two miracles on each occasion. When the priest,
+coming from the church, followed by a procession, stretches out toward
+the sea the _Silver Arm_ which contains the relics, they see the sea
+recede! That happens every year. Imagine, then, how strenuously they
+importune the saints who can do so much with so little exertion! with
+what energy they hurry to the spot! with what sighs they pour out
+their hearts! with what a howling they utter their prayers! with what
+fervor they raise their eyes, stretch out their necks and their arms!
+All, all in vain. The last posturings of the great, fruitlessly
+imploring sorrow are to be seen there, in that desert corner of
+France, between the arms of that dying stream, on the shore of the sea
+that is eating away the island; beneath the arches of yonder church,
+so white without, so black within, wherein every hand holds a taper,
+flickering like a star of human misery, which burns for God and
+greases the fingers, and for which the beggar, whose heart would be
+made glad by a single sou, must pay five sous.
+
+The whole region seems to be at once the highway to exile, and a wild
+place of refuge. Therefore, the gipsies love it. It is one of the main
+cross-roads of their interlacing highways which envelop the whole
+world; it is one of the favorite countries of the race that has no
+country.
+
+And every year, the gipsies come to Camargue to enjoy their very
+ancient privilege of occupying a black crypt or underground chapel,
+under the choir of the church, consecrated to Saint Sara the Egyptian.
+
+In that cavern they can be seen crouching at the foot of an altar
+whereon is a little shrine--Saint Sara's--all filthy from much
+kissing, while above, in the church, the great shrines of the two
+Marys are lowered from the vaulted roof amid vociferous prayers.
+
+There, in the crypt, the gipsies sit upon their haunches,
+curly-headed, hot-lipped, sweating profusely, amid hundreds of
+candles, which exude tallow and overheat the stifling oven, telling
+their greasy beads, exhaling an odor similar to that of wild beasts in
+their den, emitting from time to time a hoarse appeal to Saint Sara,
+wearing the smile of premeditated crime upon their faces mingled with
+the grimace due to remorse that may be sincere; looking with envious
+eye at every sou, pilfering handkerchiefs, scratching their wounds,
+swarming in a mysterious dunghill, where one feels, in spite of
+everything, that some mystic flower is springing into life, the
+involuntary aspiration of depravity toward purity.
+
+Early in May of this year, the band of gipsies had brought with them
+to the saints a young woman whom they called their "Queen."
+
+This "Queen," pending the arrival of the approaching fete-day, passed
+part of her time seated on the wooden bench under the canopy of
+thorn-broom erected by the customs' officers between two tamarisks, on
+the sand-dune just in front of the village; and there she sat and
+gazed at the sea.
+
+Her name was Zinzara.
+
+Her thick, black, wavy hair was twisted carelessly into a mass on top
+of her head. Two locks came forward to her temples, which were sunken
+and filled with shadows. Her piercing black eyes gleamed from beneath
+her thick arching eyebrows. A copper circlet with sequins hanging from
+it was placed upon her forehead, slightly at one side, after the
+manner of a crown.
+
+The glaringly bright materials in which she enveloped her figure
+revealed the outline of her powerful chest, and her hips that swayed
+at every step she took. And the fragment that formed her skirt fell in
+graceful folds, beneath which her naked foot peeped out, glistening
+with sand.
+
+Evening surprised her upon her bench beneath the broom, looking out
+upon the sea. The sun tinged the waves and the sand with golden
+yellow, then with red. The night wind made the reeds and rushes
+quiver. Slowly the gipsy drew a bright-colored handkerchief from her
+girdle and arranged it on her head. She put it over her face to tie
+the ends together behind the mass of hair, then raised it and threw it
+over her head, so that it fell upon her back. Thus arranged as a
+head-dress, it framed the face in stiff, broad folds, falling on both
+sides,--and the Egyptian, her hands spread out upon her knees, her
+eyes fixed on the horizon, resembled some figure of Isis, while about
+her a flock of red flamingoes or a solitary ibis, in hieroglyphic
+cries, told the sands of Camargue and the rushes of the Rhone tales of
+the sands of Libya and the lotus-trees of the Nile.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE DROVERS
+
+
+Jacques Renaud, Livette's lover, was employed as drover of bulls and
+horses in this strange Camargue country, on the estate of the Chateau
+d'Avignon.
+
+The _manades_, or droves, of Camargue bulls and mares live at liberty
+in the vast moor, leaping the ditches, splashing through the swamps,
+browsing on the bitter grass, drinking from the Rhone, running,
+jumping, wallowing, neighing and lowing at the sun or the mirage,
+lashing vigorously with their tails the swarms of gadflies clinging to
+their sides, then lying down in groups on the edge of the swamp, knees
+doubled under their bulky bodies, tired and sleepy, their dreamy eyes
+fixed vaguely on the horizon.
+
+The mounted drovers leave them at liberty, but keep a watchful eye on
+their freedom; and according to the time of year and the condition of
+the pasturage, "round up" their herds, keep them together, and direct
+their movements.
+
+In the distance, as they sit motionless, and straight as arrows, on
+their saddles _a la gardiane_, astride their white horses, with the
+spear-head resting on the closed stirrup, they resemble knights of the
+Middle Ages, awaiting the flourish of the herald's trumpet to enter
+the lists.
+
+The Camargue horse, with his powerful hind-quarters, stout shoulders,
+head a little heavy,--an excellent beast withal,--is descended from
+Saracen mares and the palfrey of the Crusades. He still wears antique
+trappings. Huge closed stirrups strike against his sides; the broad
+strap of the martingale passes through a heart-shaped piece of leather
+on his chest, and the saddle is an easy-chair, wherein the rider sits
+between two solid walls, the one in front as high as that at his back.
+
+At certain times, when the best pasturage is on the other bank of the
+Rhone, the drovers drive their _manades_ toward the river. When they
+reach the shore, they press close upon them to force them in. The
+earth-colored water of the river flows bubbling by. The beasts
+hesitate. Some slowly put their heads down to the stream and drink,
+not knowing what is required of them. Others suddenly show signs of
+life at the "singing" of the water, stretch their necks, breathe
+noisily, and low and neigh. A horse, urged forward by a drover, rebels
+and rushes back, then rears and falls backward into the water, which
+splashes mightily under the weight of his great body; but he has made
+a start; he swims, and all the others follow. Muzzles and nostrils,
+manes and horns, wave wildly about above the river, which is now a
+swarm of heads. They blow foam and air and water all around. More than
+one, in jovial mood, bites at a neighboring rump. Feet rise upon
+backs, to be shaken off again with a quick movement of the spinal
+column, and thrown back into the waves. Sometimes a frightened beast,
+confused by the plunging and kicking, tries to return to the bank,
+and, being driven in once more by the drovers, loses his head, follows
+the current, sails swiftly seaward, feels his strength failing,
+drinks, struggles, turns over and over, plunges, drinks again,
+founders at last like a vessel and disappears.
+
+Finally the bulk of the drove has reached the opposite bank, and there
+they shake themselves in the sunlight, snort with delight, and caper
+over the fields. Tails lash sides and buttocks. Some young horses,
+excited by their bath, scamper away, side by side, toward the horizon,
+biting at the long hairs of each other's flying manes.
+
+Then it is the turn of the drovers. Some ride their horses into the
+river. Others, in the midst of the rearguard of the _manade_, guide,
+with the paddle, a flat-bottomed boat that a blow of the foot would
+shatter, and their horses, held by their bridles, swim behind.
+
+At other times, the drovers are employed driving from the plains of
+Meyran or Arles, Avignon, Nimes, Aigues-Mortes to the branding-places
+at Camargue the bulls that are to take part in the sports at the
+latter place.
+
+These bulls sometimes travel in captivity, in a sort of high
+enclosure, without a floor, mounted on wheels and drawn by horses; the
+bulls walk along the ground, beating their horns against the resonant
+wooden walls.
+
+Generally the bulls go to the games unconfined, but under the eye of
+mounted drovers, spear in hand.
+
+These journeys are made at night. As they pass through the villages,
+the people rush to their windows. The young men are on the watch for
+the "cattle" and try to drive them out of the circle of drovers, who
+lose their temper, and swear and strike: that sport is called the
+_abrivade_. In Arles, if the bulls happen to arrive by daylight, the
+drovers have a hard task, for all the young men in the city do their
+utmost to break the line of horsemen, in order to cut out one bull, or
+several, if possible, and then drive them through the city. The city
+assumes a posture of defence. Overturned carts barricade the ends of
+the streets. Shops are closed. The bull, in a frenzy, rushes here and
+there, stands musing for a moment at the corners, decides to take a
+certain direction, rushes at a passer-by, knocks him down, and
+generally selects the shop of a dealer in crockery and glassware in
+which to make merry, amid the shouts of an excited populace.
+
+The drovers are a free, fearless, savage race, a little contemptuous
+of cities, devoted to their desert.
+
+A drover is at home alike in sun and rain, in the wind from the land,
+and the wind from the sea.
+
+A drover knows how to deal blows and to receive them; he pursues a
+bull at the gallop, and with a blow of the spear upon his flank,
+judiciously selecting his time, "fells" him unerringly.
+
+He knows the trick of pursuing a wild bull making for the open
+country. His well-trained horse bites the furious beast on the
+hind-quarters, and he turns. The drover, spear in rest, pricks the
+bull in the nose as he rushes upon him, and checks him.
+
+Sometimes a drover, on foot and alone, pursued by a cow with calf, and
+apparently in imminent danger from the furious beast, will suddenly
+turn about, and--with arm outstretched, as if he held his spear--point
+his three fingers at the animal, separated so as to represent the
+three points of the trident. In face of the motionless man, the cow,
+seized with terror, recoils, pawing up the earth, with lowered head
+and threatening horns; and, as soon as she thinks she is well out of
+the man's reach, she turns and flies.
+
+A common performance of the drover, when he is in good spirits, is
+this: pursuing the bull, he passes beyond him some twenty or thirty
+yards, then stops short and leaps down from his horse; the bull, taken
+by surprise, rushes at the man, who has one knee on the ground. The
+bull comes rushing on with lowered horns. Three sharp hand-claps: the
+bull has stopped! His hot breath strikes the face of his subduer, who
+has already seized him with both hands by the horns. The man,
+springing instantly to his feet, struggles to throw the beast over to
+the right. The bull, resisting, throws himself in the opposite
+direction. The two forces neutralize each other for an instant, almost
+equal, the result uncertain; then the man suddenly yields, and the
+beast, unexpectedly impelled in the direction of his own efforts,
+falls upon his side. Skill is seconded by the creature's whole
+strength in its struggle for victory.
+
+This is the method adopted at the _ferrades_, or brandings, where the
+sport consists in branding the young animals with a red-hot iron.
+
+For a drover, to seize a colt by the nose, and mount him bareback; to
+roll with his steed at the bottom of a ditch and emerge firmly seated
+in the saddle; to subdue stallions by fatigue, and, if dismounted and
+wounded by a kick, to dress the wound as tranquilly as the cork-cutter
+dresses the scratch made by his knife,--all this is mere child's-play.
+
+A drover, caught between two horns--luckily well separated--and tossed
+into the air, has but one thought when he picks himself up after
+falling to the ground--a thought so surprising as not to be
+ridiculous: to rearrange his breeches and readjust his belt.
+
+A unique race it is, rough and brutal, which would be esteemed heroic,
+like the Corsican race, if it had great affairs in which to display
+its great qualities.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SEDEN
+
+
+Jacques Renaud, Livette's betrothed, was, as we have said, one of the
+most fearless drovers in Camargue.
+
+He could pursue and catch and subdue a wild horse, attack a rebellious
+bull and master it, as no other could; he was the king of the moor.
+
+For occasions of public rejoicing, at Nimes or Arles, he was always
+sent for when they desired a really fine performance in the arena. And
+he had so often called forth the exclamation, in all the arenas
+throughout Provence: "Oh! that fellow is _the king_ of them all!" that
+the name had clung to him. And he himself had given to his finest
+stallion the name of "Prince."
+
+Whatever feats of address and strength were performed by others, he
+performed better than they.
+
+And with it all he was a handsome fellow, not too tall or too short,
+with a well-shaped head, clear, dark complexion, short, thick, matted
+black hair, a well-defined moustache of the same devil's black as the
+hair, and cheeks and chin always closely shaven, for this savage
+always carried in the leather saddle-bags hanging at the bow of his
+saddle a razor-edged knife, a stone to sharpen it upon, and a little
+round mirror in a sheep-skin case.
+
+And when, with his stout and shapely legs encased in heavy boots, his
+feet in the closed stirrups, his long spear resting on his boot, he
+sat erect and motionless in his high-backed saddle, his size
+heightened by the refraction of the desert, amid his little tribe of
+mares and wild bulls, wearing upon his head the round narrow-brimmed
+hat that made for him a crown of gleaming golden straw, indeed the
+drover did resemble the king of some outlandish race!
+
+And yet it was not on the day of a _ferrade_, nor because of his great
+deeds as tamer of wild beasts, that the gentle, fair-haired girl had
+come to love him.
+
+In the first place, she was accustomed to seeing many of these
+drovers; and then, being the daughter of a rich intendant, she might
+have been inclined rather to look down upon them a little, as mere
+herdsmen. Indeed her father and grandmother did not readily agree to
+give her hand to Renaud, who was poor and had no kindred; but Livette
+was an only child, and had wept and prayed so hard, the darling, that
+at last they had said _yes_.
+
+And this is how it came to pass that the drover Renaud, who was used
+to being run after by pretty girls, had taken Livette's trembling
+little heart in his great hand.
+
+It was one morning when he was making a new _seden_ for his horse,
+who had lost his the night before, while bathing in the Rhone.
+
+The _seden_, as it is called in Camargue, is a halter, but a halter
+made of mares' hair braided, it being customary always to allow the
+manes and tails of stallions to grow as long as they will, as a mark
+of strength and pride. The _seden_ is generally black and white. It
+is, in a word, a long rope, which hangs in a coil about the horse's
+neck, and may serve, as occasion arises, many purposes, being
+generally used as a halter, sometimes as a lasso.
+
+But the _seden_, being a thing essentially Camarguese, should never go
+from the province. Many a one does so, no doubt, but it is on account
+of the contemptible greed of this or that drover, who snaps his
+fingers at the old customs that were good enough for his ancestors.
+
+Renaud, then, was making a _seden_. It was in front of one of the
+farm-houses appertaining to the Chateau d'Avignon, a long, low
+structure, rather a drover's cottage than a farm-house, lost in the
+moor, and so squat that it had the appearance of not wanting to be
+seen, like an animal burrowing in the ground.
+
+It was October. The larks were singing merrily. Mounted upon Blanquet
+(or Blanchet), her favorite horse, the little one, in obedience to her
+father's orders, was out in search of Renaud, and she spied him at a
+distance, walking backward, playing the rope-maker. From a piece of
+canvas tied around his waist and swelling out in front of him, like an
+apron turned up to make a great pocket, he was taking little bunches
+of white and black hair alternately, braiding them together and
+twisting them into a rope, which grew visibly longer. A child was
+turning the thick wooden wheel upon which the _seden_, already of
+considerable length, was wound; and Renaud--keeping time to the wheel,
+which struck a dull blow against something or other at every
+revolution--was singing a ballad which floated to Livette's ears on
+the gentle breeze that was blowing, like a sweet, strong call from the
+love of which she as yet knew nothing.
+
+    "N'use pas sur les routes
+      Tes souliers;
+    Descends plutot le Rhone
+      En bateau.
+
+    "Laisse Lyon, Valence,
+      De cote;
+    Salue-les de la tete
+      Sous les ponts."
+
+He had a fine voice, smooth and clear, powerful without effort, and of
+wide range.
+
+    "Avignon est la reine----
+      Passe encor;
+    Tu ne verras qu'en Arles
+      Tes amours----
+
+    "La plaine est belle et grande,
+      Compagnon----
+    Prends tes amours en croupe,
+      En avant!"[1]
+
+Livette had stopped her horse, to hear better. It was in the morning.
+In the light there was the reflection that tells that the day is
+young, that makes hope dance in hearts of sixteen, and sows hope anew
+even in the hearts of the old.
+
+A vague hope that is naught but the desire to love; but its loss,
+bitterer than death, makes the thought of death a consolation!
+
+    "Prends tes amours en croupe----
+      En avant!"
+
+the singer repeated, and the little one involuntarily urged her horse
+toward the song that called to her to come.
+
+"Aha!" said Renaud, pausing in his work, "aha! young lady! you are
+astir early!--with a white horse that will soon be all red!"
+
+"Yes," she said, laughing, "with gnats and gadflies; there are swarms
+of them! too many, by my faith in God!"
+
+"You are covered with them, young lady, as a bit of honey is covered
+with bees, or a tuft of flowering genesta! But what brings you here?"
+
+"I come from my father. You must come with me at once."
+
+"But comrade Rampal borrowed my horse just now to go to Saintes. They
+went off one upon the other."
+
+"Take mine, then," said Livette.
+
+"And what will you do, young lady?"
+
+She was ashamed of her thoughtlessness, and blushed scarlet.
+
+"I?" said she, and the words of the ballad rang in her heart:
+
+    "Prends tes amours en croupe,
+      En avant!"
+
+"Unless," said he, laughing in his turn, "you care to take me _en
+croupe_?"
+
+"People would never stop talking about it all over our Camargue," said
+she, with laughter in her voice. "A drover like you, the terror of
+riders, _en croupe_ like a girl? No, no; no false shame, that is my
+place. We will take off my saddle, and you can bring it to me
+to-morrow."
+
+"Very luckily," said Renaud, "Rampal didn't take mine, which I never
+lend."
+
+Livette jumped down from her horse; and at the breeze made by her
+skirt a cloud of great flies and enormous mosquitoes rose and flew
+buzzing about her. Blanchet's snow-white rump looked as if it were
+covered with a net of purple silk, there was such a labyrinth of
+little streams of blood crossing and recrossing one another. Another
+instant, and gadflies and mosquitoes settled down again upon the
+bleeding surface and dotted it with a myriad of black spots; but
+Blanchet, albeit somewhat cross, was used to that annoyance.
+
+Livette fastened him to one of the rings in the wall, and sat down
+upon the stone bench, waiting until Renaud had finished his _seden_.
+
+The wheel turned and turned, striking its dull blow with perfect
+regularity at every turn.
+
+"That was a pretty song, Renaud," said Livette suddenly, answering her
+thoughts without intention; "that was a pretty song you were singing
+just now."
+
+"I learned it," said Renaud, "from a boatman, a friend of my father,
+with whom I went up the Rhone as far as Lyon--and then came down
+again----"
+
+"And is all that country very beautiful up there?" said she.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "it is beautiful."
+
+And he said nothing more.
+
+"You don't look as if you meant what you say, Renaud. Pray, didn't you
+like the city of Lyon we hear so much about?"
+
+There was a long silence, broken only by the monotonous rhythm of the
+wheel.
+
+"No sun!" said Renaud abruptly. "It's a city in a cold cloud!--The
+Rhone isn't fine till you come down again," he added.
+
+Livette looked at him, and her wide-open eyes seemed to say:
+
+"Why is that?"
+
+He answered her look.
+
+"When one of us goes up yonder, young lady, you understand, he leaves
+everything to go nowhere, and when he gets there, all he asks is to
+start back again!--When he comes from there here, on the contrary, he
+leaves nothing at all, and knows that, at the end of the journey, he
+will have arrived somewhere! You see, young lady, the best horse must,
+of necessity, stop at the sea--and that is the only place where I am
+willing to consent to go no farther. Where the sea is not, you have
+all the rest of the journey still to do.--Enough, my boy!" he added,
+raising his voice.
+
+The wheel stopped. He examined the _seden_. The rope, of black and
+white strands in regular alternation, was finished.
+
+"That's a good piece of work," said he; "look, young lady."
+
+He leaned over, almost against her, to look at a point in the rope
+which seemed to him defective; he leaned over, and a short black curl
+touched lightly the disordered, almost invisible, locks that formed a
+sort of fleecy golden cloud over Livette's forehead. And thereupon it
+seemed to both of them--young as they were!--that their hair blazed up
+and shrivelled softly, like the fine grass that takes fire in summer,
+under the hot sun. Ah! holy youth!
+
+Then, for the first time, Renaud thought of the girl. Hitherto he had
+seen in Livette only the "young lady." They remained bending forward,
+she over the rope which she seemed to be examining attentively, he
+over Livette's hair. Livette wore her "morning head-dress," consisting
+of a little white handkerchief which covered the _chignon_, and was
+tied in such fashion that the two ends stood up like little hollow,
+pointed ears on top of her head. When they are in full-dress, the
+women of Camargue surround the high _chignon_, covered by a fine white
+linen cap, with a broad velvet ribbon, almost always black, whose
+long, unequal ends fall behind the head, a little at one side.
+
+Renaud, then, was looking at Livette's clear flaxen hair,--in which
+there was, here and there, a lock of a darker golden hue,--symmetrically
+massed on top of her head, advancing in little waves toward her temples,
+coquettishly arranged, but so short and fluffy that some few locks
+escaped, here, there, and everywhere, enough to form the faint golden
+mist above her head.
+
+He looked at the pretty, round neck, whence the fair hair seemed to
+spring, like a vigorous plant, so slender and so fine! so long, and
+full of life! And the temptation to press his lips upon it drew him
+on, as, after a long day's journey among dry, stony hills, the sight
+of the water draws on the horses of Camargue, accustomed to moist
+pasturage.
+
+She felt that she was being stared at too long.
+
+"Let us go!" she said, suddenly. "My father's orders were that you
+should come as soon as possible."
+
+Renaud felt as if he were waking from a long sleep and from a dream.
+He jumped to his feet. Without a word, he went to Blanchet, took off
+the woman's saddle and carried it into the house, placed his own upon
+the beast, which the mosquitoes had at last made restive, and leaped
+upon his back.
+
+Livette, assisted by the drover's strong hand, leaped to the croup
+behind him with one spring; highly amused she was as she threw one arm
+around Renaud's waist. It is the fashion among the Camarguese young
+women, all of whom, on fete-days, ride to the plains of Meyran, or to
+Saintes-Maries, "fitted" to the horses of their promised husbands.
+
+The drover started Blanchet off at a gallop, gave him his head, and
+let him take his own course. Blanchet left the travelled road, headed
+straight for the chateau across the moor, through the sand thickly
+sown with stiff, rounded clumps of saltwort at irregular intervals.
+The good horse flew over these clumps, scarcely touching the tops,
+landing always between them in the damp sand, from which, however, by
+force of long habit, he withdrew his feet without effort, calculating
+in advance the distance between the obstacles, galloping freely and
+evenly, changing feet as he chose, making sport of his heavy burden,
+happy at being left to himself.
+
+And Livette must needs hold tight to the drover's waist; he was a
+lithe, supple fellow, and swayed with the horse. And the swift
+motion, the free air, youth and love, all combined to intoxicate the
+two young people; and without meaning it, without thinking of it, the
+horseman repeated his song of a few moments before, between his teeth,
+but loud enough to be overheard by the girl:
+
+    "Prends tes amours en croupe!
+      En avant!"
+
+And it seemed to them as if the whole horizon were theirs.
+
+When they dismounted, in front of the farm-house of the chateau, they
+had not spoken a word, but they had exchanged in silence the subtlest
+and strongest part of themselves.
+
+From that day, Renaud, being sincerely in love, exerted himself to
+please. He was careful about his dress, paid more attention to the
+adjustment of his neckerchief, shaved more closely, and had not a
+single glance to spare for the other girls, even the prettiest of
+them.
+
+At last, he said to Livette one day:
+
+"Your father will never be willing!"
+
+Those were his first words of love.
+
+"If I am willing, my father will be. And when my father is willing,
+grandmother always is!"
+
+"The good God grant it!" replied Jacques.
+
+And it had happened as she said. For almost five months now they had
+been betrothed.
+
+The fascinating thing about Livette was that she was just the
+opposite of Renaud, so slender and delicate, so fair and such a
+child,--and, furthermore, that she loved him with all her might, the
+sweetheart,--there was no mistake about that.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE LOVERS
+
+
+Livette was so fresh and sweet that people often repeated, in speaking
+of her, the Provencal expression: "You could drink her in a glass of
+water!"
+
+In loving Livette, Renaud experienced the pleasant feeling, so dear to
+the heart of strong men, of having some one to protect, a little wife,
+who was no more than a child. Because of Livette's fragility and
+slender stature, the rough drover, made for violent passions, the
+horseman of the Camargue desert, the hard-fisted herdsman, the subduer
+of mares and bulls, felt the love that is based upon sweet compassion,
+upon respect for charming weakness; in a word, he learned the secret
+of true tenderness which he could not have felt, perhaps, for one of
+his own class.
+
+It would never have occurred to him to tell her any of the vulgar
+jests with a double meaning, with which he regaled the more robust
+fair ones of his acquaintance on branding-days or on race-days. To do
+that would have seemed to him to be a villainous misuse of his power
+and his experience as a man. Still less did Livette cause him to feel
+the fierce desire, well known to him, which sometimes, with other
+girls, went to his brain like a rush of blood,--the desire to touch
+with his hands, to take in his arms, to throw down into the ditch,
+laughing at the gentle resistance, at the consent which repels a
+little, at the equal struggle between the youth and the maiden, who
+have, in reality, a tacit understanding to be robber and robbed. No:
+in Livette's presence, Renaud felt that he was a new man. There came
+to him, in regard to the little damsel with the golden hair, a
+tranquillity of heart that surprised him greatly. Love has a thousand
+forms. That which Renaud felt for Livette was a soothing emotion. He
+"wished her well." That was what he kept repeating to himself as he
+thought of her. And, as he desired all the others something after the
+fashion of the bulls of his _manade_, in the season when the germs are
+at work, it so happened that he seemed not to desire the only woman he
+really loved.
+
+There was a sweet fascination in the thought, which he relished like a
+draught of pure water after a long day's walk through the dust in the
+hot sun. He rejoiced inwardly in his love as in a halt for rest in the
+shade of a great tree, beside a clear, cool spring, while the birds
+sang their greeting to the morning. Sometimes, in the blazing heat of
+midday, when he was riding across the mirror-like waste of sand and
+salt and water, his horse plodding wearily along with hanging head,
+the thought of Livette would steal softly into his mind, and it would
+seem as if a cool breeze were blowing on his forehead, washing away,
+in a sense, the dust and fatigue, like a bath. He would feel
+refreshed, and a smile would come unbidden to his lips. His whole
+being would thrill with pleasure, and, with renewed life, he would
+imperceptibly, with hand and knee alike, order his horse to raise his
+head. And the lover's steed would raise his head without further
+bidding, and snort and toss his mane, scatter, with a sudden lash of
+his tail, the gadflies that were streaking his sides with blood, and,
+with quickened step, reach the shelter of the hawthorns and the
+poplars on the Rhone bank--whose leaves forever quiver and rustle like
+the water, like the heart of man, like everything that lives and hopes
+and suffers and then dies!
+
+Not only by her grace and weakness did she win his heart, strong and
+rough as he was; but also by the care expended on her dress, by the
+splendor of her surroundings, she, the wealthy farmer's daughter,
+enchanted him, the poor drover; and she seemed to him a strange,
+unfamiliar creature from another world. And so she was in fact. Of a
+different quality, he said to himself: a being outside his sphere,
+far, far above it.
+
+That he might one day unloose the latchets of her little shoes had not
+occurred to him, and, lo! she was his! Livette, the daughter of the
+intendant of the Chateau d'Avignon! she was his fiancee, his
+betrothed, his future wife!
+
+He seemed to himself the heir to a throne. In face of the mere thought
+of his future, he felt something like the embarrassment a beggar feels
+on the threshold of a palace, before the carpets over which he must
+pass to enter, with shoes heavy with mud.
+
+She had in his eyes something of the sanctity of the blessed Madonna,
+carved from wood, painted blue and gold, and overladen with pearls and
+flowers, that he used to see when a child in the church of
+Saint-Trophime at Arles.
+
+So it was that he felt a secret amazement at finding himself beloved.
+
+It did not seem to him that it could really be true; and as he must
+needs be convinced of the fact every time he spoke to her, his love
+constantly appealed to him with all the force of novelty.
+
+He was a little embarrassed, too, in her presence, could not find his
+words, contented himself with smiling at her, with yielding submission
+to her like a child, with running to fetch this or that for her,
+divining her desires from her glance; mistaking now and then, but
+rarely; feeling the same pleasure in being the maiden's footman that
+is felt by the misshapen court dwarf in love with the king's fair
+daughter.
+
+His sobriquet of _The King_ seemed to him a mockery beside her. She
+embarrassed him; in her presence he was meek and lowly.
+
+He was surprised, indignant even, in his heart, at the familiar tone
+assumed by others with Livette. It seemed strange to him that her
+companions should treat her as an equal; that her father and her
+grandmother should not have the same respect and consideration for his
+fiancee that he himself had.
+
+Frequently, when the grandmother cried to Livette: "Do this or that;
+run! be quick!" he would be angry, and would long to say to her: "Why
+do you order her about? She was not made to obey! You're a bad
+grandmother! Don't you see that she is too delicate and pretty for
+such tasks?"
+
+But this was a feeling kept hidden in his heart; he would not have
+dared to avow it, for women are made, according to our ancestors, to
+be the slaves of man. So he said no word of what he felt. He even
+deemed himself a little ridiculous to feel it. He contented himself by
+doing in a twinkling, in Livette's stead, the thing she was bidden to
+do, if it was something within his power.
+
+Ah! but if any man had ventured to indulge in any ill-sounding
+pleasantry with Livette, to take any liberty with her--oh! then, be
+sure that he would without reflection have felled him on the spot with
+his stout fist!
+
+Why, if any one, man or woman, in the crowd on a fete-day, happened to
+make a coarse remark in her hearing,--one of the sort that he himself
+knew how to make with great effect upon occasion,--he would be
+overcome with rage against that person; it seemed to him that every
+one should take notice of Livette's presence, should feel that she was
+near, and understand that, before her, they should show some
+self-respect.
+
+All this he would have been incapable of explaining, but he felt it
+all, confusedly and vaguely, in his heart.
+
+Livette, for her part, was keenly conscious of the drover's adoration.
+She revelled in it, without unduly seeming to do so. She saw very
+plainly that she had, without effort, tamed a wild beast. She laughed
+sometimes, as she looked at him--a frank, ringing laugh, in which
+there was, however, a touch of the triumph of the mysterious feminine
+witchery, the marvellous invention of nature, which decrees that the
+strong man shall be vanquished, rolled in the dust, at the pleasure of
+fascinating weakness. This miracle, performed by life, by nature, by
+love, she believed to be her own work,--hers, Livette's,--and the
+little woman was a bit swollen with pride! More than frequently she
+would say to herself: "What have I done? I don't deserve this good
+fortune; no, indeed, I don't deserve it!" She saw very clearly that,
+in his eyes, she was a being apart: that he did not treat her by any
+means as everybody else did: and, greatly astonished as she was, she
+was proud of it.
+
+Thereupon, wondering in her sincere heart what she had "more" or
+better than another, and finding no answer to the question, it came
+about that she deemed her lover a little, just a very little, stupid
+to be so dominated by her, and he so strong! And then she would
+prettily make fun of him and laugh aloud at him, saying:
+
+"Ah! great booby!"
+
+So it was that the whole essence of Woman, profound, seductive,
+existed in this simple, obscure peasant-girl, who could have told
+nothing as to her own character.
+
+In time, too, she came to look upon herself as pretty, beautiful, the
+prettiest, the loveliest of all, and to admire her own charms. When
+such thoughts came to her, and if the truth must be known, none were
+more frequent,--ah! then she felt her pride! And she no longer deemed
+her lover stupid in the least degree; on the contrary, he seemed to
+her very fortunate, too fortunate! and then it was he who hardly
+deserved her! At such times, she received his attentions, his
+humility, with the air of a princess accustomed to homage.
+
+Then, too, she would wonder why all the others did not do for her what
+he did? And, thereupon, she would conceive a sort of gratitude for
+him. Such a constant revolution in our hearts of impressions, often
+irreconcilable and ever changing, around a fixed idea, is love.--Yes,
+in very truth he deserved to be loved simply because he had known
+enough to appreciate her! to choose her! The other young men were the
+fools, one and all!
+
+Warm was his welcome if he arrived at the farm when that thought was
+in her mind. She would give the little cry of a happy bird, and run
+to meet her lover.
+
+"Good-morning, Monsieur Jacques!"
+
+"Good-morning, Demoiselle Livette!"
+
+They would shake hands.
+
+"Will you come to the Rhone?"
+
+"With all my heart!"
+
+And often they would go and sit together beside the Rhone, beneath the
+great hawthorn--a tree more than a hundred years old and known to
+everybody. The hawthorn, like the aspen and the birch, is a familiar
+Camarguese tree.
+
+Sometimes, on the way, she would hold out to him a flexible green
+twig, broken from a poplar by the roadside, and they would walk along,
+united and kept apart at the same time by the short branch, followed
+by a swarm of gnats with their tiny iris-hued wings.
+
+She was very fond of this sport of making him walk thus, not too near,
+not too far away, holding him without touching him, drawing him nearer
+or keeping him at a distance, as her fancy dictated, making of the
+leafy wand a whip if he showed signs of rebellion.
+
+She had the feeling that thus she was indeed his mistress, remembering
+how she used sometimes to make her horse Blanchet follow her docilely
+in the same way by holding out to him a small wisp of flowering
+oats;--how she had sometimes, by the same means, led back behind her,
+quiet as an ox, a vicious bull that had escaped, wounded, from the
+arena, and that she had encountered by the roadside, in a thicket of
+thorn-broom, bathing his foaming tongue in the streams of blood that
+were flowing from his nostrils.
+
+Arrived at the bank of the Rhone, beneath the great hawthorn with the
+gnarled black trunk and smooth white branches, that stretches its
+abundant rustling foliage well out over the stream, the lovers would
+sit down, side by side, upon the roots protruding from the ground or
+upon a bundle of cut reeds.
+
+And they would watch the water flow. The earthy, yellowish water, with
+its whirling masses of foam, rushing toward the sea.
+
+They would sit and gaze.
+
+They would not speak. They would live on in silence, listening to the
+plashing of the Rhone, the tiny wavelets that came rippling in
+obliquely to the bank, to loiter there among the feet of countless
+reeds and poplars, while the main current in the centre of the stream
+flowed swiftly, hurriedly along, as if in haste to reach the sea, and
+there be swallowed up.--There they would sit and dream, not speaking.
+
+They felt that they were living the same life as everything about
+them. From time to time, a kingfisher, sky-blue and reddish-brown,
+would pass before them, light on a low branch, gazing sidewise at the
+water with his beak ready to strike, then, suddenly, fly off across
+the Rhone. And, with the sky-blue bird, their thoughts would cross
+the river, there to light again upon a branch, bent like a bow, whose
+slender point trailed in the water, vibrating in the current, and
+surrounded with a mass of foam, dead leaves, and twigs. And suddenly
+the bird, like a sorcerer, had disappeared.
+
+"How pretty!" Livette would sometimes say.
+
+And that was all.
+
+He would make no reply. He knew not what to say to her. He was too
+happy. He would not call the king his cousin!
+
+In the evening twilight, many little rabbits, young in that month of
+May, would run out from the park, through the wild hedges, almost
+invisible in their gray coats, and play in the shadow at the foot of
+the bushes, their presence betrayed by the rustling of a tuft of grass
+or a low-hanging, horizontal branch that barred their path.
+
+To heighten the enjoyment of the lovers, there was the nightingale's
+song, at the rising of the moon. Listen to it: 'tis always lovely in
+the darkness, is the nightingale's song. It begins with three
+distinct, long-drawn-out cries; you would say it was a signal, a
+preconcerted call; it enjoins attention. Then the modulations
+hesitatingly arise. You would say that it is timid, that it fears its
+prayer will not be granted. But soon it takes courage, self-assurance
+comes, and the song bursts forth and soars and fills the air with its
+melodious uproar. 'Tis love, 'tis youth and love that can no longer
+be restrained, that nothing stays, that claim their rights in
+life.--His song is done.
+
+His song is done, but still the lovers listen on and on to the bird's
+song, echoed in the dark recesses of their own hearts.
+
+At last, it would be time to return. They would rise and walk back
+toward the farm, not far away.
+
+The grandmother would be calling from the doorway:
+
+"Livette! Livette!"
+
+Her voice would reach their ears, with a plaintive, caressing accent,
+tinged with sadness, from the edge of the vast expanse that rose in
+the darkness toward the stars, toward life and love,--a long,
+melancholy call. The voice at night upon the moor fills the air and
+rises tranquilly, disturbed by no echo, sad to be alone in a too great
+solitude.
+
+Around the lovers as they returned to the farm, in the orchards, in
+the park, as the darkness increased, the deafening clamor of the frogs
+would soon be heard, a mighty noise, the sum total of a multitude of
+feeble sounds, a frightful din, composed of many minor croakings of
+unequal strength, which, massed together, drowning one another, mount
+at last into a rhythmic tumult like the ceaseless roaring of a
+cataract.
+
+And amid this formidable everlasting clamor, made by the voices of
+myriads of amorous little frogs, accentuated by the cry of a curlew,
+or a heron on the watch, and accompanied by the humming of the two
+Rhones and the plashing of the sea--the lovers, both deeply moved,
+heard nothing save the calm beating of their hearts.
+
+As time went on, their love waxed greater, increased by the memory of
+all these hours lived together.
+
+Renaud was no longer simple Renaud in Livette's eyes, but the being by
+whom she knew what life was, through whom came to her that
+overwhelming consciousness of everything, of the horizons of land and
+sea, that sentiment of _being_, that longing for the future, for
+growth, that inflow of vague hopes that comes of love and gives a zest
+to life.
+
+And now, if any one had sought to wrest Jacques from Livette, she
+would have died of it, and he who should try to wrest Livette from
+Jacques would have died of it--he would, my friends, even more
+certainly.
+
+It is a good and excellent thing that love should be always busied in
+making the world younger--and the nightingale, like the frogs, is
+never weary of repeating it.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+RAMPAL
+
+
+Rampal, who had borrowed Jacques Renaud's horse, had not returned.
+
+Renaud now rode no other horse than Blanchet.
+
+Rampal was a low rascal, gambler, hanger-on of wine-shops, well-known
+at Arles in all the vile haunts scattered along the Rhone.
+
+Dismissed by several masters, a drover without a drove, he passed his
+life in these days, riding from town to town, from Aigues-Mortes to
+Nimes, from Nimes to Arles, from Arles to Martigues, and in each of
+these towns plied some doubtful trade, cheated a little at cards,
+winning the means of living a week without doing anything, and
+returning, for that week, to the Camargue he loved, where there were,
+in two or three farm-houses, women who smiled upon his mysterious,
+piratical existence.
+
+For that existence, a horse was essential. Rampal, serving as a drover
+on foot, had, in the first place, stolen a horse from a _manade_, but
+he broke his tether the second night, left his master, swam the
+Rhone, and rejoined his fellows. Then it was that the rascal, having,
+in truth, important business on hand, had said to Renaud:
+
+"I have to go to Saintes, I'll take your horse, Cabri."
+
+"Take my horse," Renaud replied.
+
+It did not occur to him that Rampal would not return. Jacques relied
+so surely upon his own reputation for strength and courage that he did
+not think that any one would venture to arouse his wrath.
+
+And then he had a sort of pity for Rampal, mingled with a little
+admiration. He was a bold horseman, was Rampal, and, except for women
+and cards, he would have been, with Renaud, or just after him, a king
+of the drovers! So that, if Rampal aroused Renaud's compassion, Renaud
+aroused Rampal's envy.
+
+However, the vagaries of this _marrias_, this good-for-nothing knave,
+were the pranks of a free man. Neither married nor betrothed,
+fatherless and motherless, with no one to support or assist, no one
+whom he must please, he had a perfect right to live as he pleased! At
+least, that is what most people thought.
+
+Moreover, Renaud, although an honest man, had the tastes of a
+vagabond. Before his heart was filled with his strange affection for
+Livette, by which he felt as if he were bound hand and foot, he had,
+in truth, borne a part with Rampal in many curious adventures.
+
+More than once they had galloped along side by side toward the open
+moor, each having _en croupe_ a laughing damsel, who, after the close
+of a bull-fight at Aigues-Mortes or Arles, had consented to accompany
+them for a night.
+
+But on such occasions Renaud had always dealt frankly, never promising
+marriage nor any other thing, but simply giving the fair one a
+present, a souvenir, a brass ring, or a silk handkerchief--a _fichu_
+to pleat after the Arlesian fashion, or a broad velvet ribbon for a
+head-dress; while Rampal was treacherous, promised much and did
+nothing,--in short, was nothing but _fena_, a good-for-nothing.
+
+So Rampal had borrowed Renaud's horse with the intention of bringing
+him back the same evening; but that evening he had heard of a fete at
+Martigues and had ridden away thither without worrying about Renaud.
+
+"He'll take a horse out of his _manade_," he said to himself.
+
+Now, Audiffret, Livette's father, had insisted that Renaud should take
+Blanchet.
+
+"Take Blanchet," he said. "I don't like to have our girl ride him.
+He's a fine horse, but bad-tempered at times. Finish breaking him for
+us. I want him to run in the races at Beziers this year. Take him."
+
+Happy to have Blanchet in the hands of "her dear," for so she already
+called Renaud in her heart, Livette, who was fond of Blanchet, simply
+said:
+
+"Take good care of him."
+
+That was more than six months before.
+
+Rampal, who had caused considerable gossip meanwhile, and of whom
+Renaud had heard more than once, had not brought back the horse.
+
+Renaud did not lose his patience. Several times, being informed that
+Rampal was in this or that place, he had tried to find him, but had
+not succeeded.
+
+"I shall catch him some day!" said Renaud. "He loses nothing by
+waiting."
+
+He hoped that the fete at Saintes-Maries would bring the rascal back.
+
+"He will come back with the thieving gipsies!" he said; and he was not
+mistaken.
+
+Not for an empire would Rampal have missed making the pilgrimage to
+Saintes-Maries. The rascal would have thought himself everlastingly
+damned. It had been his habit from childhood to come and ask
+forgiveness of his sins from the two Marys and Sara the bondwoman, at
+whom he did nothing but laugh in a boastful way, unable to satisfy
+himself whether he believed in them or not.
+
+This year, being affiliated with the gipsies in matters of
+horse-trading (every one knows that the gipsies, men and
+women,--_roms_ and _juwas_, as they say,--have a profound acquaintance
+with everything connected with the horse), Rampal had been a fruitful
+source of information to them.
+
+By divers methods they had led him to talk about this and that, about
+every one and everything. He had no idea himself that he had told so
+many things. They had questioned him, sometimes directly, taking him
+unawares; sometimes in a slow, roundabout way; when he was drunk, and
+when he was asleep. And his replies had been pitilessly registered in
+the gipsies' unfailing memory--the wherewithal to astonish all
+Camargue.
+
+Rampal had not even been questioned by the gipsy queen, who did not
+trust his discretion; she learned the secrets of the province at
+second-hand.
+
+Once only had he spoken to her. It was one evening when the beggar
+queen began to dance for her own amusement on the high-road, to the
+music of her tambourine, which she hardly ever laid aside.
+
+"You are beautiful!" he said to her.
+
+"You are ugly!" she replied, quickly, in a contemptuous tone.
+
+"Give me the ring on your finger," said Rampal, "and I'll give you
+another."
+
+She glanced with a gleaming eye at her fantastic ring of hammered
+silver, then at the insolent Christian, and said:
+
+"A sound cudgelling about your loins is what I will give you, dog, if
+you don't leave me!"
+
+And she spat fiercely at him as if in disgust.
+
+Rampal, somewhat abashed, abandoned the game.
+
+This woman had a way of looking at people that disconcerted them. You
+would say that a sharp, threatening flame shot from her eyes. It
+penetrated your being, searched your heart, and you were powerless
+against it. She fathomed your glance, but you could not fathom
+hers--which, on the contrary, repelled you, turned you back like a
+solid wall. And, at such moments, she would stand proudly erect, her
+head thrown slightly back, her whole body poised, at once so sinuous
+and so rigid, that she might have been compared to a horned viper
+standing on his tail, fascinating his prey and preparing to spring.
+
+"I can't explain, Jacques, how that woman frightened me," said Livette
+to Renaud. "My blood is still running cold!--She threatened me! And
+when that crown of thorns fell at my feet--Holy Mother!--I thought I
+was going to faint!"
+
+"If I meet her," Renaud replied, "she'll find she has some one to
+settle with!"
+
+"Let the heathen alone, Jacques! It isn't well to have aught to do
+with the devil."
+
+But the drover loved a fight, and he longed for nothing so much as to
+fall in with Rampal and Zinzara, the gambler and the queen of the
+cards; "a pair of gipsies, a pair of thieves," thought Renaud.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+The gipsy queen was the first of the two he met.
+
+Renaud, mounted on Blanchet, was riding along the beach toward
+Saintes-Maries.
+
+The sea was at his right; at his left, the desert. He was riding
+through the sand, and from time to time the waves rolled up under his
+horse's feet, surrounding with sportive foam the rosy hoofs rapidly
+rising and falling.
+
+Renaud was thinking of Livette.
+
+He looked ahead and saw the tall, straight, battlemented walls of
+Saintes-Maries, and wondered whether he would lead his little queen,
+dressed in white, and crowned with flowers, to the altar there, or at
+Saint-Trophime in Arles.
+
+He looked at the sea and wondered if nothing would come to him from
+that source; if his uncle, captain of a merchantman, who sailed on his
+last voyage so many years ago, would not come into port some day with
+a cargo of vague, marvellous things, a million in priceless stuffs and
+precious stones? In the poor, ignorant fellow's imagination, the
+thought of a fortune was a vision of legendary treasures, like those
+discovered in caverns in the Arabian tales.
+
+For an instant, he seemed to see it with his eyes, to see his vision
+realized in the dazzling splendor of the boundless sea, that lay
+glistening in the sunlight, with sharp, fitful flashes, like a mirror
+broken into narrow, moving fragments of irregular shape. It was an
+undulating sheet of diamonds and sapphires. The sun's rays, as he sank
+lower and lower toward the horizon, assumed a ruddier hue as they fell
+obliquely upon the fast-subsiding waves, and soon the water was like a
+sheet of old burnished gold, moving slowly up and down; one would have
+said it was a vast melted treasure beneath a polished vitreous
+surface! At long intervals, a solitary wave greater than its fellows
+fell with a dull roar upon the beach, and ever and anon a cloud passed
+overhead; and in the mist flying from the gold-tipped wave, in the
+slow-moving shadow of the cloud, the water seemed a deep, dark blue.
+The sun sank lower, and broad bright red bands began to overshadow the
+bands of ochre, amethyst, light green, pale blue, that rose one above
+another on the horizon line. The changing sea was now like a cloak of
+royal purple, with fringe of azure, gold, and silver.
+
+On the desert side, the marshes likewise were changed to vast floors
+carpeted with gorgeous drapery and rich embroidery. Everything was
+ablaze with sparkles--sea, sand, and salt. At intervals, a red
+flamingo rose from among the reeds, flew heavily along, seeming to
+carry on his side a little of the ruddy hue of sky and sea,--then
+lighted on the brink of the gleaming water.
+
+The gulls were like white dream-birds in this enchanted country. They
+sat in lines, like brooding doves, on the crests of the waves in the
+offing, or on the hot sands, or on the surface of the ponds.
+
+And, down in the northwest, Renaud was looking for the high, square
+terrace of the Chateau d'Avignon, for Livette sometimes went up there
+to see if she could not spy Blanchet and her dear Renaud's straight
+spear somewhere in the plain.
+
+Suddenly Renaud checked his horse and gazed fixedly at a black object
+moving on the surface of the water, rising and falling with the motion
+of the waves, some two hundred feet from shore.
+
+He thought he could descry a woman's head; a head covered with
+dripping black hair and surrounded by a copper circlet, from which
+depended glistening Oriental medallions.
+
+The gipsy was swimming, disporting herself in the waves, which, coming
+from the deep sea, rose and fell slowly and at long intervals. She
+glided through them like a conger-eel, happy in the sensation caused
+by the gentle lapping of the salt water caressing her flesh. Her
+movements were undulating, like those of the waves themselves; she
+writhed and twisted like seaweed tossed about by the surf. Now and
+then a heavier, higher wave would come upon her. She would turn and
+face it, put her hands together in a point above her lowered head, as
+divers do, plunge into the broad wave horizontally, and cleave it
+through from front to rear.
+
+From his horse, Renaud watched the dark head emerge on the other side
+of the swelling wave, which, as it approached the shore, curled over
+with whitening crest, broke upon the beach in snowy foam and spread
+out over the sand, beneath and all about him, in shallow, transparent,
+overlapping streams, all studded with sparks. He could not see the
+swimmer's body distinctly. Its fleeting outlines could scarcely be
+made out beneath the clear, transparent water, ere they were blotted
+out again by the undulations and reflections.
+
+Suddenly the swimmer turned toward the shore, apparently gained a
+footing, and, raising one arm out of the water, motioned to Renaud to
+be gone, shouting:
+
+"Go your way!"
+
+But he, who had thus far watched her with curiosity and with no
+feeling of anger, was irritated by those words. Certainly he had
+forgotten none of Livette's grievances against the gipsy. Not a week
+had passed since her threatening visit to the Chateau d'Avignon. But,
+in that beautiful evening light, Renaud's heart felt at peace, and he
+had recognized the gipsy queen without emotion. It may be that
+curiosity was dominant in his heart, and urged him toward this
+mysterious being, surprised in her bath, in the utter solitude of the
+desert at evening; the curiosity of a traveller to examine a strange
+animal, of a Christian to investigate a heathen woman. "Go your way!"
+This command, hurled at him from afar by a woman's voice, wounded him
+in that part of his heart where the memory of the gipsy's threat
+against Livette was stored away.
+
+"Ah! it's you," he cried, "you, who go about and stand in doorways to
+frighten young girls when they happen to be left alone! who tell lies
+and play monkey-tricks to make them give you what they refuse to give!
+Don't let it happen again, thief! or you'll find out how the pitchfork
+and the goad feel!"
+
+The insulted queen was absolutely convulsed with furious rage. If she
+had been near the drover, she would have jumped straight at his
+throat, as the serpent straightens itself out like an arrow and darts
+at its prey. She felt that she grew pale, a shiver ran through her
+whole body, and swaying a little, like the adder about to spring, with
+her head thrown slightly back, she walked toward the horseman--but how
+far away he was!
+
+"Aha!" he cried, "you are coming near to hear better! Come on, you
+heathen, come! I will explain it all to you!"
+
+As he remembered how the woman had threatened Livette, his wrath rose
+within him. They were not Christians, these Bohemian creatures, but
+thieves, bandits, one and all. Why, it was said that they ate human
+flesh, child's flesh, when they could find nothing better. If that
+were not true, how would they have whole quarters of bleeding flesh in
+their kettles so often? Ah! a race of wolves, of accursed foxes!
+
+"Come on!" he cried again.
+
+She came on, but not without difficulty, having to force her way step
+by step through the resisting waves. Her shoulders were not yet
+visible, and she was accelerating her speed by using her arms under
+the water. She could have made the same distance more quickly by
+swimming, but she did not even think of that. She was thinking of
+something very different!
+
+Renaud mechanically cast his eye along the shore, behind him, and saw,
+a few steps away, the gipsy's clothes lying in a heap out of reach of
+the waves,--and her tambourine on top of them; then he looked around
+once more at the woman coming toward him. The water was now up to her
+armpits, and not until then did he see that she was entirely naked.
+
+Her bust slowly emerged from the water. At a hundred paces from the
+shore, the water reached only to her knees. She was beautiful. Her
+slender, well-knit body was very youthful. She stood very erect, and
+seemed as if she were going into battle without any thought of shame.
+She had been assailed: she was rushing at her assailant, that was the
+whole of it. Her fists were clenched, her arms slightly bent, her head
+still thrown back a little. Her whole attitude was threatening. The
+water was rolling down in glistening pearls from her neck to her feet,
+over every part of her swarthy, bronzed body. Her swelling chest
+seemed to be put forward, as if it were ready, like a magic buckler,
+to receive the blows that would be powerless to injure it.
+
+The drover sat still in speechless amazement. He gazed at the
+approaching woman, who, as he saw her, springing from the water,
+surrounded by white foam, with her unusual coloring, appeared to him
+like a supernatural being.
+
+What was she there for? She came forward, boldly aggressive; and her
+witch's mind was revolving many evil schemes, no doubt.
+
+Did she not bend over a moment, as if to pick up pebbles from beneath
+the water, with which to stone her enemy? Was she not holding them now
+in her clenched fists. No: the sands of Camargue stretch very far
+beneath the water, sloping very gradually, and not the tiniest pebble
+meets the swimmer's bare foot.
+
+What was she doing then?
+
+And now she was close beside the horseman, whose curiosity constantly
+increased. But he had ceased questioning himself. He simply stared at
+her, stupefied and enchanted.
+
+He followed her with his eyes, fascinated, forgetting his spear
+resting upon his stirrup, forgetting his horse, forgetting everything.
+
+And now she was within three paces of him, standing perfectly
+straight, insolent in her whole bearing, in every undulation of her
+figure, looking him in the face, with eyes from which a steely flame
+shot forth, and which no other eye could penetrate. And as she
+presented her profile to him for a second, he had a swift, hardly
+conscious thought that the lower part of the face--from below the
+nostrils to the base of the chin--resembled the head of the lizard of
+the sand, and the turtles and snakes of the swamp. There was the same
+vertical line, broken by thin, slightly-receding lips, whence he
+expected to see a forked, vibrating tongue come forth, as in a dream
+of the devil.
+
+But this impression was but momentary, and he saw naught but the
+woman, young, fair, unclothed, seemingly offering herself voluntarily
+to his savage lust, in the security of that deserted shore, amid the
+plashing of the waves, in the fresh breeze blowing from the sea, and
+the evening sunlight, which, with the salt water, coursed in streams
+over the whole lovely body.
+
+Dazzled, blinded, drunken with the waves of blood, which from his
+heart, whither it had rushed at first, suffocating him and making him
+waver in his saddle,--now poured back to his brain, suffusing his face
+and bull-like neck with red,--he was about to leap down from his
+horse, or perhaps to stoop over only, snatch up the creature--a mere
+feather in his hands--by strength of wrist, and centaur-like carry her
+away _en croupe_,--when she, more prompt to act, darted forward,
+stretching out her arms, and with her left hand seized and pulled
+back with all her strength the double rein of Renaud's horse, making
+him rear and fall back. And with her right hand she struck the
+creature's face!
+
+  [Illustration: Chapter VII
+
+    _He saw naught but the woman, young, fair, unclothed,
+    seemingly offering herself voluntarily to his savage lust,
+    *** when she, more prompt to act, darted forward, stretching
+    out her arms, and with her left hand seized and pulled back
+    with all her strength the double rein of Renaud's horse,
+    making him rear and fall back._]
+
+"Go, dog! go and tell your people that a woman has revenged herself
+upon you and has struck the horseman on his horse's face! Coward! Vile
+neat-herd! Go and tell it to your sweetheart! Go, tell her that when I
+struck you, you knew not what to do or say!"
+
+There was no wrath left in Renaud; he had no feeling but fear mingled
+with amazement. The woman's performance seemed to him in very truth
+surprising, diabolical. In coloring, bearing, expression, and
+audacity, she was the sorceress to the life. A strange terror took
+possession of him. Perhaps he would have gone astray gaily, without
+remorse, with any other than this ill-omened gipsy, who terrified him.
+He was especially alarmed for Livette. He felt that she, and he
+himself with her, were threatened by some mysterious, obscure
+disaster; and the thought of being unfaithful to her filled him with
+dismay, as the beginning of the end. He was afraid of himself; afraid,
+for Livette, of this unforeseen, inexplicable creature, who rose up
+before him, challenging him to contend with her, for what?--Thus,
+malignity and hatred brought the woman to him as love would not have
+done!--He was bewildered. He simply waited till his rein should be let
+go, ready to start off at a gallop, feeling no longer in his heart the
+wrath a man must feel in order to ride down any woman, though she
+were a witch, and trample her beneath his horse's feet, at the risk of
+killing her.
+
+But why was he no longer angry? Because his eyes, against his will,
+followed every movement of that body with its weird beauty,--the body
+of an enemy.
+
+"You would like to fly like a coward, would you?" she suddenly cried.
+"You shall not go until I choose!"
+
+Profiting by the horseman's open-mouthed stupor, she had seized with
+her teeth a hanging end of the lasso that was coiled about the horse's
+neck, and with the assistance of one hand--the other still holding the
+rein--had swiftly passed it about the nostrils and tied it in a cruel
+knot. With a fierce pull upon this instrument of torture, she held the
+beast fast just where she wished him to be.
+
+"You must wait until your comrades pass!" she said. "They must see a
+bull-tamer tamed by a woman!"
+
+"Upon my word," thought Renaud, "that would be, as she says, a very
+absurd thing!" And he drew his horse back a little, thinking he might
+release him, but the horse stretched out his head and neck, balked,
+dropped his tail, and stiffened his four legs, as if he were tied to a
+wall. The gipsy did not stir. She laughed, showing an unbroken set of
+small, white, pretty, formidable teeth.
+
+"Take care!" said Renaud at last, "I am going to ride my horse upon
+you!"
+
+"I defy you to do it!" she replied tranquilly.
+
+She saw with her unerring glance signs of confusion in the drover's
+eyes: the charm was working! Through a mist he now gazed upon this
+woman, whose captive he was, by virtue of a burning curiosity already
+closely akin to love. She smiled.
+
+This lasted some time. At last, Renaud felt that his wits were leaving
+him. To remain faithful to Livette, whom he could not betray with the
+very woman upon whom he had promised to avenge her, he must not
+dismount from his horse, for as soon as he put his foot to the ground
+he would have become the stronger of the two! To remain faithful he
+must have courage to remain vanquished in this struggle of beauty
+against strength. And he waited.
+
+She surprised the drover glancing for an instant toward the moor.
+
+"Aha! you are afraid some one will see you, coward! but never fear!
+Every one shall know what has happened to you, all the same. I will
+take care of that! Some day you shall come and tell me what your
+pale-faced, white-blooded blonde had to say to it!"
+
+Humiliated at being forced thus to obey a woman, but rendered wavering
+and weak by the physical delight she caused him to feel, he remained
+where he was! His horse, as he irritated without maddening him, tried
+several times to free himself, but without success. Renaud looked on.
+Slight, supple as a tiger's whelp, active and strong, and accustomed
+to contend with horses, the gipsy, still holding the cruel cord in
+her left hand, had seized the long mane and wound it about her right
+hand, and when the horse reared, she being thus made fast to him,
+allowed herself to be raised from the ground, standing erect upon the
+tips of her rigid toes--or else she would twine her feet about the
+rider's leg, clinging to him as the polypus clings, with its tendons
+to the rock, and laughing always, with a wicked, obstinate, triumphant
+air.
+
+"You shall never be rid of me again!"
+
+At last, becoming more and more alarmed, he came to have a horror of
+her, as of a poisonous insect, seen in a dream, a spider or a
+dragon-fly, that follows you obstinately, or of an adder that
+conceives a strange, almost human hatred for you, persists in
+following your footsteps, with unwearying patience, and becomes an
+object of terror, despite his puny size, because of his supernatural
+tenacity.
+
+And in very truth the fierce resolution, the malevolent perseverance,
+the demoniacal obstinacy of the woman, protected as she was by her
+beauty and her weakness, were terrifying.
+
+But the play of the muscles, causing that gleaming flesh, now moist
+with perspiration, to throb and undulate, aroused the man's interest,
+in spite of everything, and pleased him more and more. Desire awoke in
+him. And instantly he refused to accept his defeat, and rebelled.
+
+"Look out!" he cried, and he urged his horse forward, driving his
+spurs into his sides; but the beast, held fast by the nostrils, gave
+but three leaps and then stopped short, breathing fire. Poor Blanchet,
+who was used to his young mistress's caresses and sweetmeats! he was
+learning now to know woman's true nature.
+
+At last, the gipsy released her double prey.
+
+"Go! you have looked at me enough!" she suddenly exclaimed.
+
+Renaud gazed at her an instant longer, without speaking or moving. The
+strength and chaotic character of his temptations held him fast there
+for another moment. So this extraordinary experience (which would
+never be repeated!) was ended at last!--Mad thoughts, each clear
+enough in itself, but confused by their great number, jostled one
+another in his brain. Why had he not sooner put an end to this
+conflict? What would people say of him when it was known? How could it
+be that he, the king of the moor, had not stooped to pick up this
+joy?--But Livette?--ah, yes! Livette!
+
+He buried his spurs in Blanchet's flanks, and the beast flew away
+toward Saintes-Maries.
+
+The gipsy stood on the shore a long while, looking after the fugitive.
+She smiled. She reviewed in her mind the varying fortunes of the
+battle, and gauged the extent of her victory. She recalled, one by
+one, to enjoy them to the full, the thoughts that had passed through
+her mind when she was wading toward the shore.
+
+She had not premeditated her assault, as she made it--her first idea
+had been to pick up some stones and throw them at Renaud's head, being
+an adept in the art. But she could find none. So she had continued her
+forward movement, not knowing what she would do, but certain that she
+must do something to punish the insolent Christian.
+
+But when she felt the cool air blowing upon her bare breast, she had
+said to herself in her mysterious language, full of cabalistic words
+and images, that if a saint had been able to recompense a boatman--her
+good friend--simply by revealing to him her beauty all unclothed, a
+heathen might, by similar means, chastise a brutal drover; for love is
+the magician's herb, the bitter-sweet, the plant with two savors, balm
+and poison at once; and woman is bitter as the salt sea water,
+frightful as death,--her hands are chains stronger than iron, and her
+whole being is as much to be dreaded as an army!
+
+Could not she, brown as she was, almost black beside the white-skinned
+blondes, domineer over the pale-faced Livette's lover, if she chose?
+Indeed, what more need she do, to make him unfaithful to his fair
+fiancee, than show herself to him, and could she not do it without
+seeming to intend it? As she had, beyond question, been insulted by
+this Christian, she could pretend to forget her nudity in her wrath,
+and thus attack him with that same nudity!--No, no, there was no need
+of philters, magic incantations, or fires lighted at night when the
+moon is young, under tripods on which marsh-water, filled with snakes,
+is boiling--no need of such things to bewitch this fellow! She would
+come forth from the water, naked and lovely as she was, and the devil,
+at her command, would do the rest! What were the stones she might
+throw at a young man, compared with the power that exhaled from
+herself? Yes, therein lay the charm of charms. She knew it,--being a
+witch like every other woman! Lust for her body was what she would
+throw at him like an evil destiny; with that she would poison his
+life--and then, she would calmly watch the ravages of the poison.
+
+And so she had come forward, small but formidable--the queen! She knew
+also that in former times, in the days of pagan Europe, an immortal
+goddess had issued from the sea, had sprung forth, fair and naked,
+like a marvellous flower, and, standing on the blue waves, her feet
+resting in a shell of mother-of-pearl, had long held sway over
+men--before the reign of Jesus Christ.
+
+Renaud, turning in his saddle, saw the gipsy standing there, still
+naked, waving her arms in the sunlight, as if she wished still, from
+afar, to hold Livette's betrothed spellbound and fascinated by her
+beauty.
+
+The sun disappeared below the horizon, and the naked woman's figure,
+even more mysterious in the gathering twilight, was outlined in black
+against a coppery red sky.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+ON THE BENCH
+
+
+From Saintes-Maries, whither he went to ask how many bulls he was
+expected to bring on the day of the fete, Renaud rode away at once to
+the Chateau d'Avignon.
+
+He was in haste to see Livette once more, and sitting by her side to
+forget the scene of the afternoon, to which, despite his efforts, his
+mind constantly reverted.
+
+A ride of four or five leagues and he reached his destination.
+
+Livette and her father and grandmother were sitting just outside the
+farm-house, enjoying the fresh air on the stone bench against the
+facade of the chateau, among the old climbing rose-bushes which frame
+the windows above with their bunches of green leaves interspersed with
+flowers.
+
+This was also one of the favorite resorts of our lovers, who liked to
+have above their heads the perfumed foliage, to which one of the
+nightingales from the park often came to sing.
+
+"Ah! good-evening, Jacques."
+
+"Good-evening, all."
+
+"What brings you so late? You have dined, of course?"
+
+"I ate some anchovies at the Saintes----"
+
+"They're good for nothing but to give you an appetite. Would you like
+something else? you have only to speak."
+
+"Thanks, Master Audiffret. I'll just go and look after Blanchet in the
+stable and then come back. I won't go to the _jass_ to-night. I'll
+sleep in the hay-loft with the horses."
+
+Master Audiffret, with his pipe between his lips, rose and followed
+Renaud as far as the door of the stable, and from there watched him
+rub down his horse.
+
+"Whenever you please, Master Audiffret, you can take him back for
+Livette. I don't find any faults in him; far from it. He is a good
+horse, and very gentle."
+
+"He is quiet with you because you tire him out, you see; but she
+didn't use him every day, not by any means; I am always afraid for
+her. If she takes a fancy to ride him sometimes, you can lend him to
+her, and take the first horse that comes along for yourself. By the
+way, I hope you will soon have your Cabri again. Somebody saw Rampal
+yesterday in Crau. He was riding your horse, so he hasn't sold him, at
+all events. It's fair to suppose he means to bring him back to you."
+
+"Oh! I will go to meet him," said Jacques, "for as to thinking he
+will bring him back to me--oh! no; he would have done that before
+now!--Can you tell me, Audiffret, where Rampal was seen yesterday?"
+
+"Between Tibert's farm and Icard's in Crau. Right there, as you know,
+in the middle of a bog, is a hut you can only get to by a plank walk
+built on piles and covered by the water--you can only tell where it
+is, when you know the place, by stakes sticking up at intervals the
+whole length of the walk. I have an idea he means to go in hiding
+there, the beggar, like the deserter who went there to pass his time
+of service----"
+
+"Aha! he has gone to the Conscript's Hut, has he? Very good; I will go
+to see him there, never fear!" said Renaud.
+
+Blanchet, having been well rubbed down, was grinding the good lucern
+between his teeth. Renaud went out of the stable, and with Audiffret
+sat down beside Livette and the grandmother.
+
+All four kept silence for a long moment. Nothing could be heard but
+the unceasing, melancholy croaking of the frogs, and beneath it, but
+indistinguishable, the dull murmuring of the two Rhones and the sea.
+
+The sky was swarming with innumerable tiny stars, which seemed to
+answer the various noises of the palpitating moor; and, just as the
+waters of the Rhone, after it rushes into the blue ocean, pursue their
+own course for a long while therein, unmingled, without losing their
+earthy color; so the Milky-Way, made of a dust of stars, pursued its
+course, easily distinguishable, through the ocean of starry worlds.
+
+Renaud had a feeling of constraint.
+
+When he joined his fiancee, he did not feel all that he ordinarily
+felt--a joyful impulse to run to meet her, a sort of oppression at the
+pit of the stomach, a sudden delicious rush of the blood to the
+throbbing heart!--And Livette, too, so soon, was conscious of a vague
+inexplicable feeling at the bottom of her heart that something was
+wrong. There was something between them! Indeed, he had, for the first
+time, something to conceal from her; and, thinking that it might, that
+it must be apparent, he suddenly said:
+
+"I am not well to-night."
+
+"Look out for the fever!" said Audiffret. "I know it is not as
+frequent or as dangerous as it used to be, but you must be on your
+guard, all the same! Be on your guard, and take the remedy. Up in the
+pharmacy of the chateau are the registers of the time the land was
+first exploited--the time when the Chateau d'Avignon people were
+gaining a little arable land from the swamps every day. Why, men went
+to the hospital, fifteen, twenty a day. And such doses of quinine, my
+children! It is all written down in the _Livre de Raison_ up there. In
+those days, all the farms hereabout had the same kind of a book,
+called by the same name, just as sailors have a log-book. Those were
+the days of good order and gallantry. The peasant-women in those days
+didn't try to copy Parisian bourgeoises,--eh, grandmamma?--by wearing
+dresses that didn't suit them, instead of the old-fashioned gowns that
+made them attractive because they were so becoming."
+
+"Yes," sighed the grandmother, "this is the age of pride, and my time
+has gone by."
+
+That is the common remark of all our old peasants.
+
+"People didn't read so many newspapers in those days," continued
+Audiffret, "they didn't worry so much about the affairs of the whole
+world, and every man paid much more attention to his own affairs.
+Things went better for it. Landowners lived on their estates and
+raised families, instead of going to Paris and dying there, of pride
+or debt or something else. The _Livre de Raison_ up yonder describes
+our ancestors' battles with the swamps and the fever. The pharmacy is
+still in good order, with the scales and the jars in the pigeon-holes,
+under the dust. And the book tells everything, diseases and deaths.
+To-day, hardly any one dies of the fever in our neighborhood. It is
+dying out. The dikes and canals have done good service, and this
+Cochin China of France, as that sailor called it that I took to see
+the Giraud rice-fields, this Camargue of ours is as healthy to-day as
+Crau!--However, be on your guard, I tell you, and take the remedy!
+don't wait till to-morrow; Livette will give you what you need. Now, I
+am going to bed. Stay up a little longer, young people, if you
+choose. Are you coming, grandma?"
+
+"No, I'll stay out a moment longer with the young folks," said the old
+woman.
+
+Audiffret knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the corner of the
+bench, and having put it in his pocket, went up to bed.
+
+Silence reigned upon the bench.
+
+The grandmother was tired and sleepy: every little while she would
+raise her head as if suddenly awakened,--then it would begin to fall
+forward again, slowly, slowly----
+
+"A heavy dew is falling," observed Livette, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, demoiselle."
+
+"See!" said she ingenuously, holding out her arm so that he could feel
+the dampness on the sleeve of her dress. But he did not put out his
+hand. He was not all Livette's that evening, as usual. Strangely
+enough, she did not frighten him that evening. He was not, as usual,
+overcome with diffidence in her presence. She no longer dominated him.
+And he was angry with himself. He suffered. He realized that his
+thoughts were more frequently busied with the memory of the day than
+with his sweetheart, who was sitting so near him.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" said Livette, who had had her eyes upon
+him for a moment past, as if she could see his face distinctly,
+although they were sitting in the shadow. Beyond question, she felt
+that his thoughts were elsewhere. There is nothing more subtle than a
+lover's divination.
+
+"I am thinking," said Renaud, a long minute after the question, "about
+my horse, which I propose to take back from Rampal to-morrow if he can
+be found in Camargue or Crau."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then?" he repeated--"I was thinking of the Conscript's Hut, where
+he is at this moment, perhaps,--in hiding."
+
+"And of what else?" Livette insisted.
+
+"Oh! how do I know! of the fever--of all we have just been saying----"
+
+"Alas!" said the maiden, "and not at all of me, Renaud? do you not
+think of me any more?"
+
+Her voice was sad.
+
+He shuddered, and the movement did not escape the little one's notice.
+It seemed to him, as Livette uttered that reproach, that he saw the
+gipsy again as he had seen her in the afternoon, standing before him,
+near at hand, all naked and so brown! as if she were accustomed to
+pass her days naked in the sun, and were tanned from head to foot by
+his rays. And how lithe and sinewy the wild creature was! A genuine
+animal, a little Arabian mare, of much finer breed than the Camargue
+stock. Alas! for too long a time, through fidelity to his fiancee, he
+had been as virtuous as a girl, and now the hot-blooded fellow's
+continence was taking its revenge upon him, a cruel revenge, arousing
+mad, amorous longings that were not for Livette. And so his very
+respect for her--poor child!--turned against her!
+
+"Jacques?" said Livette, in the hardly audible tone the sentiment of
+love imparts to the lover's voice, a soft, veiled tone, heard by the
+heart rather than by the ear.
+
+Renaud did not hear her. He _saw_.--He saw the gipsy as plainly as if
+she were there before him, even more plainly. In the darkness of the
+night, her body, brown as before, seemed luminous, like an opaque
+substance giving forth a pale light. Her naked figure, obscure and
+bright at the same time, was standing motionless before his eyes--then
+it moved--and he fancied that he saw the gipsy bathing in the
+phosphorescent water peculiar to the summer months,--when swimmers
+cause a cold, liquid light to dart hither and thither through the dark
+water, following and marking the outlines of their forms, from which
+it seems to radiate.
+
+"Have I the fever?" he said to himself.
+
+As if in answer to the unspoken question, Livette took his hand. She
+felt it from wrist to finger-ends, to see if it were dry and hot.
+
+"Yes," said she, "you must look out; father was right, you have a
+touch of fever. Come up and find the medicine."
+
+"Come on," said he, glad of the diversion.
+
+"Come," she repeated, "but move softly: grandma has fallen asleep!"
+
+The old lady was asleep, as she said. She was leaning against the
+wall, perfectly motionless. The white handkerchief, tied in the
+Arlesian fashion, instead of covering her _chignon_ only, enveloped
+almost her whole head, allowing two tufts of coarse, white hair, all
+in disorder, to protrude, like mist, on each side of her face.
+
+She was asleep, her mouth partly open, a ray of light shining through
+upon her teeth, which were still beautiful.
+
+They left her there.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE PRAYER
+
+
+Livette opened the farm-house door, which creaked loudly in the
+resonant emptiness of the spacious stone staircase.
+
+She lighted the lamp, which was hanging on a nail, and they went
+up-stairs together, she absorbed by thoughts of him, and he of her,
+but no longer in their accustomed condition of affectionate
+embarrassment.
+
+He held the iron lamp, hanging at the end of its hooked stick; and to
+relieve his conscience, to do his duty as a lover, and perhaps in that
+way to change the current of his thoughts, perhaps to set at rest the
+amorous anxiety with which he was assailed,--to force himself to
+return, heart and soul, to Livette, and, who knows?--so hard to fathom
+is man with his background of devil!--perhaps, with her and unknown to
+her, to satisfy to some extent the passion kindled by the other--for
+all these reasons together, more inextricably mingled than the twigs
+of the climbing rose-bushes, he said to himself: "I will kiss her!" He
+had never done that thing,--except in the presence of the old
+people,--but the Renaud of that evening was not the Renaud of other
+days, in his feeling for Livette. The powerful leaven of his wild
+nature was swelling his veins to bursting. In very truth, he had the
+fever,--at all events, a species of fever. All his nerves were
+overstrained; in his eyes, even the most indifferent objects wore an
+unusual look. And in Livette he saw, in spite of himself, reproaching
+himself bitterly therefor, things which ordinarily he refused to see.
+And as, being always dressed in the Arlesian fashion, she wore the
+_fichu_ of white muslin crossed upon her breast so low as to afford a
+glimpse, beneath the gold chain and cross, of the white throat, above
+the meeting of the stiff folds, laid neatly one upon another, his
+passionate gaze fell upon that spot, amid the modest arrangement of
+muslin, prettily called "the chapel."
+
+In his left hand was the lamp, which he held shoulder-high, and as far
+away as possible, to avoid the drops of oil,--and he wound his right
+arm about Livette's waist as she placed her hand upon the iron rail.
+
+At every step they climbed, he felt the play of the muscles of his
+fiancee's youthful frame, imparting to the arm about her waist a
+soothing languor that ran through his whole being,--and yet his heart
+did not rejoice thereat; and he realized that, ordinarily, if the end
+of the velvet ribbon in Livette's head-dress touched his face, it
+caused a sweeter thrill of pleasure in his blood, and more than all
+else, a pleasure which there was no mistaking. And, thereupon, he
+grew vexed with himself as for a failure of duty, he was oppressed by
+a presentiment of disaster, vague but inevitable. And she felt more
+and more keenly the rebound of his emotions. She was conscious that
+her peace of mind was endangered. Something certainly was against her.
+The arm, which had sometimes been about her waist as now, no longer
+seemed to be her lover's arm, but a mere ordinary man's. She suffered,
+and did not understand. The look she saw in his eyes was a strange
+look from him, without affection, without pity even. She knew him
+well, honest Renaud, her promised husband, and yet she was afraid of
+him as of a stranger!
+
+All these thoughts passed very quickly through their minds, the more
+quickly because they were simply conscious of them, and did not stop
+to try to analyze them. The all-powerful human electricity, less known
+than the other variety, was playing its game, impossible to follow, in
+their hearts, with its vast net-work of currents and connections. In
+these two creatures of instinct, the ever-recurring prodigy of love,
+of natural affinity--of the sympathies and their opposite--was seen
+once more, as mysterious, as marvellous, as profound as ever. So far
+as nature is concerned, there are two beings: man and woman; there are
+no subdivisions. At the basis of humanity, all life is the same, all
+passion is the same. The student of the higher races labors
+incessantly to perfect his reasoning and his powers of expression,
+but there is more overflowing, complicated life in the heart of his
+ignorant brother than in the heads of the philosophers, who, by dint
+of self-analysis, have lost the faculty of emotion. They who deem
+themselves most skilful in discovering the real man in themselves, do
+not perceive that they pervert the secret impulses of their hearts by
+keeping too close a watch upon them. The light of their miner's lamp
+changes the psychological conditions, just as constant light would
+modify the physiological condition of human beings and plants. And,
+meanwhile, love and death repeat, in the eternal darkness of their
+simple hearts, their unwitnessed miracles.
+
+They had reached the landing on the first floor--as large as an
+ordinary room. At the last step, Renaud, almost lifting Livette to the
+landing, tried to draw her to him, but she was seized with an impulse
+to resist, and he with a sudden impulse to resist himself; separately,
+the two impulses would have had no effect; but combined, they exerted
+sufficient force to place an obstacle between them, as if by mutual
+consent. That force was the witchery at work.
+
+As they did not exchange a word, their embarrassment increased.
+
+Hastily, to escape the constraint each imposed upon the other, she ran
+to the door at the right and entered. And he, well pleased to be able
+to do or say something to bring them nearer together, called out:
+
+"Wait for the light, Livette! I am coming."
+
+But Livette had suddenly remembered the gipsy's threat. "It is fate,"
+she said to herself, "I see it now!" And she felt herself grow pale.
+
+Then she had an inspiration.
+
+"Follow me, Renaud."
+
+They passed through rooms where furniture of the time of the Empire
+was sleeping beneath its covers, and the long hangings falling from
+the ceiling in broad, stiff folds, and withered, as it were, by time;
+rooms seldom visited by the master, but kept in order by Livette and
+her grandmother.
+
+At last, Renaud and Livette reached an apartment with bare,
+whitewashed walls, once used as a chapel.
+
+A wooden altar, entirely devoid of fittings and ornament, stood at one
+end of the room. Before the white and gold door of the tabernacle the
+sacred stone was missing, leaving a square hole in the wood-work of
+the altar.
+
+But Livette opened a broad door flush with the wall. It opened into a
+closet in the wall. When the door was thrown wide open, they could
+see, below a shelf about level with their heads, chasubles and stoles
+hanging straight and stiff--with great crosses in heavy gold
+embroidery--suns from which the dove came forth; and mystic triangles,
+and _Agnus Deis_. Among all the others were vestments for use in
+mourning ceremonies,--black, with bones and executioners' ladders,
+hammers and nails, in heavy white embroidery; and--to Livette's
+amazement--there, in the centre of a stole, on silk as black as night,
+was worked a crown of thorns in silver, which, in the lamplight,
+seemed to emit bright rays.
+
+On the shelf, above all these priestly vestments--which were arranged
+with the backs outward, hung in such fashion that you seemed to be
+looking at the priests standing at the altar--on the shelf, between
+the goblet and the pyx, shone the consecrated host, a radiant sun,
+mounted upon a pedestal like a candelabrum; and in the centre of its
+rays was a gleaming circle of plain glass, which also reflected, in
+fantastic guise, the flame of the lamp.
+
+"Kneel, Renaud!" said Livette. "Prayer is the cure for what is
+happening to us. Kneel and let us pray!"
+
+The drover obeyed. He understood that Livette's purpose was to
+exorcise fate.
+
+She prayed in silence fervently. He, marvelling, unwonted to the
+attitude of prayer, and striving to keep himself in countenance,
+looked from time to time at the lamp he held in his hand, raised it to
+get a better view of the ecclesiastical treasures, and, diverted for
+the moment, by constant effort, from the perplexity that weighed upon
+his heart, he was the more wretched when his mind suddenly reverted to
+Livette.
+
+Thereupon he said to himself that she certainly had guessed the truth;
+that there was, in fact, a spell upon him, and, in his heart, he
+implored the merciful God of the Cross, the mystic triangle, the
+symbolical bird and lamb, to come to his aid.
+
+  [Illustration: Chapter IX
+
+    _In his left hand was the lamp, which he held shoulder-high,
+    and as far away as possible, to avoid the drops of oil,--and
+    he wound his right arm about Livette's waist as she placed
+    her hand upon the iron rail._]
+
+"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
+us!" Livette suddenly exclaimed, aloud, thinking of the gipsy.--"O
+God," she added, "we promise Thee that on Saintes-Maries Day, which is
+near at hand, we will each carry three tapers to their church, and
+wait, until they are so far consumed, one after the other, in their
+honor, that our finger-tips are burned!"
+
+Then she rose--but before they left the room, they closed the
+unpretentious double door upon the objects of a dead cult, left in the
+darkness of abandonment--the goblet without wine, the pyx without
+bread, and the consecrated host, whose polished metal case held naught
+within.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE TERRACE
+
+
+He was well aware that he needed no fever medicine, and that his fever
+did not come from the swamps.
+
+She said no more about the drug, but as they stood on the landing and
+he was preparing to descend, she said:
+
+"Suppose we go out on the terrace?"
+
+Livette wished to prolong the tete-a-tete, to ascertain if, after her
+prayer, she would find _her_ Renaud in him once more.
+
+He placed his lamp on the floor at the top of the staircase, and,
+pushing open the door just above the last step, they both stood on the
+terrace that overlooks the whole chateau.
+
+A square terrace, and in the centre the great bell lay upon its side
+in its iron cage--the great bell, three feet in diameter, that in the
+old days called to work as well as to prayer, and when it rang the
+Angelus caused the fever-haunted farm-laborers to fall upon their
+knees on the brink of the miasmatic bogs.
+
+Both of them, one after the other, mechanically struck the bell with
+their foot, as it lay there on its side. It gave forth a short,
+plaintive note, quickly stifled by contact with the flag-stones. It
+was like the sigh of a mystery-haunted soul.
+
+With hearts as sad as the bell, they leaned on the stone parapet in
+presence of the night.
+
+Livette and Renaud loved each other, but affection was no longer
+enough for him. The sap of the spring-time, boiling in his veins in
+lustful desire, gave birth, in Livette's heart, to sweet flowers of
+reverie.
+
+The swarming of the stars above their heads was beyond comprehension.
+They were as many as the gadflies and frogs in the desert, or the
+waves of the sea. They seemed to open and half close, like flowers in
+a meadow, waved to and fro by a light, quickly-passing breath, like
+eyelids making signs.
+
+They seemed to have something to say, to move like lips speaking a
+living language, telling of something of great moment that must be
+known at once--but no sound coming from them reaches the ears of men,
+for human hearing is not keen enough. Nor is the human sight keen
+enough to see that the dust of the Milky-Way (pale as the pollen of
+flowers) is also made of stars. Though men have seen it with a
+different sight, afforded by man's inventive genius, that sight is
+powerless to pierce farther and deeper--to learn all there is to know.
+
+Moreover,--and Renaud himself had heard the story from the shepherds
+who pass the winter in Camargue and Crau, and spend their nights in
+summer counting the stars upon the summits of the Alps,--there are, in
+space, beyond the skies visible to our eyes, fires alight so far away
+from us, so far away that their light, now on its way toward our
+earth, will not reach us for centuries to come. The men who follow us
+centuries hence will see twinkling stars that even in our day were
+lighted and making signs we could not see. And in those days ideas,
+which are already kindled in men's minds, and are seen to-day by none
+save those in whom their light is shed, will shine for all, and one of
+them will be, for every mortal, the love and pity of the world.
+
+Certain it is, that neither Renaud nor Livette could fathom those
+infinite depths; but from the vast expanse of heaven, swarming with
+tiny lights, a nameless emotion stole into their hearts, made up of
+all their hopes to come.
+
+Future worlds, lovelier than this of ours, were dreaming in them, with
+them.
+
+In them, too, because they were young and human, there was a share in
+the future. In them, too, was the responsibility for future lives. In
+them, too, lurked the mystery of generations to be born, for whom a
+single couple, surviving the wreck of the demolished world, would be
+enough to bestow upon them the desire to live and the power.
+
+A spark is the basis of all fire. A man and a woman are the basis of
+all love. Infinity is no greater than the number two. And that is why
+the great scholars, who figure like Barreme, know no more of life and
+the heart than Livette and Renaud--who knew nothing at all.
+
+They knew naught save that they were alive and that they wished to
+love each other and that they sought and shunned each other at the
+same moment--but they did not ask each other why. They said nothing.
+They felt. They could not say to each other that rivalry and jealousy,
+that is to say grief, serve the designs of nature, whose purpose
+doubtless is, by arousing those emotions, to quicken desire, so that
+creation may be assured by outbursts of passion, and the future of
+mankind by the imperious need of pleasure.
+
+What does the law care for the weak and the vanquished? the strong
+alone, they say, it wishes to perpetuate.
+
+Pity and justice are human inventions, and will never triumph until
+they have been slowly assimilated by the human mind to the matter of
+which it is made.
+
+They suffered, they longed for happiness--beneath that mystery-laden
+spring sky. They awaited the coming of their joy, they summoned their
+every hope, and they gazed at the dark horizon, at the desert, where
+the tracts of sand shone like mirrors among the dark reeds, and the
+ponds glistening with salt between the black lines of tamarisks. They
+gazed upon the boundless expanse in which they seemed lost, and where,
+nevertheless, they felt that they alone were an epitome of everything;
+they listened, without hearing them, to the unending noises of the
+island,--the murmuring of the water, the rustling of the reeds, the
+waving foliage, the growling of wandering beasts, the distant roaring
+of two rolling rivers and a restless sea;--and this combined voice of
+the whole island formed a fitting accompaniment, by reason of the
+extent and number of the sounds that composed it, to the silent
+twinkling of the stars, that no one hears.
+
+There was in the park, invisible to them at that hour, a foreign tree,
+on which the flowers could be seen, by daylight, opening with a slight
+noise. They sometimes amused themselves by watching that tree, said to
+have come from Syria. A slight report, as if muffled, and a tiny
+cloud, of very powerful odor, would issue from the bursting cell. The
+tree continued, during the night, to send out its dust of passions in
+quest of prey, and its strange perfume was wafted upward to the
+lovers.
+
+They trembled with joy at the slightest contact with each other. Ah!
+if she could but have given him, on that beautiful May evening, all
+the love his lusty youth demanded; if he could but have felt her
+clinging lips melt beneath his burning ones, upon that lofty terrace
+overlooking the rounded tops of the huge trees in the park, beneath
+that dark star-spangled sky, doubtless his little betrothed would
+have remained sole mistress of his heart!
+
+But there were too many obstacles between Livette and Renaud; and as
+he struggled virtuously to keep away from her, his thoughts flew off
+to the other.
+
+And Livette was already conscious of the heartache of the deserted
+lover. All the broad expanse of level country that her eyes knew so
+well, and that she felt about her in the darkness, suddenly seemed
+empty to her, a desert in very truth, and thereby to resemble her own
+heart. And softly, silently, she began to weep,--whereupon one of the
+great farm dogs, her favorite, who had been seeking her in every
+direction, came up to her and licked her hand as it hung at her side.
+
+And down yonder, far down above the dark line of the sea, Renaud,
+meanwhile, fancied that he saw a naked woman's form emerge from the
+water, and await his coming, suspended in mid-air, or standing on the
+surface of the waves.
+
+"Livette! Livette!"
+
+It was the grandmother's voice calling.
+
+They went down without exchanging a word.
+
+"Good-night, Monsieur Jacques," said the maiden.
+
+"Good-night, mademoiselle," Renaud replied.
+
+So they called each other monsieur and mademoiselle that night, and, a
+moment after they had parted, Renaud took his horse from the stable in
+perfect silence, and rode away.
+
+His heart did not tell him that Livette, at her window, watched him
+depart, her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Where is he going?"
+
+She followed for a moment with her glance the luminous point (the
+reflection of a star upon the head of the drover's spear) dancing
+about in the darkness among the trees like a will-o'-the-wisp,--and
+when that spark went out, she no longer saw the stars.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE HIDING-PLACE
+
+
+Whither he was going he had no idea. He rode at random under the spur
+of the energy that was rampant within him, demanding to be expended.
+
+Love guided him as he himself guided his horse. He was the rider of
+his own steed, and at the same time the accursed steed of the passion
+that impelled him, spurred him on, shouted to him: "Forward!" guided
+this way and that, without purpose, his mad race across the moor. He,
+too, was mounted, harassed, bridled, whipped, bit in mouth, raging and
+powerless. And the horse shared the mad humor of his master, who was
+under the spell of love, so that Blanchet, wearied though he was by
+his day's labor, having had but a very brief rest, was wild with
+excitement none the less. Fortunately, he knew all the ditches and
+canals and bogs, and, in his rapid flight with the reins lying on his
+neck, he chose his own road. Sometimes he would slacken his pace on
+approaching a ditch, in order to walk down into it, head first,
+compelling his rider to stand in his great stirrups, with his back
+touching the croup: sometimes he leaped them at full speed.
+
+Drunken, bareheaded,--his hat having blown away somewhere in the
+darkness,--the wind whistling through his hair, Renaud rode, for the
+sake of riding, because the violence of his pace corresponded to the
+violence of the passions that were raging within him. He tore along as
+a beast does in the rutting season, from its mad desire to be alone.
+
+And he said to himself that it was abominable to think of the other,
+when he had for his own that flower of beauty, chastity and sweetness;
+but he was thirsting for something very different; and he was
+conscious of an intensely bitter taste in his mouth, a clinging, dry
+saliva, a moisture that made his thirst the more unbearable.
+
+Powerless to devise a means of escape from all the evil impulses in
+his heart, he rode on confessing to two longings: either to meet
+Rampal and take vengeance upon him for everything, or else to fall
+over backward into a ditch and rise no more, thus giving a different
+turn to his evil destiny;--and a third longing which he did not admit
+even to himself: to meet the gipsy at daybreak, begging at the door of
+some farm.--And then?--He did not know!
+
+Suddenly he thought that he heard a beating of hoofs behind him, the
+echo of his own gallop; he turned and saw--he saw in very
+truth!--pursuing him at full speed, the naked gipsy, sitting firmly
+astride her saddle, man-fashion, upon a shadowy horse whose feet did
+not touch the ground.
+
+She flew through the air, laughing in mockery as she cried to him:
+
+"Stop, coward!"
+
+He said to himself that it was not real, but he did not say to himself
+that it was a vision; he thought: "It is witchcraft!" and fear seized
+upon him, fear as powerful as his desire, and he fled from the image
+of her he sought.
+
+He turned to look no more; he fled. He heard the double gallop still:
+his own and the other's. He rode through the transparent mist that
+hovered over the damp, salt sand; and as he cut through those crawling
+clouds it seemed to him as if he were riding through the sky, above
+the higher clouds. In very truth, his brain was wandering, for love
+will be obeyed, and his youthful passion was like insanity.
+
+Suddenly Blanchet's four legs, as he flew over the ground, became
+motionless and rigid as stakes, and his shoeless feet began to slide
+over an absolutely smooth surface of clay, hard as iron and as
+slippery as if it had been soaped. Swiftly the horse slid along,
+digging furrows with his hoofs upon the polished surface, and when he
+lost his acquired momentum, he stopped, tried to resume his former
+pace, raised one foot and fell heavily to the ground, exhausted, his
+mouth and nostrils breathing despair.
+
+In an instant, Renaud, leaning on his spear, which he had not let go,
+stood at his horse's head, struggling to lift him up, and encouraging
+him with his voice. Blanchet, supported by the rein in his master's
+hand, regained his feet after two fruitless slides.
+
+Renaud looked about: there was nothing to be seen save darkness, the
+desert, the stars,--tatters of pallid mist that strayed hither and
+thither, as if clinging to a bush, a tamarisk, a clump of rushes,--and
+assumed, from time to time, the shape of fantastic animals.
+
+Renaud mounted Blanchet once more, but he was moved to pity for him.
+And the horse, sometimes letting himself slide upon his shoeless feet,
+his four legs perfectly stiff, sometimes putting one foot before the
+other, testing the ground, which was firm and hard beneath his weight,
+but soft beneath his sharp, scaly hoof, carried him at last away from
+the clayey tract.
+
+Pity and remorse at once were awakened in Renaud's heart by Livette's
+horse.
+
+What right had he, the drover, to ruin the favorite steed of his
+darling fiancee in the service of his passion for a witch?
+
+So Renaud dismounted, removed Blanchet's saddle and bridle, and said
+to him: "Go! do what you will." Then he cut a bundle of reeds with
+which he made himself a bed, and lay upon his back, with his saddle
+under his head and a handkerchief over his face, waiting for dawn.
+
+He fell into a heavy sleep, during which his trouble swelled and
+burst within him, forced its way out, and took on form and
+feature.--The same vision constantly returned.
+
+When he awoke, two hours later, he found his cheeks wet with tears and
+his hands over his face. Then he took pity upon himself, and, having
+begun to weep in his dream, he let the tears flow freely that he would
+have forced back had they sought an outlet on the previous day.
+
+He deemed himself a miserable wretch, and wept over his fate, at first
+madly, convulsively, and then with joy, as if, in weeping, he had
+poured out all his sorrow forever. He wept to think that he was
+caught, powerless, between two contrary, irreconcilable things: that
+he wished for the one, and thirsted, against his will, for the other.
+He beat his hands upon the ground; he tore his cravat, which strangled
+him; he ground the reeds with his teeth, and cried aloud like a
+child,--he, an orphan:
+
+"O God! my mother!"
+
+And he would have wept on for a long while, perhaps, and emptied the
+springs of bitterness in his heart, had he not suddenly felt a warm
+caress--two soft, warm, moist caresses upon his cheek, his forehead,
+his closed eyes.
+
+He half opened his eyelids and saw Blanchet standing beside him,
+touching his face with his pendant lip as he used to touch Livette's
+hand when in search of a bit of sugar.
+
+Another animal had imitated Blanchet; it was the _dondaire_, Le Doux,
+the drover's favorite, the leader of his drove of wild bulls and cows,
+whose bell he had not heard, but who had recognized his master.
+
+The compassion of these two dumb animals aggravated Renaud's bitter
+grief at first. Like children, who begin to howl as soon as you
+sympathize with them, he, when he found he was so wretched as to
+arouse the pity of beasts, cried aloud in his heart, but stifled the
+cry at his throat; then, touched at the sight of their kindly faces,
+and distracted thereby from his own thoughts, he became suddenly calm,
+sat up, put out his hand toward the muzzles of the powerful yet docile
+creatures, and spoke to them:
+
+"Good fellows, good fellows! oh! yes, good fellows!"
+
+Day began to break. And the great black bull and the white horse,
+both, as if in answer to the man and in answer likewise to the first
+gleam of returning day, which sent a thrill of delight over all the
+plain, stretched out their necks toward the east; and the neighing of
+the horse arose, loud and shrill as a flourish of trumpets, sustained
+by the bass of the bull's bellowing.
+
+Instantly a chorus of neighs and bellows arose on all sides of Renaud.
+His free drove had passed the night in the neighborhood. He was
+surrounded by the familiar forms of his own beasts.
+
+They came at the call of Blanchet and Le Doux and the drover's voice.
+The mares were white as salt. Some of them came trotting up, some
+galloping, some followed by their foals; and passed their heads
+between the reeds, peered curiously in, and stood there,--or else,
+with a cunning air, set off again, as who should say: "There's the
+tamer, let us be off!" And there was a great kicking and flinging of
+heels away from the man's side.
+
+Some bulls, thin, nervous black fellows, whipping their sides with
+their long tails, also came up, took alarm, remembering that they had
+been punished for some shortcoming, and, turning tail, decamped in the
+same way, and when they were out of sight, suddenly stopped.
+
+But as the _dondaire_ remained there, few of the horses and cattle
+left the spot.
+
+Some, the oldest or the wisest, slowly assumed a kneeling posture, as
+if to resume their interrupted repose, then, scenting the approaching
+sun, wound their tongues about the tufts of salt grass, drew them into
+their mouths and chewed placidly, while the silvery foam fell from
+their muzzles.
+
+Others, in the same posture, lazily licked their sides. A mother,
+nursing her calf, watched him with a calm, gentle eye.
+
+Here a stallion drew near a mare, reached her side in two bounds, with
+tail in air and bristling mane, and bold, sonorous, trumpet-like
+call--then reared, and when the mare leaped aside, bit at her and with
+a sudden sidewise movement dodged the kick she aimed at him.
+
+More than one bull, too, paid court to the other sex, rose clumsily
+on his hind legs, only to fall again on his four feet, with nothing
+beneath him.
+
+The awakening of the drove was not complete. The animals were still
+dull and heavy. They were awaiting the coming of the sun.
+
+Renaud approached a half-broken stallion he had sometimes ridden, and
+threw over his neck the _seden_ he had just coiled for that
+purpose--Livette's _seden_ and Blanchet's, all stained with mud from
+having brought so many beasts to earth.
+
+He gave sugar to the wild creature, who allowed himself to be saddled
+without overmuch resistance, desirous, perhaps, to enjoy for a day the
+abundant supply of hay in the stables of the chateau, which he had not
+forgotten.
+
+"Go and rest, old fellow!" said Renaud to Blanchet.
+
+And he set off on his fresh steed, spear in hand, with the idea of
+seeking Rampal.
+
+The stallion he rode was his favorite, the one he had named Prince.
+And he felt a thrill of honest satisfaction as he said to himself that
+at all events Livette's horse would not have to put up with his whims
+and follies as a lover any more. He felt highly pleased at that
+thought, being lightened of a threefold responsibility, as rider,
+drover, and lover.
+
+Prince seemed disappointed when Renaud compelled him to turn his back
+on the Chateau d'Avignon.
+
+He rode in the direction of the cabin mentioned by Audiffret. It was
+very possible, after all, that Rampal had taken up his quarters there,
+and he proposed to find out. Now, as this cabin was, as we have seen,
+not in Camargue, but in Crau, not far from the Icard farm, between
+nine and ten leagues to the eastward, it was necessary to cross the
+main stream of the Rhone. But, in that vast plain, men rode long
+distances for a _yes_ or a _no_, and thirty or forty kilometres had no
+terrors for Renaud.
+
+From his present position, it seemed to him that his shortest road
+would be to skirt the southern shore of the Vaccares.
+
+The cool, fresh morning air drove away all his black thoughts, his
+visions and nightmares; he felt something like tranquillity. Moreover,
+he was so overdone with weariness that he seemed half-asleep, and the
+feeling was delicious. He no longer had the strength to follow his
+thoughts, still less to guide them, so that he was submissive as a
+blade of grass, as any inanimate thing, to the passing breeze, to the
+sun's rays.
+
+The hour and the coloring of the earth and sky were in very truth
+enough to rejoice the heart, and physical gaiety took possession of
+him, as he had ceased to reflect.
+
+A fresh breeze, smelling of the sea, sent a shiver over the water and
+the grass. The sun was rising. A moment more and he would appear to
+cast his net of gold horizontally over the plain. He appeared. The
+vague murmurs became distinct sounds; reflection changed to brilliant
+light, drowsiness to activity.
+
+Renaud, who was galloping along with his spear resting in his stirrup,
+his head leaning heavily on the arm that held it and his eyes closed,
+under the influence of the rocking motion of the horse, suddenly
+reopened them, and looked about with the joyous glance of a king.
+
+He paused a moment to gaze at a huge plough drawn by several horses,
+which was transforming a wretched stony field into cleared land ready
+for the vine.
+
+The phylloxera, which has done so much harm in rich and healthy
+districts, affords Camargue a new opportunity to fight the fever and
+to gain ground on the swamp. The sand is, in fact, very favorable to
+the vine and very unfavorable to the parasitic insect, and this watery
+country will gradually become, please God, a genuine land of the vine!
+
+Renaud watched the ploughman with a feeling of delight at the thought
+of his native country being enriched by honest toil; and with a
+confused feeling of regret, too, for he preferred that the moor should
+remain uncultivated and wild and free. The idea of a flat plain,
+tilled from end to end, where no room was left for the straying feet
+of horses as God made them--that idea saddened him.
+
+He would always say to himself as he rode through more civilized
+regions: "Now there, you know, a man can neither live nor die."
+
+The fields of wheat or oats, even in the summer season when they have
+such a lovely reddish tinge, so like the overheated earth, so like the
+turbid, gleaming waters of the Rhone, had no attraction for him. They
+gave him the impression of an obstacle that he must ride his horse
+around, and Renaud did not recognize the respectability of any
+obstacle--except the sea!
+
+He was more inclined to look favorably upon the vine, because it
+seemed to him that it was a glorious thing for his country to produce
+wine, just at the time when other districts in France had exhausted
+their producing power. And then, the Rhone, the _mistral_, horses,
+bulls, and wine, all seemed to him to go together, as things that told
+of holiday-making, of manly strength and courage and joy. They knew
+how to drink, never fear, did the men of Saint-Gilles and Arles and
+Avignon. Renaud had attended wedding-parties more than once on the
+island of Barthelasse in the middle of the Rhone, opposite Avignon,
+and there he had tasted a red wine whose color he could still see. It
+was an old Rhone wine, so they had told him, and he remembered that,
+being desirous to do honor to the wine as well as to the bride, and
+being a little exhilarated, he had solemnly thrown his cup into the
+Rhone after the last bumper. There are, at the bottom of the Rhone,
+many such cups, dead but not broken, from which joy was quaffed but
+yesterday. They go gently down, turning over and over, through the
+water to its sandy bed. There they sleep, covered with sand, and two
+or three thousand years hence--who knows?--the venerable scholars of
+that day will discover them, as they are discovering amphorae of baked
+earth at Trinquetaille to-day, and now and then beside them a glass
+urn, wherein all the colors of the rainbow chase one another about as
+soon as its robe of dust is removed.
+
+Who can say that Renaud's brittle glass, from which he drank the best
+wine of his youth, will not remain for ages full of the sand and water
+of the Rhone, and that--in days to come--other youths will not find
+therein the same delight? For everything begins anew.
+
+Thus did the wanderer's thoughts wander from point to point, from vine
+to glass. Ah! that glass of his, thrown into the Rhone! His mind
+recurred once more to that memory of a debauch. It seemed to him now,
+that, by throwing it into the river on the wedding-day, he had
+foretold his own destiny, and that he, Livette's fiance, would never
+be married! He would drink no more from the discarded glass.
+
+The first impulse of delight that came to him with the newness of the
+morning had already passed; his sadness had returned as the day lost
+the charm that attaches to a thing just beginning.
+
+Dreaming thus, Renaud rode across the marshes, Prince splashing
+through the water up to his thighs.
+
+Yes, my friends, he forgave the vine, did Renaud, for invading
+Camargue.
+
+Moreover, after the harvest was gathered, did not the red and white
+vineyards afford excellent pasturage for the bulls? There are some
+that are all red in the autumn, and others all white, or of a light
+golden yellow--as if the vines had amused themselves by reproducing
+the two colors of the wine under the gorgeous sunsets. He has seen
+nothing who has not seen the beams of the setting sun, in November,
+now yellow as gold, now red as blood, spreading over a field of red
+vines, over a field of yellow vines, which themselves spread out as
+far as the eye can reach. Indeed, is not Camargue the home of the
+_lambrusque_? The _lambrusque_ is the wild, Camarguese vine, different
+from our cultivated vines in that the male and female are on separate
+plants. The grapes that grow on the female _lambrusque_ make a
+somewhat tart but pleasant wine, and the shoots of the vine make
+light, stout staves for the hand.
+
+Arrived at Grand Patis, Renaud swam the Rhone three times, from
+Camargue to Ile Mouton, from Ile Mouton to Ile Saint-Pierre, and from
+Ile Saint-Pierre to the mainland.
+
+He was now in the swamps of Crau, a stony desert adjoining Camargue,
+which is a desert of mud.
+
+To the eye these two deserts seem to join hands across the Rhone. From
+Aigues-Mortes to the pond of Berre is a pretty stretch of flat
+country, my friends, and the sea-eagle, try as he may, cannot make it
+less than twenty good leagues in a straight line! And that is the
+kingdom of King Renaud.
+
+Camargue has its saltwort, its grain and plantains and burdocks,
+growing in small clumps, with sandy intervals between; it has its
+_gapillons_, which are green rushes split into bouquets, with
+thousands of sharp points finer than needles; and here and there
+tamarisk-trees; and, on the banks of the two Rhones, great elms, so
+often cut and hacked to procure wood to burn, that they resemble huge
+caterpillars sitting erect upon their tails, their short hair
+bristling as if in anger.
+
+Crau is a land of naked plains and heather. It is, to tell the truth,
+a veritable field of stones. They have come, people say, from Mont
+Blanc, all the stones that now lie sleeping there. The Rhone and the
+Durance have borne them down, then changed their beds, after having
+jousted together on the vast space at the foot of the little Alps.
+From beneath the stones of Crau, in May, there springs a rare,
+delicate plant, the _paturin_, or dog's tooth. The sheep push the
+stone away with their noses and browse upon the slender stalks while
+the shepherd stands and dreams in the wind and sun.
+
+But this stony Crau is farther away, beyond the pond of Ligagnou,
+which skirts the river. Here, in the Crau that lies along the banks of
+the Rhone, we are in the midst of the marshes, which are dry during
+the greater part of the year; some of them, however, are very
+treacherous, and one should know them well.
+
+Renaud rode in a northeasterly direction, and soon reached the
+neighborhood of the Icard farm.
+
+He drew rein.
+
+"Where is the hiding-place?" he muttered.
+
+And he tried with all his eyes to pierce the thick underbrush of
+reeds, rushes, cat-tails, sedges, and bull-rushes, springing from the
+midst of a deep bog. This bog did not seem, to the eye, more
+formidable than another, but the bulls and mares feared it and
+carefully avoided it.
+
+On the surface of the water was what looked like a thick crust of
+mouldy verdure. It was not, however, the leprous formation of
+duck-weed that lies sleeping on our stagnant ponds. It was a sort of
+felt-like substance, composed of dead rushes, roots, twined and
+twisted weeds, which made a solid but movable crust upon the water,
+swaying beneath the feet that ventured upon it, ready to bear their
+weight for a moment and ready to give way beneath them.
+
+This crust (the _transtaiere_) was broken with fissures here and
+there, through which the water could be seen, dark as night, its
+surface flecked with transient specks of light, gleaming like a mirror
+of black glass. Around the edges, at the foot of the scattered
+tamarisks, grew reeds innumerable in thick clusters, always rustling
+against one another, and incessantly brushed, with a noise like
+rustling paper, by the slender wings of the dragon-flies with their
+monster-like heads.
+
+Many of these _caneous_ bear white flowers streaked with purple. As
+they rise above one another on the long stalks, you would take them
+for the flowers of a tall marsh-mallow. These reeds, with their long
+leaves, remind one of the _thyrsi_ of antiquity, left standing there
+in the damp earth by bacchantes who have gone to rest somewhere near
+at hand in the shade of the tamarisks, or to abandon themselves to the
+centaurs. They make one think, also, of the wand of the fable, which,
+when planted in the ground, was at once covered with flowers, and
+thereby had power over marriages.
+
+These _thyrsi_ of the bog are reeds besieged by climbing plants. The
+convolvulus fastens itself to the reed, twines its arms about it,
+rises in a spiral course, seeks the sunlight at its summit, and robes
+the long murmuring stalk in brilliant and harmonious colors.
+
+The sharp leaves of the young reeds stand erect like lance-heads. The
+older ones break off and fell at right angles. The delicate, graceful
+foliage of the tamarisks is like a transparent cloud, and their little
+pink flowers, hanging in clusters that are too heavy for the branches,
+especially before they open, cause the flexible plumes of the
+gracefully rounded tree-top to bend in every direction.
+
+Through the reeds and tamarisks Renaud sought to discover the hut that
+he knew, and that Audiffret had spoken of to him the night before. But
+he could hardly distinguish the little inclined cross placed at the
+highest point of the roof of all the Camargue cabins, which are built
+of joists, boards, grayish mud (_tape_), and straw. The cabin was
+formerly entirely visible from the spot where he stood, but the reeds
+had grown so thickly on the islet on which it was built, that they
+completely hid it. The path leading to it was on the opposite side of
+the bog. He must make a wide detour in order to reach it, the bog _de
+la Cabane_, so called, being of a very erratic shape.
+
+From the south side of the cabin he went around to the north side. He
+no longer had the _transtaiere_ in front of him; but beneath the
+surface of the water, where reeds and thorn-broom flourish, was the
+_gargate_, the slime, wherein he who steps foot is quickly buried.
+
+There are many other dangers in these accursed bogs. There are the
+_lorons_, a sort of bottomless well found here and there under the
+water, the location of which must be thoroughly understood. The mares
+and heifers know them and are clever in avoiding them, but now and
+then one of them falls in, and now and then a man as well. And he who
+falls in remains. No time for argument, my man! You are in--adieu!
+
+The drovers will tell you, and it is the truth, that from every
+_loron_ comes a little twisting column of smoke, by which those mouths
+of hell can be located. A hundred _lorons_, a hundred columns of
+smoke. There, my friends, is something to dream about, is it not, when
+the malignant fever, bred in the swamps, smites you on the hip?
+
+Renaud was anxious to know if Rampal was occupying the cabin, but not
+to attack him there, for it is a treacherous spot. "If he is there, he
+will come out some time or other. I will wait for him on the solid
+ground. Ah! I see the path!"
+
+It was a winding path hiding under a sheet of shallow water. The bed
+of the path was of stones, very narrow but very firm, the right edge
+being marked, as far as the cabin, by stakes at short intervals, just
+on a level with the water.
+
+Renaud dismounted, and looked for the first stake, holding his horse
+by the rein. Although he knew its location, it took him some time to
+find it. With the end of his spear he put aside the grass, and when he
+discovered the stake, he felt for the solid road whose width it
+measured. Bending over, he gazed long and very closely at the grasses
+and the reeds, which met in places above the concealed pathway, and
+when he rose he was certain that it had not been used for some time.
+
+He was not mistaken. In truth, Rampal was a little suspicious of that
+hiding-place, which was too well known, he thought, and to which he
+could easily be traced. He often slept in the neighborhood, ready to
+take refuge in the _cul-de-sac_, if it should become necessary, but he
+preferred, meanwhile, to feel at liberty, with plenty of open space
+about him.
+
+Renaud remounted Prince, and crossed the Rhone again an hour later.
+
+That night he lay in one of the great cabins which serve as
+stables--winter _jasses_--for the droves of mares, in those months
+when the weather is so bad that the bulls can find no pasturage except
+by breaking the ice with their horns.
+
+The next day, an hour before noon, he saw before him the church of
+Saintes-Maries standing out like a lofty ship against the blue
+background of the sea.
+
+Little black curlews were flying hither and thither around it, mingled
+with a flock of great sea-gulls with gracefully rounded wings.
+
+A cart was moving slowly over the sandy road.
+
+"Good-day, Renaud."
+
+"Good-day, Marius. Where are you going?"
+
+"To carry fish to Arles."
+
+Marius raised the branches which apparently made up his load, but
+which were simply used to shade a dozen or more baskets and hampers.
+Well pleased with his freight, he put aside the cloth that was spread
+over his treasure under the branches. Baskets and hampers were filled
+to the brim with fish taken in the ponds and the sea. There were
+mullet and bream, still alive, animated prisms with mouths and gills
+wide open like bright red marine flowers amid a mass of dark-blue,
+olive-green, and gleaming gold. There were enormous eels, too, caught
+for the most part in the canals of Camargue, which are veritable
+fish-preserves.
+
+The dark-hued, slippery creatures twisted in and out, tying and
+untying endless slip-knots with their snake-like bodies. By the livid
+spots upon some of the great eels, Renaud recognized them as _muraenae_,
+possessors of voracious mouths, well stocked with sharp teeth.
+
+"See how they all keep moving!" said Marius.
+
+At that moment, as if to justify his words, a great flat fish flapped
+out of one of the baskets and fell to the ground.
+
+With the end of his three-pronged spear the mounted drover nailed him
+to the earth to prevent his leaping into the ditch, filled with water,
+that ran along the road.
+
+"Hallo!" said he in surprise, "isn't that a cramp-fish. When I spear
+one of them with my regular fish-spear, which is longer than this
+three-pronged one, it gives me a shock I didn't feel at all to-day."
+
+"That's because the fish is in the water then, and your spear is
+damp," said Marius, laughing. "But let the fellow stay there," he
+added. "He isn't worth much. The snakes will have a feast on him."
+
+Thereupon, horseman and fisherman went their respective ways.
+
+The drover's thoughts wandered from the cramp-fish and the _muraenae_ to
+the electric fish of America, of which old sailors had spoken to him.
+They had told him that it was charged with electricity like the
+cramp-fish, but resembled the conger more in shape, and that it could,
+with its overpowering current, kill a horse; in order to make it
+exhaust its stock of electricity, so that it can safely be taken, it
+is customary to send wild horses into the water against it; they
+receive the first shock, and sometimes die from the effects.
+
+As he rode on toward Saintes-Maries, Renaud mused in a vague way upon
+the miracles of life, which there is naught to explain.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+A SORCERESS
+
+
+Livette did not go to sleep. When Renaud had passed out of sight in
+the darkness, she softly closed her windows, and, throwing herself on
+the bed with her face buried in the pillow, wept in dismay.
+
+Meanwhile,--while Livette was weeping and Renaud, bewitched, was
+galloping over the moor, fancying that he was pursued by the
+gipsy,--the gipsy herself was asleep.
+
+The two beings whose lives she was beginning to destroy were already
+suffering a thousand deaths, and she, lying, fully dressed, under one
+of the carts of her tribe, in their regularly pitched camp outside the
+village, was sleeping tranquilly, her pretty, puzzling face smiling at
+the stars of that lovely May night.
+
+When Renaud left her, at sunset, all naked on the beach, she had
+slowly stretched her sun-burned arms, taking pleasure in the sense of
+being naked in the open air, of feeling the caressing breath of the
+sea-breeze that dried the great drops of water rolling down her body.
+Then, still slowly, she had dressed herself,--very slowly, in order to
+postpone as long as possible the renewed subjection to the annoyance
+of clothes, in order to enjoy unrestricted freedom of movement, like a
+wild beast.
+
+She had then walked along the beach, leaving the imprint of her bare,
+well-shaped foot in the sand, covered at intervals by a shallow wave
+that gradually washed away the mark.
+
+The last kiss of the sea upon her feet, to which a bit of sparkling
+sand clung, delighted her. She laughed at the water, played with it,
+avoiding it sometimes with a sudden leap, and sometimes going forward
+to meet it, teasing it.
+
+She fancied that she could see, in the undulating folds of the
+wavelets, the tame snakes which she sometimes charmed with the notes
+of a flute, and which would thereupon come to her and twine about her
+arms and neck, and which were at that moment waiting for her, lying on
+their bed of wool at the bottom of their box in her wagon.
+
+She had already ceased to think of Renaud. She was always swayed by
+the dominating thought of the moment, never feeling regret or remorse
+for what was past,--having no power of foresight, except by flashes,
+at such times as passion and self-interest bade her exert it. Her
+reflection was but momentary, by fits and starts, so to speak; and
+her depth, her power, the mystery that surrounded her, were due to her
+having no heart, and, consequently, no conscience.
+
+The men and women who approached her might hope or fear something at
+her hands, imagine that she had determined upon this or that course,
+and try to defeat her plan; but she never had any plan, which fact led
+them astray beforehand.
+
+She routed her enemies and triumphed over them, first of all, by
+indifference; and then she would abruptly cast aside her indolence,
+like an animal, at the bidding of a passion or a whim, and would still
+render naught every means of defence--her attack, her decisions, her
+clever wiles, being always spontaneous, born of circumstances as they
+presented themselves.
+
+No: she made no plans beforehand, in cold blood; she never concocted
+any complicated scheme; but she could, at need, invent one on the spur
+of the moment and carry it out instantly, at a breath,--or perhaps she
+would begin to execute it in frantic haste, and abandon it almost
+immediately from sheer _ennui_, to think no more of it until the day
+that some burst of passion should suddenly bring it back to her mind.
+
+She was like a spider spinning its whole web in the twinkling of an
+eye to catch the fly on the wing; or she would spin the first thread
+only, and forget it until something happened to remind her to spin a
+second.
+
+Thus constituted, she was at the same time better and worse than
+other women, because she was more changeable than the surface of the
+water,--because she was of the color of the moment.
+
+Being a fatalist, the gipsy said to herself that whatever is to
+happen, happens, and she had never taken the trouble to devise a
+scheme of revenge. She would simply utter a threat, knowing well that
+the terror inspired by a prediction is the first calamity that
+prepares the way for others, by disturbing the mind and heart and
+judgment. And then, something always goes wrong in the course of a
+year, collaborating, so to speak, with the sorcerer, and attributed by
+the victim to the "evil spell" cast upon him. It is upon him, in
+reality, because he believes that it is. In short, if opportunity
+offered, she would assist the mischievous propensities of fate, with a
+word, a gesture, a trifle--and, if opportunity did offer, it was
+because it was decreed long ages ago, written in the book of destiny
+that so it should be!
+
+A true creature of instinct, the gipsy had no other secret than that
+she had none.
+
+She followed her impulses, satisfied her desire for revenge, her love
+or her hate, without stopping to consider anything or anybody; and,
+like the wild beast, she, a human being, became an object of dread to
+civilized people, as nature itself is. Such creatures are implacable.
+The gipsy loved life, and lived as animals live, without reflection.
+It was the paltry yet profound mystery of the sphinx repeated. Her
+actions were those of a brute, not far removed from the lower types of
+mankind, notwithstanding her lovely human face, in which the eyes,
+like Pan's, not clear, seemed veiled with falsehood because they were
+veiled to their own sight with their own lack of knowledge, their
+uncertainty and suspense. Look at the eyes of a goat or a heifer. They
+are as deep as Bestiality, cunning and strong, cowering in the shadow
+of the sacred wood. Life longs to live. It is lying in ambush there.
+It is sure of her and bides its time. The human beast not only has
+more craft than the fox or tiger, but has the power of speech as well.
+Nothing is more horrible than words without a conscience.
+
+After all, Zinzara was always sincere, although she never appeared so,
+because her versatility placed her from moment to moment in
+contradiction with herself.
+
+The caress and the wound that one received from her in rapid
+succession did not prove that she had feigned love or hate. She did,
+in fact, love and hate by turns, from moment to moment, or rather,
+without loving or hating, she acted in accordance with her own fancy,
+sincere in her contradictions--and very artlessly withal.
+
+She bore some resemblance to the ape, as it sits among the branches,
+softly rocking its little one in its arms with an almost human air,
+then suddenly relaxes its hold and lets its offspring fall, forgotten,
+to the ground, in order to pluck a fruit that hangs near by.
+
+She was a personage of importance in her own eyes, and she saw nobody
+but herself at all times and under all circumstances.
+
+The gipsy was formidable, as a spirit concealed in an element whose
+slave it should be. She had the force of a thunderbolt, of an
+earthquake, of any fatal occurrence impossible to foresee or to ward
+off.
+
+The viper is not evil-minded. He does not prepare his own venom. He
+finds it all prepared. Disturb him, and he bites before he makes up
+his mind to do it.
+
+Like the cramp-fish or the electric eel, the gipsy could discharge a
+fatal current of electricity as soon as you approached her,--by virtue
+of the very necessity of existence. It might happen to her also to
+indulge in the sport of exerting her malignant power around her, for
+no reason, simply to watch its effects, because it was her day and her
+hour, her whim.
+
+She had the same means of defence and amusement.
+
+It was not in her nature to be malignant. It simply was not necessary
+for her to think of you, that was all. As a matter of fact, a man was
+fortunate if she did not look at him.
+
+Although born of a race that holds chastity in high esteem, she was
+not chaste; not that she loved debauchery above everything else, but
+she used it as a means of domination,--the more unfailing because she
+made little account of it. Always superior, in her coldness, to the
+passion she inspired, it was in that more than all else that she
+really felt herself a queen, a sorceress--aye, a goddess, by favor of
+the devil! The caress of the water in which she bathed afforded her
+more pleasure than it afforded others. She was like the female plant
+of the _lambrusque_, which is fertilized by the wind.
+
+Like the mares of Camargue, that often assemble on the shore to
+breathe the fresh sea air,--when she opened her lips to the salty
+breeze, on those fine May evenings, she was happier than any man's
+kiss could make her. The wandering spirit of her race breathed upon
+her lips, in the air, with the freedom of the boundless waste--a vague
+hope, vain and unending.
+
+Being thus constituted, she knew that she exercised a disturbing
+influence upon others, and that she was herself protected by something
+that relieved her of responsibility. That thought filled her with
+pride. There was a reflection of that pride in her smile. There was
+also the constant remembrance of the sensations she had experienced,
+known to her alone, and a certain number of men, who knew nothing of
+one another.
+
+Their ignorance, which was her work, also made her smile. And that
+smile was a mixture of irony and contempt. She knew her own strength
+and their weakness. So she was always smiling.
+
+With no other policy than this, she reigned over her nomadic tribe,
+changing her favorite, like a genuine queen, as chance or her own
+impulses willed, but giving each one of them to believe that he was
+the only man she had ever really loved, even if he were not her first
+lover.
+
+To deceive the _zingari_--that was a notable triumph for a _zingara_!
+
+Among the fifteen or twenty children in her party, there was a young
+dauphin, the queen's offspring; but since he had left her breast, she
+had bestowed no more care upon him than the bitch bestows upon her
+puppy some day to become her mate.
+
+When she came near her camping-ground, excited by her recent contact
+with the waves and the salt, which, as it dried upon her, pressed
+against her soft, velvety flesh, the gipsy, tingling with warmth in
+every vein, cast a sidelong glance at one of the male members of the
+tribe, a young man with a bronzed skin and thin, curly beard.
+
+And, in the darkness,--when they had eaten the soup cooked in the
+kettle that hung from three stakes in the open air,--the _zingaro_
+glided to the _zingara's_ side.
+
+At that very moment, by her fault, two human beings were suffering in
+the inmost recesses of their consciences, where Livette and Renaud
+were gazing at each other with eyes in which there was no look of
+recognition.
+
+The betrothed lovers, her victims, were struggling under the evil
+spell cast upon them by her glance, at the moment that that glance
+seemed to grow tender in response to that with which her lover
+enveloped her, on the edge of the ditch, beneath the feeble light of
+the stars.
+
+Renaud at that moment was dreaming that he had seen the naked gipsy
+again and triumphed over her, and was asking himself, at the memory of
+that robust, youthful form, if she were not a virgin, even though a
+child of the high-road; recalling confusedly a strange, overpowering,
+absolute passion, the triumphal possession of a new being, a heifer
+hitherto wild and vicious, even to the bulls; of a mare that had never
+known bit or saddle, and had maintained a rebellious attitude in
+presence of the stallion.
+
+Renaud was dreaming all that, but Renaud no longer existed for
+Zinzara.
+
+Zinzara, just at that moment, in the dew-drenched grass, was writhing
+about like the legendary conger-eel, that comes out of the sea to
+abandon itself to the labyrinthine caresses of the reptiles on the
+shore.
+
+Two days Livette waited, wondering what was taking place. Weary at
+last of seeking without finding, she set out for Saintes-Maries on the
+morning of the third day.
+
+"There," she thought, "I may, perhaps, hear some news."
+
+Her father saddled an honest old horse for her use.
+
+"You must go to Tonin the fisherman's at noon," said he, "and eat your
+_bouille-abaisse_. Send him word, when you arrive, with a good-day
+from me."
+
+Livette, as she rode along, looked about her at the peaceful green
+fields, joyous and bright in the light that fell from the sky and the
+light that rose on all sides from the water.
+
+The gnats danced merrily in the sunbeams. When the gnats dance, they
+furnish the music for the ball with their wings, and on calm days
+there is a sound like the strumming of a guitar on the golden strings
+of light over all the plain. There were also in the air long, slender
+threads,--the "threads of the Virgin," or gossamer,--come from no one
+knows where, which waved gently to and fro, as if some of the fragile
+strings of the invisible instrument on which the little musicians of
+the air perform, being broken, had become visible, and were floating
+away at the pleasure of a breath.
+
+It may be that those threads came from a long distance. It may be that
+the toiling spiders who patiently spun them lived in the forests of
+the Moors, in Esterel. A breath of air had taken them up very gently,
+and now they were on their travels.
+
+Livette watched them floating quietly by, and thought of a tale her
+grandmother had told her. According to the grandmother, the threads
+came from the cloaks spread to the wind as sails by the three holy
+women. The wind, as it filled them, had unravelled them a little, very
+carefully; and the slender threads, taken long ago from the woof of
+the miraculous cloaks, hover forever above the sands of Camargue,
+where stands the church of the holy women.--Above the strand they
+hover night and day, as so many tokens of God's blessing; but they are
+rarely visible, and if, by chance, on a fine day, you do see them, it
+means that some great good fortune is in store for you.
+
+In the transparent azure of the morning sky Livette's heart clung to
+each of the passing threads; but the child tried in vain to acquire
+confidence,--her heart was too heavy to remain long attached to the
+fleeting things. She was afraid, poor child, and felt influences at
+work against her that she could not see.
+
+Alas! while the golden threads floated over her head, the black spider
+was weaving his web somewhere about, to catch her like a fly.
+
+Still musing, Livette rode on, and could distinguish at last, far
+before her, the swallows and martins soaring above the steeple. They
+were so far away you would have said they were swarms of gnats. And
+with the swallows and martins were numberless sea-mews. This host of
+wings, large and small, now dark as seen from below, now bright and
+gleaming as seen from above, turned and twirled and gyrated in
+countless intricate, interlacing circles. Instinct with the spirit of
+the spring-time and the morning, they were frolicking in the fresh,
+clear air.
+
+It occurred to Livette to ride by the public spring in quest of
+news, for it was the hour when the women and maidens of
+Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer go thither to procure their daily supply of
+water.
+
+As she entered the village, she noticed the gipsy camp at her right
+hand, but turned her head.
+
+At that moment, she met two women on their way to the spring, walking
+steadily between the two bars, the ends of which they held in their
+hands, and from which, exactly in the middle, the water-jug was
+suspended by its two ears.
+
+"It is just the time for the spring," said Livette to herself, and she
+followed them at a foot-pace.
+
+"Good-day, mademoiselle," the women said as they passed, for the
+pretty maiden of the Chateau d'Avignon was known to everybody.
+
+There was as yet no one at the spring. The two women waited, and
+Livette with them.
+
+"How do you happen to be riding about so early, mademoiselle? Are you
+looking for some one?"
+
+"I am out for a ride," said Livette, "and as it's the time for drawing
+water, I thought I would stop here a moment. My friends will surely
+come sooner or later."
+
+No more was said, and Livette, having nothing else to do, looked
+closely for the first time at the carved stone escutcheon in the
+centre of the high arched wall above the spring. It is the town crest,
+and it is needless to say that it includes a boat, a boat without mast
+or oars, in which the two Maries--Jacobe and Salome--are standing.
+
+"I have often wondered," said Livette, "why they put only the figures
+of two holy women in the boat. For haven't our mothers always told us
+there were three of them? Were there three or not?"
+
+"Certainly there were three, my pretty innocent," said the older of
+the two women, "but Sara was the servant, and no honor is due to her."
+
+"If the third was Saint Sara, then there were not three Marys, eh? But
+I have always heard it said that the Magdalen was there, and that she
+went away from here and died at Sainte-Baume."
+
+"Yes, so she was, and many others besides! Lazarus was in the boat,
+too, but when they were once on shore, every one went his own way:
+Magdalen went to Baume, and the two Maries and Sara remained with us.
+That was when a spring came out of the sand, by the favor of our Lord.
+When they built the church, they walled in the spring in the centre of
+it."
+
+"Faith, they would have done well to leave the spring outside the
+church!"
+
+"Why so? is the water spoiled by it?"
+
+"It's only good on the fete-day."
+
+"After so many years! And there's so little of it!"
+
+"We ought to have asked the saints to make it pure and abundant. If we
+had all set about it with our prayers, they would have done it for
+us."
+
+"One miracle more or less!"
+
+"The miracles, my dear, are only for strangers."
+
+"And that is just what we need, neighbor. If it wasn't so, you see,
+strangers wouldn't come any more--and without them what would the
+country live on? poor we! Where are our harvests? Where are our wheat
+and our grain, good people, tell me that? If it wasn't for the saints,
+this would be a cursed country! One fete-day a year, and the
+pilgrims--God bless them!--fill our purses for us."
+
+"Miracle days are only too few and far between. We ought to have two
+fete-days a year!"
+
+"What are you saying, you foolish woman? Two fete-days a year! Mother
+of God! That would mean death to pilgrimages. To keep the custom
+going, everything must be just as it is and nothing change at all. Our
+men know that well enough. Remember the visit the Archbishop of Aix
+and those great ladies paid us twenty years ago."
+
+And once more the story was told of the visit of the Archbishop of Aix
+to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer twenty or thirty years before.
+
+On a certain 24th of May the archbishop arrived at Saintes-Maries with
+several elderly ladies of the nobility of Aix. But it so happened that
+that 24th of May was the evening of the 25th! Anybody may be
+mistaken!--So that, instead of being lowered at four o'clock, the
+reliquaries were raised again on that day, and when monseigneur
+entered the church with his fair companions, it was good-by, saints!
+They had already been hoisted up at the end of their ropes to the
+lofty chapel, amid the singing of canticles.
+
+"Oh! well!" said the archbishop to the cure, "they must come down
+again for us."
+
+The cure was about to obey, but a rumor of what was going on had
+already spread through the village!--Ah! bless my soul, what a
+commotion!
+
+"What!" said the old villagers. "They would lower the reliquaries on
+some other day than the 24th, would they? Why, if it is such a simple
+thing and can be done so often, why do you make the poor devils from
+every corner of Provence and all the rest of the world come hurrying
+to us on a special day? No, no, it would be the ruin of the country,
+that is certain!"
+
+To make a long story short, the people of Saintes-Maries took their
+guns, and under arms, in the church itself, compelled the prince of
+the Church to respect the sovereign will of the people of the town.
+
+And they did very well, for rarity is the quality by virtue of which
+miracles retain their value.
+
+One of the women having told this anecdote, which was perfectly well
+known to them all, they began, as soon as she had finished, to make up
+for their long silence by loud talk, vying with one another in their
+approval of the villagers' revolt against the bishops, who would have
+abused the good-will of the two Maries.
+
+"We are very lucky, all the same," said one of the old women, "to have
+a good well with good stone walls instead of the brackish spring the
+saints had to get their drinking-water from. I can remember the time
+when we got our water from the _pousaraque_ (artificial pond), as the
+people on our farms do to-day. The Rhone water that was brought into
+them through the canals was always so thick and muddy you could cut it
+with a knife!"
+
+"Bah! it had time enough to settle in our jars."
+
+"It is funny, though, to be so hard up for water in such a wet
+country!" said a young woman who had just arrived. "This water is a
+nuisance! Saint Sara, the servant, ought to have known from experience
+that a woman has enough work to do at home without wasting her time
+waiting in front of closed spigots. Saint Sara, protect us, and make
+them turn on the water!"
+
+The women began to laugh.
+
+Almost all the housekeepers of Saintes-Maries had assembled by this
+time. A last group arrived upon the scene. Some carried jars, without
+handles, upon their heads, balancing them by a graceful swaying of the
+whole body. With their hands upon their hips, they themselves were not
+unlike living amphorae. Others, having one jug upon the head, carried
+another in each hand--the stout _dourgue_, with handle and mouth;
+others had wooden pails, others, glass jars, each having selected a
+larger or smaller vessel, according to the necessities of her
+household.
+
+"What sort of a pot have you there, Felicite?"
+
+Whereat there was a general laugh.
+
+She to whom the question was directed, replied:
+
+"I broke my jug, poor me! And, as I had to have some water, I took an
+old thing I found that has always been standing behind the door at our
+house since I can remember. If it will hold water, it will do for me
+to-day, my dear!"
+
+"Take it to monsieur le cure for his library; it's an antique, and is
+worth money!"
+
+Felicite had, in fact, come to the spring with a genuine Roman
+amphora, found in the sandy bed of the Rhone--a jar two thousand years
+old and hardly chipped!
+
+Each family at Saintes-Maries is entitled to one or two jars of water
+each day, according to the number of its members.--The water had not
+begun to flow.
+
+Livette, sitting upon her horse, thoughtful and sad amid the chatter,
+was still awaiting her friends.
+
+"What were you saying just now?" asked some late comers.
+
+And having been informed, each one of them proceeded to expound her
+ideas upon the subject of the saints and Sara the bondwoman, paying no
+heed to what the others were saying--so that the jabbering of the
+women and girls seemed like a _Ramadan_ of magpies and jays assembled
+in one of the isolated clumps of pines so often seen in Camargue.
+
+"I would like to know if it's fair," cried one of the women, "not to
+put in Saint Sara's portrait, too! A saint's a saint, and where
+there's a saint there isn't any servant!"
+
+"The saints aren't proud! and Saint Sara cares mighty little whether
+her picture's there or not!"
+
+"She may not care, but it was an insult to her!"
+
+"Oh!" said another, "good King Rene and the Pope knew what they were
+doing when they arranged things so. Sara was Pontius Pilate's wife,
+and she was the one who advised her husband to wash his hands of the
+heathens' crime!"
+
+A murmur of reproof ran from mouth to mouth among the gossips.
+
+"Ah! here's old Rosine, she'll set us right."
+
+Motionless upon her horse Livette listened vaguely. She was
+absent-minded, yet interested.
+
+When old Rosine, who was very deaf, had finally been made to
+understand what was wanted of her, and that she was expected to give
+her views concerning Sara the bondwoman, she began:
+
+"Ah! my children, God knows his own, and Sara was a great saint, for
+sure----"
+
+Here Rosine crossed herself, and was at once imitated by all the old
+women.
+
+"But," added Rosine, "Sara was a heathen woman from Egypt, and not a
+Jewess of Judea; and the heathens, you see, come a long way after the
+Jews in the world's esteem. Don't you see that the Jews are scattered
+all over the world, but they stay everywhere, and become masters by
+force of avarice. That is their way of being blessed by their Lord.
+But the heathens of Egypt, on the contrary, are wanderers and poor,
+although they are thieves, and more scattered and more accursed than
+the Jews. Well, you see, my children, Saint Sara is their saint, the
+saint of the Egyptian heathens! She wasn't a very good Catholic saint,
+to pay the boatman for her passage by a sight of her naked body--with
+the indifference of an old sinner, I fancy! So it is right that she
+should come after the two Marys, for there are different ranks in
+heaven. And that is why Saint Sara's bones are not between the boards
+of the great shrine in the church, but under the glass of the little
+shrine in the crypt--or the cellar, you might say. The cellar is a
+good enough place--under the feet of Christians--for miserable
+gipsies! And it is right that it should be so."
+
+"What Rosine says is true!" cried one of the women. "These frequent
+visits of the gipsies are the ruin of the country. When our pilgrims
+come, rich and poor, do you suppose they like to find all these
+scamps, who are so clever at stealing folks' handkerchiefs and purses,
+settled here before them? Don't you suppose that drives people away
+from us? How many there are who would like to come, but don't care to
+compromise themselves by being found in such company!"
+
+"Bah! such nonsense!" said a humpbacked woman; "those who have faith
+don't stop half-way for such a small matter! And those who have some
+troublesome disease and hope to cure it here aren't afraid of the
+thieves nor their vermin. Take away my hump, mighty saints, and I will
+undertake to get rid of my lice and my fleas one by one, without any
+assistance!"
+
+This speech was greeted by a roar of laughter, which stopped abruptly,
+as if by enchantment. The little gate to the spring was opened at
+last, and, at the sound of the water rushing from the pipe, all the
+women ran to take their places in the line--not without some trifling
+disputes for precedence.
+
+At last, some of Livette's girl friends arrived. Spying them at some
+little distance, she went to meet them.
+
+"What brings Livette here so early, on horseback?" said the women,
+when she had moved away.
+
+"Why, she's looking for her rascal of a Renaud, of course!" said the
+hunchback. "That fellow isn't used to being tied like a goat to a
+stake, and the little one will have a hard time to keep him true to
+her, for all her fine _dot_!--The other day, Rampal--you know, the
+drover, a good fellow--saw him at a distance on the beach talking with
+a gipsy who wasn't dressed for winter!"
+
+"Not dressed for winter? what do you mean?"
+
+"She wore no furs, nor cloak, nor anything else, poor me! She was
+taking a bath as God made her. The plain isn't a safe place for that
+sort of thing. You think you can't be seen because you think you can
+see a long distance yourself, but a tuft of heather is enough for the
+lizard to hide his two eyes behind while he looks."
+
+Again the women began to chuckle and laugh, but for a moment only.
+
+Meanwhile, Livette's friends were saying to her:
+
+"No, we haven't seen your sweetheart, my dear; but they are already
+putting the benches in place against the church for the branding, and
+he can't fail to be here soon."
+
+At that moment, a strain of weird music arose not far away. It was
+produced by a flute, and the notes, softly modulated at first, were
+abruptly changed to heart-rending shrieks. A strange, dull, monotonous
+accompaniment seemed to encourage the sick heart, that called for help
+with piercing cries.
+
+"Hark! there are the gipsies and their devil's music, Livette. Just go
+and look--it is such an amusing sight. We will join you in a little
+while."
+
+"What about my horse?" said Livette.
+
+"If you haven't come to stay, there's a heavy iron bracelet just set
+into the wall of the church to hold the bars of the enclosure for the
+branding. Tie your horse to that, and don't be afraid that he will
+disappear. Every one will know he's yours by those pretty letters in
+copper nails you have had put on your saddle-bow."
+
+Livette fastened her horse to the ring in the church-wall, and walked
+in the direction of the gipsy music. It seemed to her that she might
+probably learn something there.
+
+Now, Zinzara the Egyptian had seen Livette ride into the village, and
+her music had no other purpose than to attract her, and Renaud, her
+fiance, with her, if he were there. Why? to see;--to bring together
+for an instant, with no fixed purpose, upon the same point of the vast
+world through which she wandered, two of the personages with whom she
+"beguiled her time;" to look on at the comedy of life, and to watch
+the sequel, with the inclination to give an evil turn to it, chance
+aiding. She loved the anomalies that result from the chaotic jumbling
+together of circumstances.
+
+Zinzara was turning a kaleidoscope whose field was vast like the
+horizon of her never-ending travels, and whose bits of glass,
+multicolored, were living souls.--She turned the wheel to see what
+calamity destiny, with her assistance, would bring to pass. The
+amusement of a woman, of a sorceress.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE SNAKE-CHARMER
+
+
+Life is an enigma. The everlasting silence of space is but the endless
+murmuring of invisible circles which, twining in and out, part and
+meet again, lose and never find one another, or are inextricably
+interwoven forever. Life is an enigma. We can see something of its
+beginning, nothing of its close; its meaning escapes us, but all the
+links make the chain, and some one knows the rest.
+
+That there are two ends to the ladder is certain. Day is not night,
+and one does not exist without the other. There are joy and sorrow,
+health and sickness, happiness and unhappiness, life and death--in a
+word, good and evil, for the beast of flesh and bone. This is a good
+man, that a bad. Religion and morals have nothing to do with it, and
+afford no explanation; but little children know that it is so, and
+fools know it likewise. They who undertake to reason the thing out
+learnedly, befog it. They who pull the thread break it. There is some
+one and there is something. Nothing is null, I tell you, my good
+friends, and yonder drivelling old idiot, sitting on the stone at the
+foot of the Calvary before the church, and holding out his hand to
+Livette, knows two things better than we--good and evil. The idiot,
+when he passed the gipsies' wagons in the morning, talked amicably,
+yes, he talked for some minutes with two or three gaunt dogs chained
+up under the wagons; but when he saw Zinzara, the queen, fix her eyes
+upon him, the idiot was afraid and limped away as fast as he could. He
+was afraid because _there was_, in Zinzara's look, _something not
+good_.
+
+And now Livette, as she passes by, glances at him, and the idiot--poor
+human worm--smiles and holds out to her a glass pearl,--a treasure in
+his eyes,--which he found that morning in the filth of the gutter near
+by. The pearl glistens. It is bright blue. The idiot sees beauty in
+it, and offers it to the pretty girl passing by. Livette smiles at
+him, and he, the drivelling idiot, the cripple who drags himself along
+the ground, laughs back at Livette. He laughs and feels his man's
+heart vaguely opening within him--why?--because of _something good_ in
+Livette's eyes.
+
+God is above us, and the devil beneath us. God? what do you mean by
+God? Kindly humanity, which is above us and toward which we are
+ascending; the ideal, evolved from ourselves which, by dint of
+declaring itself and compelling love, will be realized in our
+children. The devil? what is that? the obscure beast, the ravenous,
+blind worm, which we were, and from which we are moving farther and
+farther away.
+
+There is something nearer the mystery than the mind, and that
+something is the instinct. Certainly we are nearer to our origin than
+to our end, and instinct almost explains the origin because it is
+still near at hand, but the mind cannot explain the end because it is
+still so far away! Whence come we? The crawling beast may
+suspect.--Whither go we? How can the beast tell, when he cannot fly?
+
+The bond that binds us fast to earth is not cut. Man bears forever the
+scar of his birth. He has, therefore, always before him evidence of
+how he is connected with infinity _behind_ him; but how he is
+connected, by death, with the life everlasting, _before_ him, he does
+not see.
+
+Instinct, like a glow-worm, lights up the depths from which man comes
+forth, but intelligence casts no light into the boundless expanse on
+high, wherein it loses itself, just at the point where God
+begins.--Ah! how mysterious is God!
+
+Yes, between the intelligence and man's origin, instinct stretches
+like a bridge. Between the intelligence and man's end, there is a
+yawning chasm. The reason cannot cross it. There is no way but to
+leap. Man finds it easy to imagine what lies below; his own weight
+draws him down to a point where he can understand it.
+
+To understand what is above, it is essential to have a power of
+lightening one's self, a wing which man has not. Here instinct acts
+upon the mind in a direction opposed to mental effort.
+
+To some minds this faculty of rising sometimes comes, but man's
+conceptions depend upon his experiences, and the time has passed when
+reliance was placed upon the "wise men," upon those whose conceptions
+far outran their experiences. Perhaps it is better so. Perhaps every
+man ought to form his ideas for himself and no one will know anything
+_for good and all_ until he has earned the right.
+
+Sometimes, for a moment, especially in dreams, but occasionally in his
+waking hours, man _knows_. He has profound intuition; but nothing is
+more fleeting than this sudden glimpse of eternity.
+
+The best of us are blind men haunted by the memory of a flash of
+light.
+
+Which of us has not known, by personal experience, how a man can fly
+away from himself? The sense of mystery, scarcely detected, has
+escaped us, but who has not been conscious of it for a second?
+
+Truth, like love, reveals itself for a second only, but we must
+believe in it--forever.
+
+These thoughts are properly presented here, for everything is in
+everything. One man studies the hyssop, another the oak; Cuvier the
+mastodon, and Lubbock the ant, but they all arrive at the same point,
+a point which includes everything.
+
+Do you know why the gipsies, Bohemians, gitanos, zincali, zingari,
+zigeuners, zinganes, tziganes, romani, romichal,--all different
+appellations of the same wandering race,--arouse such intense interest
+on the part of civilized peoples?
+
+There are two reasons.
+
+The first is, that the gipsy, being very primitive and wild, appears
+among civilized beings as the image of themselves in the past. It is
+as if they were our own ghosts.
+
+When we see them among us, we amuse ourselves, in the shelter of our
+established homes, by thinking regretfully that we no longer have
+before us the broad plains so dear to the beasts we are; that we are
+no longer in constant contact with the earth, the plants, the animals,
+which are the _mothers_ that bore us, and whom we love for that
+reason. They have remained what we were when we left them, and that
+touches us.
+
+The second reason is that they really discovered long ago something of
+the meaning of life.
+
+It is certain that they are magicians. They have seen the hidden
+spring and have a vague remembrance of it; they have retained its dark
+reflection in their glance.
+
+The glance! they know its dormant and insinuating power. They know how
+to subdue weak minds by a glance.
+
+The least skilled in magic among them still believe that the "secret"
+of things is hidden away somewhere under a stone, and in their travels
+through every country on earth they often raise heavy boulders, whose
+peculiar shapes seem to indicate that they may conceal the mystery.
+They never find under the boulders anything but toads and snakes and
+scorpions, but they are skilled at making powerful potions from the
+blood and venom of the reptiles.
+
+They know, also, the secret properties of plants, and that the hemlock
+and belladonna vary in their effects when cut at certain times of the
+year and at certain hours, according to the influence of the seasons
+and the moon's rays.
+
+The gipsies are skilled in the science of poisons. Men and
+women--_roms_ and _juwas_--excel in the art of giving diseases to
+cattle.
+
+Their trades are only pretexts for calling at the houses they pass.
+They are coppersmiths simply because the art of subjecting metals to
+the action of fire was invented by the son of Cain, the progenitor of
+all accursed mortals. And they are saddlers because they like to be
+about horses, dear to all vagabonds.
+
+The gipsies, who were originally worshippers of fire, and now have no
+religion of their own, but always adopt that of the country they are
+passing through, are to mankind what Lucifer is to the angels.
+
+"We come from Egypt, if you please," Zinzara would sometimes say to
+the people of her tribe. "Indeed, that is where we had our homes and
+were a powerful race in the days of Moses. Then our ancestors were
+magicians to the kings of Egypt, who overcame death; but our origin is
+higher and farther away.
+
+"We come from a country where the _Secret Power of the World_ was
+discovered: a dragon guards the mystery on the summit of a lofty
+mountain, in a cavern, out of reach of whatever floods may come.
+
+"Our ancestor Coudra learned from the high-priests the method of
+compelling the dragon to obey him. He entered the cavern and conceived
+the idea of universal knowledge, and resolved to avail himself of it
+in the outside world, in order that he might become a king and mighty
+among men--for why was he poor? Why does poverty exist, why death?
+
+"He had no sooner conceived his project of justifiable rebellion than
+the dragon sought to devour him. Our ancestor eluded him, and believed
+that, by virtue of the secrets he had discovered, he would be
+omnipotent on earth, but suddenly he found that he had almost
+forgotten them all, as if by magic. He no longer remembered any of
+them except those that do harm, those that produce disease, sorrow,
+misery, and death--all the evils from which he would have liked to
+free himself.
+
+"And the high-priests cursed him and his sons. Manou spoke against
+them thus: _They shall dwell outside of cities; they shall possess
+none but broken vessels; they shall have nothing of their own, except
+it be an ass or a dog. They shall wear the clothes they steal from
+the dead; their plates shall be broken; their jewels shall be of iron.
+They shall journey, without rest, from place to place. Every man who
+is faithful to his duty shall hold himself aloof from them. They shall
+have no dealings except with one another. And they shall marry only in
+their own race._
+
+"And the _Tchandalas_ were able to flee the country, but not the
+sentence.
+
+"And that is our present case.
+
+"The crown of Coudra is a broken ring--with sharp points, like a dog's
+collar, and his sceptre is an iron staff, broken but formidable. For
+why does want exist, and pain and death? God is wicked!"
+
+With this tale, set to music, the gipsy queen sometimes lulled her son
+to sleep.
+
+And when, at the entrance to some chateau, she cast a long, malevolent
+glance upon a young mother, who, upon catching sight of her, quickly
+carried her little child within, such thoughts as these would run
+through Zinzara's head: "The secrets that are known to our prophets,
+our dukes and princes and kings, will cause all your cities, your
+churches, and your thrones to tremble on their foundations, for why
+does want exist, and pain and death? The hour will come--we await
+it--when your nations will be scattered to the winds of wrath, unless
+the wise men who invoked a curse on us become their masters--but you
+are too far from their wisdom for that! You will be ours.
+
+"Meanwhile, woe to those of you whom we find alone! We look fixedly
+at them, and the spirit of evil does the rest."
+
+And this is what little Livette saw when she approached the gipsy
+camp.
+
+The whole tribe was there. Their numerous wagons were of different
+sizes, most of them being made in the shape of small oblong houses,
+with little windows, very like the Noah's arks made for children in
+Germany. The gipsies had arranged their wagons side by side, in a
+line, each one opposite a house in the village. Thus the line of
+wheeled houses formed with the houses of the village a winding street,
+which, if prolonged, would have surrounded Saintes-Maries like a
+girdle. Thus, while their sojourn lasted, the gipsies could cherish
+the illusion that they were settled there, that they were inhabitants
+of the village, one dwelling opposite the baker, another opposite the
+wine-shop; but no one forgot that the gipsy houses were built upon
+wheels that turn and can make the tour of the world.
+
+"I pity the tree," says the gipsy, "it looks enviously at me as I
+pass. It is jealous of my ass's feet."
+
+Most of the wagons were patched with boards of many colors, picked up
+or stolen here and there.
+
+As a matter of fact, the wagons of the tribe were placed in the rear
+of the village houses, so that the occupants of those houses, the
+innkeeper or the baker, being busy in the front part of their
+establishments, could naturally dispense with a too frequent
+appearance in the gipsy street.
+
+The nomads alone swarmed there undisturbed. They passed but little
+time in the wagons, except when they were on the road or tired or
+sick; their days were passed in the open air, squatting in the dust,
+or on the steps of the little ladders which they lowered from the
+doors of their wagons to the ground; or else they passed long hours
+lying in the shade under the wagon--smoking their pipes and dreaming.
+
+For the moment, some of the women here and there through the camp were
+intent upon the same occupation: searching, in the bright morning
+light, for vermin among the matted hair of their children, whom they
+held tightly between their knees as in a vise.
+
+From time to time, one of the little fellows would howl with pain,
+when his mother inadvertently pulled or tore out one of his wiry,
+coal-black hairs. Then he would wriggle and squirm to get away, but
+the vise formed by the knees would nip him again and hold him tight,
+and there would be a squealing as of sucking pigs loth to be bled.
+Then blows would rain down and the shrieks redouble. Suddenly the
+urchin that was howling most lustily would cease, and follow, with a
+lively interest, the movements of a chicken from some neighboring
+coop, or the antics of a hunting-dog that had wandered that way and
+was well worth stealing.
+
+The mothers went through with their matutinal task in an automatic
+way that said as clearly as possible: "It is of no use to try to do
+this, for the vermin breed and always will breed; but we must do
+something. It is always a good thing to be busy; and then it makes an
+excellent impression, here under the eye of civilized people. They see
+that we are clean and neat."
+
+"Buy my dog," said one of them with a leer to an open-mouthed
+villager. "You will be well satisfied with his fidelity. He is
+faithful, I tell you! so faithful that I have been able to sell him
+four times.--He always comes back!"
+
+All these women had a coppery, sun-burned, almost black skin, and hair
+of a peculiar, dull charcoal-like black.--Some wore it twisted in a
+heavy coil on top of the head. Several of the younger women let it
+hang in long, snake-like locks over their breasts and backs. Their
+eyes also were a curious shade of black, very bright, like black
+velvet seen through glass. Life shone but dully in them, without
+definite expression. Some mothers were attending to their duties with
+a child on their back, wrapped in a sheet which they wore
+bandoleer-fashion, with the ends knotted at the shoulder. The little
+one slept with his head hanging, tossed and shaken by every movement.
+
+Red, orange, and blue were the prevailing colors of their tattered
+garments, but they were tarnished and faded and almost blotted out by
+layers of dust and filth;--a smoke-begrimed Orient.
+
+Many of the women had short pipes between their teeth. The men who
+lay about here and there, with their elbows on the ground, were almost
+all smoking placidly, their Sylvanus-like eyes fixed on vacancy. They
+made a great show of pride under their rags. Some were asleep under
+the rolling cabins.
+
+The line of wagons along the outskirts of the village was still in
+shadow, but at the head of the line, the first of the wagons, standing
+a little apart, beyond the line of the houses, was in the sunlight.
+This wagon, which was painted and kept up better than the others, was
+Zinzara's, and a few of the villagers had collected in the sunshine in
+front of it, attracted by the notes of the flute and tambourine.
+
+Livette, as she approached the group, had no suspicion that, in the
+wine-shop facing the wagon, behind the curtains of a window on the
+first floor, Renaud had stationed himself, there, at his ease, to
+watch the gipsy, who was playing the flute and dancing at the same
+time, her feet and arms bare.
+
+Zinzara held the flute--a double flute with two reeds diverging
+slightly--with much grace, and blew upon it with full cheeks, raising
+and lowering her fingers to suit the requirements of a weird air,
+sometimes slow, sometimes furiously fast and jerky. Her head was
+thrown back, so that she appeared more haughty and aggressive than
+ever.
+
+As she played upon her flute, Zinzara danced--a dance as mysterious
+as herself. With her bare feet she simply beat time on the ground. Her
+dance was naught but a play of attitudes, so to speak. She constantly
+varied the rhythmical undulations of her flexible, vigorous body,
+whose outline could be traced at every movement beneath the clinging
+material of her dress. When the movement quickened, she stamped her
+feet faster, still without moving from where she stood, as if in haste
+to reach a lover's rendezvous, where languor would replace activity.
+
+Seated a few steps from the dancer, a young gipsy, with a vague,
+dreamy expression, was pounding with his fist, thinking of other
+things the while, upon a large tambourine, to which amulets of divers
+kinds were attached,--Egyptian beetles, mother-of-pearl shells,
+finger-rings, and great ear-rings,--which danced up and down as he
+played.
+
+And the tambourine seemed to say to the double flute:
+
+"Never fear: your mate is watching over you. I am here, father or
+betrothed, I, your strong-voiced mate, and you can sing freely of your
+joy and sorrow; no one shall disturb you; I am on the watch, and for
+you my heart beats in my great, sonorous breast."
+
+But to the gipsy's ear the music of the tambourine said something very
+different; and with a smile upon her lips, blowing into her flute with
+its diverging reeds, raising and lowering her slender fingers over the
+holes, Zinzara, exerting a subtle influence over all about her,
+dressed in soft rags that clung tightly to her form and marked the
+outlines of her hips and of her breast in turn; displaying her tawny
+calves beneath her skirts, which were lifted up and tucked into her
+belt,--Zinzara seemed not to see the spectators.
+
+Twenty or thirty people were looking at her, and still she seemed to
+be dancing for her own amusement; but her witch's eye followed,
+without seeming to do so, the slightest movement of Renaud's head, the
+whole of which could be seen at times between the serge curtains with
+red borders, behind the windows of the wine-shop, under the eaves of
+the house across the way.
+
+When she saw Livette approach, the dancer beat her feet upon the
+ground more rapidly, as if annoyed, and the flute emitted a cry, a
+shrill war-cry, like the sound made by tearing silk quickly.
+
+Livette involuntarily shuddered, but she mingled with the group,
+momentarily increasing in size, and looked on.
+
+Zinzara made a sign, and uttered some strange, guttural words between
+two loud notes--words that were, evidently, a precise command, for a
+gipsy child, who had come to her side a moment before, glided under
+the wagon, whence he emerged armed with a long white stick, with which
+he motioned to the spectators to fall back a little. Then he stationed
+himself in front of Zinzara, in the centre of the first row of
+spectators, and, turning toward them, enjoined silence upon them by
+placing his finger on his lips. The word was passed along, and the
+bystanders ceased their conversation, realizing that _something_ was
+about to happen.
+
+The dance was at an end.--The tambourine ceased to beat time. The
+flute alone sang on in Zinzara's hands, as her fingers moved slowly up
+and down.--Now it gave forth a thin, clear note, like the prolongation
+of the sound made by a drop of water falling in a fountain; it was a
+sweet, insinuating appeal, as melancholy as the croaking of a frog at
+night, on the shores of a pond, at the bottom of an echoing, rocky
+valley.
+
+And, with the end of his wand, the child pointed out to one of the
+spectators something that came crawling out from under the wagon. It
+was a tiny snake, with red and yellow spots, and it drew near,
+evidently attracted by the notes of the flute. Another followed, and
+soon there were several of them--five in all.
+
+When they were in front of the flute-player, between her and the boy
+with the wand, they raised their heads and waved them back and forth,
+slowly at first, then more quickly, keeping time with the flute. The
+serpents danced, and the mind of every spectator involuntarily
+compared their dance with the woman's that he had seen a moment
+before. There was the same undulating movement, the same evil charm,
+and every one was conscious of an uncomfortable feeling at the sight.
+
+Livette, surprised and strangely moved, thought that she was
+dreaming. The spectacle before her was curiously, deplorably in accord
+with the state of her heart. She did not understand its hidden,
+intimate connection with her own destiny, but she felt its baleful
+effects. Zinzara's glance, from time to time, swept over the girl's
+face, but did not rest upon it. On the subject of her own influence,
+Zinzara knew what she knew.
+
+Soft, soft as spun silk, the notes of the flute arose, very soft and
+prolonged, like threads extending from the instrument and winding
+about the necks of the little snakes; and the little snakes followed
+the notes of the flute, which drew them on and on. Zinzara walked
+backward. The little snakes followed her as if they were held fast by
+the notes of the flute as by silken threads. The gipsy stopped, and
+the notes _grew shorter_, so to speak, like the threads one winds
+about a bobbin. Then the snakes approached the sorceress, and as
+Zinzara stooped slowly over them, and put down her hands, still
+holding the flute, upon which she did not cease to play, the snakes
+twined themselves about her bare arms. Thence one of them climbed up
+and wound about her neck, letting his little head, with its wide open
+mouth and quivering tongue, hang down upon her swelling breast. And
+when she stood erect again, two others were seen at her ankles, above
+the rings she wore on her legs. Then she laid aside her flute and
+began to laugh. Her laugh disclosed her regular, white teeth.
+
+"Now," said she, "if any one will give me his hand, I will tell his
+fortune!"
+
+But no hand was put forward to meet hers because of the little snakes.
+
+Zinzara laughed aloud, and her laugh, in very truth, recalled certain
+notes of her double flute.
+
+At that moment, Livette started to walk away.
+
+"Come, you!" said the gipsy quickly,--"you refused to listen to me
+once, but to-day you must be very anxious to find out where your lover
+is, my beauty! Give me your hand without fear, if you are worthy to
+become the wife of a brave horseman."
+
+Livette blushed vividly. Her two young friends arrived just then and
+heard what was said. "Don't you do it!" said one of them in an
+undertone, pulling Livette's skirt from behind; but, Livette, annoyed
+by the gipsy's expression, in which she fancied that she could detect
+a touch of mockery, put out her hand, not without a mental prayer for
+protection to the sainted Marys. The gipsy took the proffered hand in
+her own. The snakes put out their forked tongues. Livette was somewhat
+pale.
+
+They were both very small, the fortune-teller's hand and the maiden's.
+
+Renaud looked on from above with all his eyes, greatly surprised and a
+little disturbed in mind.
+
+The gipsy held Livette's hand in her own a moment, exulting to feel
+the palpitations of the bird she was fascinating. She had hoped to
+intimidate Livette, and the courage the girl displayed annoyed her.
+
+"Your future husband isn't far away, my beauty," said she, "but he is
+not here on your account, never fear! On whose, then? That is for you
+to guess!"
+
+Livette, already somewhat pale, became as white as a ghost.
+
+"That alone, I fancy, is of interest to you, my pretty sweetheart!
+Then I'll say no more to you except this: Beware; the serpent on my
+left wrist just whispered something to me. Look well to your love!"
+
+A shudder ran through the spectators like a ripple over the surface of
+a swamp. One of the snakes was, in fact, hissing gently.
+
+The gipsy released Livette's hand; as the girl turned to go away, she
+came face to face with Rampal. He had been wandering about the village
+since early morning, and had just joined the group, unseen by any one,
+even by Renaud.
+
+Livette recoiled instinctively and in such a marked way that Rampal
+might well have taken it for an affront. Unfortunately, having left
+the front row, she was hemmed in by the crowd on all sides of her.
+
+"Oho! young lady," said Rampal, "so we don't recognize our friends!"
+
+"Good-day, good-day, Rampal," replied Livette, repeating the
+salutation as the custom is in the province; "but let me pass! Make
+room for me, I say!"
+
+"_Sur le pont d'Avignon_," sang the gipsy, with a laugh, "_tout le
+monde paye passage!_"[2]
+
+Renaud, still behind his window, had at last recognized Rampal. Fuming
+with rage, but naturally wary, he considered whether he should rush
+down at once and attack him or wait until Livette had gone.
+
+Rampal did not always need a pretext to kiss a pretty girl,--but here
+was one ready-made for him!
+
+"Do you hear, demoiselle?" said he. "You must pay the tollman of your
+own accord, or else he will pay himself!"
+
+He threw both arms about the poor child's waist. She bent back,
+holding her body and her head as far away from him as possible, but
+the rascal, hot of breath, holding her firmly and forcing her a little
+closer, kissed her twice full upon the lips.
+
+A fierce oath was uttered behind them in the air. Everybody turned,
+and, looking up, discovered Renaud shaking the old-fashioned window,
+which was reluctant to be opened. Two more wrenches and the window
+yielded, flew suddenly open with a great noise of breaking glass, and
+Renaud, standing on the sill, leaped to the ground.
+
+"Ah! the beggar! the beggar! where is the vile cur?"
+
+But Rampal had already leaped upon his horse that was hitched near by
+to the bars of a low window, and was off at a gallop.
+
+He rode as if he were riding a race, half-standing in his stirrups,
+his body bent forward, and plying incessantly and very rapidly a thong
+that was made fast to his wrist, and that drove his horse wild by the
+way it whistled about his ears.
+
+"Coward! coward!" one of the young men present could not refrain from
+shouting after him.
+
+"Coward? oh! no!" said Renaud--"simply a thief! for if he weren't
+riding a horse he never intends to return, the fellow wouldn't run
+away--I know him!"
+
+He turned to poor, frightened Livette.
+
+"Never fear, demoiselle," said he, "he shall not carry our horse to
+paradise with him."
+
+Was it Renaud's purpose, in saying this, to make the gipsy think that
+he was bent upon taking vengeance for the theft of his horse rather
+than for the insult put upon his fiancee? Perhaps so; but the devil is
+so cunning that Renaud himself had no idea that he was capable of such
+craft.
+
+As to the gipsy, she said to herself that Renaud, by jumping out of
+the window, instead of coming quietly down the stairs, had compromised
+his prospects of revenge for the satisfaction of exhibiting his
+gipsy-like agility to her. He did, in truth, jump like a wild cat, and
+rebound as if he were equipped with elastic paws! He was as agile as a
+true _zingaro_! He was as handsome and bold as a highwayman! They are
+gipsies, to all intents, these wandering guardians of mares and
+heifers!
+
+Renaud, who had disappeared long enough to buckle his horse's girth,
+rode by in a few moments upon Prince; the witnesses of the scene just
+enacted were still discussing it.
+
+"Catch him! catch him! eat him, King!" cried twenty young men's voices
+in chorus.
+
+"With the King and the Prince arrayed against him, Rampal is a dead
+man," some one remarked, with a laugh.
+
+Renaud was already at a distance. He had not looked at the gipsy, but
+he felt that her eyes were upon him, and he felt now that they were
+following him from afar; and the feeling caused a pleasurable thrill,
+of which he was conscious, and for which he reproved himself vaguely
+on Livette's account, but without seeking to repress it. Yes, as he
+galloped along in his wrath, he galloped in a particular way in order
+that his wrath might show to good advantage, so that he might appear a
+handsome and graceful horseman, as he was in fact. He was conscious of
+every movement that he made--he fancied that he could see himself, and
+was desirous to make a good appearance, he, the King!
+
+The peacock, in the mating season, has more gorgeous plumage, and
+makes the greatest possible display of it. The nightingale and the
+redbreast have sweeter voices. All alike take pleasure in so arraying
+themselves as to give pleasure.
+
+"Where are you going, Livette?" her two friends asked her.
+
+"I am going to see monsieur le cure. I must have a talk with him, poor
+me! for it was a great sin to listen to that sorceress, you know!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+JOUSTING
+
+
+Both Renaud and Rampal had spears.
+
+As he rode by the Neuf farm, half a league from Saintes-Maries,
+Rampal, who owned nothing in the world but his saddle, and had no
+spear, being at that time simply a drover out of a job, had spied one
+leaning against a fig-tree, and had appropriated it without
+dismounting, had "borrowed it without a word," thinking that he should
+probably need it to defend himself.
+
+Now he was galloping across the fields, leaning forward on his horse's
+neck, with his thong in his boot and the spear resting in the stirrup.
+
+Renaud had mistaken the road in his hot pursuit. Perhaps the gipsy was
+the cause of it, for, in spite of himself, in order to remain within
+her range of vision, Renaud had ridden straight toward the Vaccares,
+while Rampal had just taken the road to Arles, avoiding stratagem in
+order to mislead his pursuer more effectually, for he said to himself
+that Renaud would surely argue that he had made for the middle of the
+island to take refuge in some deserted _jass_.
+
+Renaud divined Rampal's plan.
+
+"He will keep to the road," he suddenly thought, and feeling certain
+that he was right, he turned to the left and rode due west. Rampal,
+having the start of him by a full league, drew rein in the vicinity of
+Grandes-Cabanes, and having planted his spear-head in the ground,
+rested both hands upon it, then placed his feet, one after the other,
+on the hind-quarters of his horse, and stood there for some moments,
+scanning the plain behind him. Between two clumps of tamarisks he
+caught a glimpse of a horseman, like a flash of light, or like a
+rabbit scuttling between two wild thyme bushes--Renaud, beyond
+question! Rampal saw that Renaud, if it were he, was about to take to
+the road, and he himself thereupon left it and rode in the opposite
+direction on a line parallel to that his enemy was following in the
+distance. When Renaud reached the road and turned into it, Rampal had
+the Vaccares in front of him, and there he turned to the left and
+followed the shore. His plan was to cross the main stream of the
+Rhone, and reach the Conscript's Hut, in the middle of the _gargate_,
+the spot where he was confident of finding safe shelter in times of
+serious danger. Unluckily for him, he had been seen--when he was
+standing on his horse watching his man--by a fisherman who was
+crouching on the edge of the canal, fishing for eels with a reed and
+a short line, at the end of which was a bunch of worms, strung and
+twisted together.
+
+"Have you seen Rampal, friend?" said Renaud, stopping his horse short
+as soon as he saw the fisherman, who was just about changing his
+place.
+
+"Ah! King, are you the man who is looking for him?" said the
+fisherman, an old man. "If he has kept to the road he took to get away
+from you,--for I saw he was watching some one behind him,--he ought to
+be on the shore of the Vaccares by this time, and from there, if he
+doesn't go back to Saintes-Maries, he will surely go up toward
+Notre-Dame-d'Amour. You have a good horse, and you can catch him
+between the Vaccares and the Grand' Mar."
+
+Renaud darted away as if he had wings.
+
+After an hour and a half of furious riding,--he was wise enough,
+however, to change his gait several times,-he drew rein, a little
+discouraged; then, after a brief halt and a draught of brandy from the
+flask that never left his holsters, he resumed his headlong race--but
+not until he had thoughtfully allowed his horse to drink a swallow of
+water from the canal.
+
+When he was between the Grand' Mar swamp and the Vaccares, he found
+his own drove taking their midday rest there, under the guidance of
+Bernard, his young assistant.
+
+Horses and bulls were lying motionless on the shore of the Vaccares,
+in the twofold glare from sky and water, for it was well-nigh noon,
+and the light was dazzling.
+
+Bernard was resting likewise, lying on his back with his head on the
+saddle, not far from his horse, which was fettered near by, learning
+to amble.
+
+In front of Renaud lay the pearl-gray Vaccares, gleaming like a huge
+table of polished steel, in the centre of which a veritable white
+islet of sea-mews were sleeping, motionless as statues.
+
+Behind him stretched an ashen-gray plain, which could be seen only in
+spots--where the salt emerged in efflorescent crystals--glistening
+through a vast violet net-work of flowering _saladelles_; for the
+_saladelles_ spread out in broad, graceful tufts, with many
+ramifications, but without foliage, dotted with a multitude of lilac
+blossoms, between which the ground can be seen. And farther away the
+fields of glasswort began, with their plump, juicy leaves; they are a
+beautiful rich green when they are young, but the salt air soon turns
+them blood-red, so that the oldest and those nearest the sea are the
+darkest.
+
+Here and there the stunted tamarisk, with its gnarled trunk, dotted
+the plain, its sparse foliage tinged with pink by the blossoms hanging
+in tiny clusters, which, tiny though they be, are a heavy burden for
+its flexible branches.
+
+And in the dry, seamy bottoms were great patches of _siagnes_,
+_triangles_, _apaiuns_ of every kind, _caneous_ or dwarf reeds used
+in making roofs and matting, thorn-broom and all sorts of aquatic
+plants, bright green, and straight as fields of grain; their angular
+battalions, harvested in summer, go down before the scythe in broad
+half-circles. Above these patches of verdure, which bend and rustle
+with the faintest breath of air, hovered dragon-flies with enormous
+heads,--swallow-like insects, voracious devourers of gnats. They flew
+about with the swallows over the waters where the mosquito is born,
+making a metallic sound among the reeds when their wings of
+transparent, black-veined mica came in contact with them.
+
+Renaud gazed at these familiar things and forgot himself in them. For
+a second he fancied that he was watching his drove there, and that he
+had nothing else to do but remain with his beasts, absorbed, as they
+were, in calm, unreasoning contemplation of the desert that surrounded
+him. He ceased to love, to hate, to desire, and to pursue.
+
+The shadow of wings passed him by. He raised his eyes and saw, above
+his head, two red flamingoes.
+
+"They built their nest here this year," he thought.
+
+But Prince, the good horse, had recognized his favorite mares, and,
+stretching out his neck, opening his nostrils wide to inhale the fresh
+breeze of the swamp and the plain, raising his lips and displaying his
+teeth, he gave a neigh that made all the mares spring to their feet at
+a single bound, the bulls raise their heads, and Bernard himself jump
+up from the ground, spear in hand.
+
+Renaud, pressing his knees together and pulling his horse back, held
+him in hand, although he trembled under him and pranced up and down in
+the soft sand.
+
+At the same time, a sudden gust of the _mistral_ swept across the
+plain and broke the mirror-like surface of the Vaccares into little
+waves.
+
+"If it is Rampal you are looking for," said Bernard, "he isn't far
+away, you may be sure. When he saw me here, all of a sudden--just a
+moment ago--he rode off that way. And as he went out of my sight very
+soon, I believe he has gone into some cabin. You had better look
+around the Mejeane tower."
+
+Renaud was off again.
+
+Suddenly his eyes fell upon a low cabin with its rush-covered roof,
+shaped like a pyramid, or like a stack of straw, and surmounted, as
+they all are, by its wooden cross, bending back as if the _mistral_
+were gradually blowing it over.
+
+The thought came to him: "Rampal is there! His horse must be tired. He
+retraced his steps a short distance without Bernard's seeing him, and
+went into hiding there--hoping that I should be thrown off the scent
+and would ride by. Yes, he is surely there!"
+
+Renaud turned about, and rode straight toward the cabin, keeping a
+sharp lookout; whereupon Rampal, who was really hidden there,
+watching his pursuer through the holes in the wall, rushed out,
+frightening an owl that flew away in dismay, and leaped upon his horse
+which was browsing in hobbles near by, but out of sight, at the bottom
+of a ditch.
+
+The _mistral_, which comes like a cannon-ball when it makes up its
+mind to blow at that time of day, suddenly began to roar. Renaud had
+put his head down to meet the squall, so that he did not perceive this
+manoeuvre of the enemy.
+
+So it was that Rampal seemed suddenly to come up out of the ground,
+not twenty feet from Renaud, who was not taken by surprise, however,
+but rushed at him, brandishing his spear, for all the world like one
+of the knights of the time of Saint Louis, of whom our legends tell.
+(Aigues-Mortes was then in its prime.)
+
+But Camargue is, as every one knows, the mother of the _mistral_--the
+vast sunny plain, with Crau, which, after sending the air up by dint
+of overheating it, is compelled to summon other air in order to
+breathe at all. And thereupon, down the Rhone valley, at the summons
+of the desert, comes a torrent of fresh air, which is the companion of
+the river, and is called the _mistral_. It roared through Renaud's
+open vest as in the belly of a sail, and, taking Prince sidewise, kept
+him back a little. It was no easy matter to leap the ditch. That gave
+the advantage to Rampal, who was now trotting freely along, face to
+the wind.
+
+The ditch was now between the two men, and Rampal's only purpose in
+trotting along the edge of it was to limber up his horse's legs.
+Renaud, abandoning the idea of crossing the ditch for the moment,
+decided to follow along on his side. The two horsemen rode thus for a
+few moments. Rampal had prudently protected his face from the
+_mistral_ with a red silk handkerchief, the ends of which flapped
+about his neck.
+
+Suddenly, taking advantage of a spot where the banks came somewhat
+nearer together, Renaud lifted his horse and landed on the other side
+of the ditch at the very instant that Rampal, having executed the same
+manoeuvre in the opposite direction, landed on the side Renaud had
+left.
+
+Renaud did not find a favorable spot for crossing at once, and Rampal
+gained upon him.
+
+Having at last crossed the obstacle once more, Renaud pursued Rampal
+at full speed, and so rapidly that, when Rampal turned to judge the
+distance between them, he saw Renaud hardly fifty paces behind him.
+
+He had just time to turn about, and waited for his foe, with lance in
+rest, leaning forward in his saddle, his feet planted firmly in the
+broad stirrups.
+
+Renaud, unluckily, was charging against the _mistral_. A sort of hail,
+consisting of sand and of the little snails that cling in myriads to
+the leaves of the _enganes_, beat into his face and angered him.
+
+Five hundred feet away, Bernard was looking on--not saying a word,
+for fear of Rampal, but praying fervently for Renaud, and he fancied
+that he was watching two champions standing on the long ladders in the
+prows of the jousting boats, with their lances held firmly under their
+right arms. Rampal's spear, being suddenly lowered too far by a false
+step of his horse, pricked the heel of Renaud's boot and grazed
+Prince's flank, whereupon he jumped violently aside, as if he were
+avoiding the horns of a heifer.
+
+Renaud's spear tore the sleeve of his enemy's blue shirt and carried
+away the piece.
+
+The horsemen met and passed each other.
+
+Rampal was the first to turn, and rode after Renaud, ready to strike
+him from behind, while he was struggling to stop Prince, who had
+acquired too much momentum; and Prince, hearing the other horse's
+hurried step, and feeling his hot breath behind him, furious at being
+held back, fearing that he would be overtaken, turned about so quickly
+and unexpectedly in his wrath, that Rampal took fright and turned
+again, but involuntarily.
+
+Renaud, finding that his pursuer had once more become a fugitive, gave
+Prince a free rein.
+
+The stallion was off like the wind.
+
+The horsemen sped along, pushed on by the gusts, the wind being now
+behind them.
+
+The mares and heifers, the whole drove, in fact, stood with their
+heads in the air, staring eyes, and nostrils distended, watching the
+two men come down toward them, bending over their horses' necks,
+reins flying, as if pursued by the tempest along the shores of the
+pond, whose waters were dancing and rippling in the wind.
+
+Here and there the little tamarisks, bent almost double, seemed
+likewise to be fleeing from the storm. There were no more gnats or
+dragon-flies in the air. Above the Vaccares the spray was flying. The
+_mistral_ swept everything clean.
+
+Two minutes later, powerless to control their enervated beasts,
+excited as they were by the struggle and the wind, the two adversaries
+rode at full speed through the drove.
+
+Thereupon, inflamed by the sight of their two stallions racing madly
+by, alarmed at the sight of the waving spears, intoxicated by the wild
+wind that found a way into their bodies through their fiery nostrils,
+the mares neighed and reared and started off together on the gallop.
+The heifers followed. Hundreds of hoofs and cloven feet beat the
+ground with a noise like the roaring of a tempest, and the whole
+drove, lashed by the _mistral_, which howled behind them, biting them
+and urging them forward, rolled across the plain like a second Rhone.
+And while Bernard was saddling his horse in hot haste to overtake
+them, the two enemies galloped in the midst of the hurricane as if
+borne on by the stamping of eighty beasts, whose hoofs raised clouds
+of sand and showers of spray and mud in the wind that travelled faster
+than they!
+
+At the head of this whirlwind, and still in the midst of it, Renaud
+succeeded in overtaking Rampal. When he was near enough to touch him,
+he selected the precise moment when his horse was raising his left
+hind foot, to strike him on the right hind-quarter. The right leg,
+just as it was about to strike the ground, bent double under the blow
+of a spear directed by a man riding at a gallop, and Rampal and his
+horse rolled over among the countless galloping hoofs that shook the
+earth.
+
+Bulls and horses leaped over the two bodies lying there, man and
+beast, and when the drove, tired and subdued, came to a stop half a
+league farther on, Renaud, still riding Prince, was holding by the
+bridle his recaptured horse, bleeding only in the flank and at the
+nose.
+
+Standing beside him, with rage in his heart, stained with mud and
+dust, his face bleeding and the skin torn from the palms of the hands,
+Rampal, red as fire, was occupied in rearranging his breeches and
+fastening his belt.
+
+"Wait till next time, Renaud! After this you would expect a man to
+seek revenge, eh?"
+
+But his shrill voice was drowned in the howling of the _mistral_.
+
+"Give me back my saddle!" he shouted in a louder tone.
+
+The drover's saddle is his whole fortune. He cherishes it, loves it,
+takes pride in it.
+
+"Your saddle?" rejoined Renaud suspiciously. "Come with me and get
+it! Bernard will give it to you."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and without another word rode after the
+drove, leading back to it the emaciated horse which Rampal had sadly
+misused.
+
+He was extremely glad that Blanchet had had no part in this duel. He
+recognized Blanchet from afar in among the mares, but sleeker and
+better cared for than the others. A true lady's horse, staunch as he
+was!--And now he would be able to return him to his mistress, as he
+had his former horse, in addition to Prince. And his nostrils dilated
+with the pride of victory. He inhaled long draughts of the bracing
+salt air.
+
+He was thinking of two women--yes, of two, not one only!--who would
+say of him when they heard what had taken place: "That is a man!" And
+Renaud's noble horse shared his master's pride, as he capered about,
+in the liberty accorded him to choose his own pace, with the proud
+bearing of a stallion that had won the race in the sight of his whole
+drove.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+MONSIEUR LE CURE'S ARCHAEOLOGY
+
+
+The cure of Saintes-Maries was a man of about sixty, well preserved,
+very tall and stout, with bright eyes whose light he quenched with
+spectacles, and energetic gestures which he purposely restrained.
+
+The parsonage was near the church, the doorway shaded by a number of
+elms. The house, in accordance with the prevailing custom of the
+province, was whitewashed once a year, outside and in, like the houses
+of the Arabs.
+
+The houses in Saintes-Maries are low. The streets are narrow, and wind
+about to escape the sun. The shadows under the awnings of the little
+shops have a bluish cast. In front of the doors, which open on the
+street, hang transparent curtains of common linen, in some cases of
+very fine net-work, to stop the flies and admit the light after it has
+passed through the sieve, so to speak. And, behind them, the maidens
+of Saintes-Maries are confined like birdlings in a cage, or like very
+dangerous little wild beasts. Are not all maidens to be looked upon
+with more or less suspicion?
+
+The maidens of Saintes-Maries wear the Arles head-dress and the
+neckerchief, with fold upon fold held in place by hundreds of pins, by
+as many pins as a rose-bush has thorns; and where the thick folds of
+the handkerchief open, in the depths of the _chapelle_, you can see
+the little golden cross gleaming upon the firm young flesh rising and
+falling with the maidenly sigh. The apron worn over the ample skirt
+seems like a skirt itself, it is so broad and full, and slender feet
+peep out from beneath it, as agile as the Camargue partridge's red
+claws, that love to scamper swiftly over the fields to escape the
+hunter, knowing that Camargue is broad and space is plentiful.
+
+Many are the pale faces at Saintes, for, whatever they may say, the
+marshes still breed fever, and this country, to which people come to
+be miraculously cured, is, generally speaking, a country of disease;
+but pallor goes well with the wavy black hair, worn in broad puffs on
+the temples and falling upon the neck in two heavy masses which are
+turned up to meet the _chignon_. To help them to forget what is
+depressing in their lives, they resort, here as elsewhere, to
+coquetry--and the rest!--And then they are accustomed to the fever,
+which gives birth to dreams and visions; they tame it, as it were; it
+is not cruel to the people it knows, and does not lead them to the
+cemetery until they are old and gray.
+
+The cemetery is a few steps from the village, a few steps from the
+sea. It lies at the foot of the sand-dunes, surrounded by a low wall.
+The dead and gone villagers of Saintes-Maries lie sleeping there
+between the sea and the desert of Camargue: many fishermen who lived
+in their flat-bottomed boats; many herdsmen who lived on horseback in
+the plain.
+
+All of them alike find there, in death, the things amid which their
+lives have been passed: the salt sand, filled with tiny shells, the
+_enganes_ that grow in spite of everything, reddened by the salt-laden
+winds, and heavy with soda,--and the thin shadow of the pink-plumed
+tamarisk. There they hear the neighing of the wild mares, the shouts
+of the herdsmen contending on the race-course on fete-days, or
+stirring up the black bulls in the arena under the walls of the
+church. They hear the sails flapping, and the _han_ of the bare-legged
+fishermen pushing their flat-bottomed boats or barges into the water;
+and night and day, the pounding of the sea in its efforts to push back
+the island of Camargue, while the Rhone, on the other hand, is
+constantly pushing it into the sea, and adding to its bulk with mud
+and stones brought down from its head-waters. The sea smites the
+island as if it would have none of it, but all in vain,--it, too, can
+but augment its size with the sand it casts up.
+
+And the sand from the sea makes a broad hem of dunes along the shores
+of Camargue.
+
+No one can fail to see that the dunes, those shifting, tomb-like
+hills of sand, must have served as models for the massive pyramids,
+the tombs of kings, in the Egyptian desert.
+
+At the feet of the little pyramids of sand sleep the dead of Camargue.
+
+But whither has the thought of death led us? Why do we tarry here,
+while Livette is timidly lifting the knocker at monsieur le cure's
+door?
+
+The blow echoed within the house, in the empty hall. Livette was much
+perturbed. What was she to say? Where should she begin? The beginning
+is always the most difficult part. She would like to run away now, but
+it is too late. She hears steps inside. Marion, the old servant, opens
+the door.
+
+Marion has a practised eye. When any one knocks at Monsieur le cure's
+door, she knows, simply by examining his face, what he wants, and
+frames her answers accordingly, on her own responsibility; for
+Monsieur le cure is subject to rheumatism: he suffers from fever, too,
+and Marion nurses Monsieur le cure! If he listened to Marion, he would
+nurse himself so carefully that all the sick people would have to die
+unshriven, without extreme unction, for Marion would always have a
+good reason to give to prevent him from going out by day or night,
+when the _mistral_ was blowing or the wind was from the east, summer
+or winter, rain or shine.
+
+But Monsieur le cure would smile and do just what he chose. He was a
+good priest. He never failed in his duty. He loved his parishioners.
+He assisted them on all occasions with his purse and his advice. He
+was beloved by them all.
+
+He loved his parishioners, his commune, and his curious church, which
+was once a fortress; he was familiar with the shape of its every
+stone. He loved it both as priest and as archaeologist, for Monsieur
+le cure is a scholar, and his church is, in very truth, one of the
+most interesting monuments in France, with its abnormally thick, high,
+and threatening walls, crowned with jutting galleries and surmounted
+by crenelated battlements, with an unobstructed view of sea and land
+in all directions, and overlooked by four turrets, and a tower in the
+centre,--the highest of all,--from whose belfry the alarum bell, in
+the old days, often aroused the country-side, repeating in its
+shrillest tones: "Here come the heathens, good people of
+Saintes-Maries! Attention! Come and shut yourselves up here! Make
+ready your arrows and the boiling oil and pitch!"--Or else: "Hasten to
+the shore, good people of Saintes-Maries! A French vessel is sinking!"
+
+And to this day it seems still to say, to all, far and near: "I see
+you! I see you!"
+
+One could go on forever describing the church of Saintes-Maries, and
+relating anecdotes concerning it.
+
+Behind the battlements at the top, and enclosing the roof of flat
+stones, runs a narrow pathway, where the archers and patrols in the
+old days used to make their rounds, surrounded by countless
+sea-swallows. Along the ridge-pole of the roof, of overlapping broad
+flat stones, between which thick tufts of _nasques_ are growing, rises
+a high carved comb, in ogive-like curves, surmounted by fleurs-de-lis.
+
+All this is beautiful and grand, but there is a little thing of which
+the villagers are as proud as of the bell-tower and the turrets, and
+that is a marble tablet, about five courses in length by three in
+height, on which two lions are represented. One is protecting its
+whelp; the other seems to be protecting a little child, as if it were
+its own offspring. It seems that this tablet was carved by a Greek
+workman long, long ago.
+
+The marble is set into the southern wall of the church, beside the
+small door.
+
+You enter. The ogive arch of the nave compels you to raise your eyes
+to a great height. And as you enter by the main door, your attention
+is attracted by a romanesque arch, directly in front of you, at the
+far end of the church, at least five metres below the ogive arch of
+the nave; in the centre of this arch are the blessed reliquaries,
+resting upon the sill of an opening like a window, flanked by two
+columns. From that position they are lowered once in every year at the
+ends of two ropes.
+
+The choir is some few feet higher than the flagging of the church. It
+is reached by two symmetrical staircases, between which is the grated
+door leading down into Sara's crypt. That door you can see, directly
+in front of you, at the end of the passage through the centre of the
+church, between the rows of chairs. One would say that it was the
+air-hole of a dungeon.
+
+Down below, in the damp crypt, with its low arched roof and naked
+walls,--a veritable dungeon,--upon a mutilated marble altar, is the
+little glass shrine containing the relics of Saint Sara, the patron
+saint of the gipsies. There, amid the smoke of their candles, in an
+atmosphere made foul by human exhalations, you can see them once a
+year, huddled together in a dense crowd, mumbling their questionable
+prayers.
+
+In the days of the Saracen invasions this crypt served as a storehouse
+for supplies, when all the inhabitants of the little village were
+forced to take refuge in the fortress-church.
+
+Aigues-Mortes has her walls and her Constance Tower, massive as Babel;
+Nimes has her Arena and her Fountain--and the Pont du Gard, superb in
+its beauty, is also hers; Avignon her bridges, her ramparts, and her
+clocks with figures of armed men to strike the hours; Tarascon her
+Chateau, mirrored in the Rhone; Baux the fantastic ruins of her
+houses, hollowed, like the cells of a bee-hive, out of the solid rock
+of the hill-side; Montmajour has her tombs of little children, also
+dug, side by side, in the solid rock, and to-day filled with earth and
+flowers, like the troughs at which doves drink; Orange has her theatre
+and her triumphal arch; Arles has her theatre with the two pillars
+still upright in the centre; she has Saint-Trophime, too, with its
+sculptured facade and its _Allee des Alyscamps_, bordered with
+Christian sarcophagi and lofty poplars. But Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
+has her church, which Monsieur le cure would not give for all the
+treasures of the other towns!
+
+Marion saw plainly that Livette was depressed; Marion was touched when
+Livette said: "I must see Monsieur le cure," and as her master would
+not be seriously discommoded, there being no occasion for him to leave
+the house, Marion ushered Livette into the parlor.
+
+It was a whitewashed room, but the cure had transformed it into a
+veritable museum, and the walls were completely hidden behind wooden
+cabinets, made by himself, and all filled with his collections.
+
+There were pieces of antique pottery and of rainbow-hued antique
+glass. There were old medals.
+
+One of the latter attracted Livette's attention. It represented a bull
+in the act of falling; one of his fore-legs had given way. A man, his
+conqueror, had seized him by the horns. That Grecian medal was struck
+centuries upon centuries ago. A label explained it to Livette, who
+thought at first that it was Renaud. Life is all repetition.
+
+There were collections of plants and boxes filled with shells, and
+also many stuffed birds, all the varieties found in Camargue. For more
+than thirty years, fishermen and hunters had presented Monsieur le
+cure with curious objects and animals. Here was an otter from the
+Rhone, there a beaver, with his trowel-shaped tail and hooked teeth.
+It is a question of serious importance whether the beavers do not
+injure the dikes of the Rhone. The important point, you see, is that
+the water from the swamps should empty into the river or the sea
+through the canals, which run in all directions. Therefore, the dikes
+must hold firm and not let the Rhone overflow the swamps. And the
+beavers, they say, destroy the dikes. They gnaw into them when the
+great freshets come, to avoid the drift, and take refuge inside; and
+when the water comes in after them, they make a vertical hole through
+which to escape, and there is your dike, undermined, eaten into by the
+water! That is a bad state of affairs.
+
+Livette raised her eyes. A reptile, with his mouth open, was hanging
+from the ceiling; he was very fat, and well he might be! he was a
+little crocodile, the last one killed in Camargue, a very long while
+ago!
+
+In every nook left free by the natural curiosities some pious image
+was to be seen. Here the two Maries in their boat. There the Holy
+Women wrapping the Christ in his shroud. In another place, Magdalen at
+La Baume, kneeling in front of the death's-head. But Livette saw no
+image of Saint Sara.
+
+Livette sat down and waited. Monsieur le cure did not come. The fact
+was, that Monsieur le cure, who had already written two monographs,
+one entitled _La Cure de Boismaux_, and the other _La Villa de la
+Mar_, was at that moment at work upon a third: _Concordance of the
+Legends of the Blessed Maries_, with this sub-title: _Concerning the
+strange and regrettable confusion that seems to exist between Saint
+Sara and Marie the Egyptian._
+
+_La Cure de Boismaux_ also had a sub-title: _Monograph concerning the
+domains of the Chateau d'Avignon in Camargue._ Monsieur le cure
+recalled the fact that the domains of the Chateau d'Avignon formerly
+constituted a separate commune. That commune naturally had a cure, and
+in those days the proprietor of the Chateau d'Avignon was General
+Miollis, brother of the Bishop of Digne mentioned by Monsieur Victor
+Hugo in _Les Miserables_ under the name of Myriel.
+
+In a special chapter, Monsieur le cure sought, to no purpose, to find
+a reason, telluric or otherwise, for the fact that the estates of the
+Chateau d'Avignon are particularly subject to invasion by locusts,
+which sometimes have to be fought in Camargue, as in Africa, by
+regiments.
+
+As to the _Concordance_, that was a very important and very necessary
+work. It was based, in great measure, upon the authority of the _Black
+Book_. That Latin work, preserved in the archives of Saintes-Maries,
+was written, in 1521, by Vincent Philippon, who signed himself: 2000
+Philippon![3] (Jesus himself did not disdain the pun.) There is a
+French translation of the _Black Book_. It was published in 1682, and
+begins thus:
+
+    "Au nom de Dieu mon oeuvre comancee
+    Par Jesus-Christ soit toujours advancee.
+    Le Saint-Esprit conduise sagement
+    Ma main, ma plume, et mon entendement."[4]
+
+Here follows the true version of the story of the patron saints of
+Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer.
+
+Marie Jacobe, mother of Saint James the Less, Marie Salome, mother of
+Saint James the Greater and of Saint John the Evangelist, came not
+alone to the shores of Camargue. The boat without sail or oars
+contained also their servants Marcella and Sara, Lazarus and all his
+family, and several of the Christ's disciples.
+
+Monsieur le cure would prove, with documents to sustain him, that Mary
+Magdalen was not in the boat. She came to Provence by some other
+means, no one can say by what miracle.
+
+With the exception of the two Maries and Sara, all the passengers upon
+the miraculous craft dispersed in different directions, preaching and
+making converts.
+
+The holy women did not leave Camargue, the island in the Rhone,
+divided at that time into a great number of small islands by the
+ponds--a veritable archipelago, called _Sticados_ and inhabited by
+heathens. In those days, all these small islands, formed by the
+swamps, were covered with forests and filled with wild beasts. And
+this delta of the Rhone was infested with crocodiles.
+
+Now, a long, long time after the death of the holy women, a hunter,
+followed by his dogs, was passing over the spot where they lay buried
+in unknown graves; he fell in with a hermit there, beside a spring.
+
+"My lord," said the hermit, "I had a revelation in a dream last night.
+In the sand beside this spring repose the bodies of three sainted
+women!"
+
+The hunter was a Comte de Provence. His palace was at Arles, and the
+cure had every reason to believe that he was Guillaume I., son of
+Boson I., famous for his liberality to the church.
+
+It was in 981. This Guillaume had overcome the Saracens, and Conrad
+I., King of Bourgogne, his suzerain, loved and respected him.
+
+The prince, having listened to the hermit's tale, rode away musing
+deeply; not long after, he returned and caused a church in the form of
+a citadel to be built at that point of the coast, in the very centre
+of a spacious enclosure surrounded by moats.
+
+Then he made known throughout Provence that special privileges would
+be accorded to all those who should build houses between the church
+and the moat.
+
+Thus was founded the Villa-de-la-Mar--which is in fact a town
+(_ville_), although it is too often spoken of as a village, under its
+other name of Saintes-Maries.
+
+The Comtes de Provence have always granted special privileges to the
+town.
+
+Under Queen Jeanne, a guard was stationed all the time at the top of
+the church-tower to watch the ships and make signals. Sentinels were
+obliged to call to one another and answer every hour during the night.
+The people of Saintes-Maries were also exempted by the queen from
+payment of tolls and the tax upon salt.
+
+Monsieur le cure explains all these things in his book, which is very
+interesting. He also describes therein, "as in duty bound," the
+discovery of the sacred bones. In 1448, King Rene, being then at Aix,
+his capital, heard a preacher declare that Saintes Marie-Jacobe and
+Salome were certainly buried beneath the church of Villa-de-la-Mar.
+
+Rene at once consulted his confessor, Pere Adhemar, and sent a
+messenger to the Pope, asking that he be authorized to make search
+underground in the church. The authorization was given in the month of
+June in the same year. The Archbishop of Aix, Robert Damiani, presided
+at the search.
+
+They found the spring; near the spring was an earthen altar; at the
+foot of the altar a marble tablet with this inscription, upon which
+the good cure descants at great length:
+
+          D.       M.
+    IOV. M. L. CORN. BALBUS
+        P. ANATILIORUM
+          AD RHODANI
+      OSTIA SACR. ARAM
+          V. S. L. M.
+
+Lastly, they found the bones of the saints, perfectly recognizable,
+and, in addition, a head sealed up in a leaden box, which, according
+to the cure, was the head of Saint James the Less, brought from
+Jerusalem by Marie-Jacobe, his mother.
+
+The bones, having been devoutly taken from their resting-place, were
+with great ceremony bestowed in shrines of cypress wood. The king was
+present with his court. The papal legate was also there, and an
+archbishop, ten or twelve bishops, a great number of ecclesiastical
+dignitaries, professors, and learned doctors. The chancellor of the
+University of Avignon, too, and--so the reports of the proceedings set
+forth--three prothonotaries of the Holy See and three notaries public.
+
+And so nothing is more firmly established than the authenticity of the
+relics of the saints.
+
+But various apocryphal legends had appeared to throw doubt upon the
+truth, and Monsieur le cure was at work upon the following passage
+while Livette, with increasing uneasiness, was awaiting him in the
+parlor.
+
+"Among the popular fallacies," wrote the cure, "which destroy pure
+tradition, we must stigmatize as one of the most deplorable, I may say
+one of the most pernicious, that one which insists that among the
+passengers of the miraculous craft was a third Saint Marie, surnamed
+the Egyptian. It is downright heresy! How could it have taken root,
+and how far does it extend?"
+
+Monsieur le cure proposed to retouch that last phrase forthwith, and
+for a very good reason.
+
+"Without doubt," he continued, "the Egyptians, or Bohemians, or
+gipsies, by manifesting, from remote times, particular veneration for
+Saint Sara, who was, according to their ideas, an Egyptian and the
+wife of Pontius Pilate, have contributed to the formation of an absurd
+legend, but this one has its source, or its root, in something
+different; there is an episode of a boat in the life of the Egyptian,
+which assists the error by causing confusion."
+
+Monsieur le cure proposed to return to that paragraph also.
+
+"Born in the outskirts of Alexandria, Marie the Egyptian left her
+family to lead the life of shame she had chosen, in the great city.
+Coming to a river, she desired to cross it in a boat, and having not
+the wherewithal for her passage, she paid the boatman in an impure
+manner.
+
+"Later, she undertook a journey to Jerusalem with a great number of
+pilgrims, and on that occasion again she paid the expenses of her
+journey in diabolical fashion, especially if we remember that those
+whom she enticed into evil ways were devout pilgrims! And so, when she
+presented herself at the door of the temple, an invisible and
+invincible force held her back. She could not gain admission there."
+
+Monsieur le cure was better satisfied with that, and took a pinch of
+snuff.
+
+"She thereupon withdrew to the desert, where she lived forty-seven
+years. Her image appeared one day to the monk Sosimus at Jerusalem.
+She appeared before him naked and begged him to come and confess her.
+He obeyed, and went into the desert. He found her, naked, indeed, but
+very old. And Sosimus was convinced of her saintliness because she had
+the power of walking on the water. He listened to her confession. She
+died in the odor of sanctity, as decrepit and horrible to look upon as
+she had been fair and pleasant to the sight. A lion dug a grave for
+her with his claws in the sand of the desert.
+
+"The Egyptian's long penance had redeemed her life, therefore, and
+under Louis IX. the Parisians dedicated a church to her, which bore
+the name of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne,--corrupted at a later period to
+_La Gypecienne_ and then to _La Jussienne_. This church was on Rue
+Montmartre, at the corner of Rue de la Jussienne.
+
+"The church contained a stained window representing the saint and the
+boatman, with this inscription: _How the saint offered her body to the
+boatman to pay her passage._[5]
+
+"We must not, then, in any case, confound Saint Sara, a contemporary
+of the Christ, with Marie the Egyptian, who lived in the fifth
+century,--a fact that cuts short all controversy.
+
+"It is very fortunate," continued Monsieur le cure, well pleased with
+his somewhat tardy conclusion, "that such a sinner was not among those
+on board the boat of our Maries-de-la-Mer, for in that boat, as we
+have said above, there were several of the Christ's disciples.
+_Spiritus quidem promptus est; caro autem infirma._"[6]
+
+Monsieur le cure took snuff, he removed and replaced his spectacles.
+Monsieur le cure forgot himself. He went over all the early pages of
+his treatise, he struck out and interlined; he struggled with
+rebellious words. From time to time, he adjusted his spectacles more
+firmly, and opened and consulted an ancient book of great size. He was
+very busy, very deeply absorbed in his favorite employment. He forgot
+that somebody was waiting for him, and poor Livette, all alone in the
+parlor, with the dead birds and the shells, was sadly disturbed in
+mind. The melancholy that possessed her was not dissipated--far from
+it!--by the place in which she found herself.
+
+All the dead birds, most of which she recognized as birds of passage,
+reminded her of the weariness of winter, the season when the
+wave-washed island is immersed in fog.
+
+There were screech-owls, the pale-yellow owls that live in
+church-steeples and at night drink the oil in the church-lamps;
+vultures that come down from the Alps and Pyrenees in times of
+excessive cold; the ash-colored vulture that lives at Sainte-Baume.
+There are little tomtits, called _serruriers_ (locksmiths), which are
+found only on the banks of the Rhone, and _pendulines_, so called
+because they hang their nests like little pendulums from the flexible
+branches swaying to and fro above the water; and _stocking-makers_,
+whose nests resemble the tissue of a knitted stocking; and the
+_alcyon_, that is to say, the _bleuret_ or kingfisher; and the
+_siren_, of the brilliant diversified plumage, called also
+_honey-eater_, which flies north in the month of May, and spends its
+winters by preference in Camargue. There was a stork, that probably
+considered Camargue, between the dikes of the Rhone, a little like
+Holland. There, too, was the heron with its frill of delicate
+feathers, falling like a long fringe over its throat. Livette knew it
+only by the name of _galejon_, bestowed upon it in that neighborhood
+because the herons' favorite place of assemblage was the pond of
+Galejon. There was one that bore on its pedestal the date: 1807, and
+the words: _Purchased at Arles market_; it was of a bluish slate
+color, and had on its head three slender black feathers, a foot in
+length. Then there were flamingoes galore, for they sometimes build
+their nests by myriads in the marshes of Crau, sitting astride their
+nests which are as tall as their legs. And the divers! and grebes! and
+penguins, which are seldom seen! And the rascally pelican, called by
+the people thereabouts _grand gousier_!
+
+Livette fancied that she could hear in the distance the mournful,
+heart-rending cry of the birds of passage, rising above the roar of
+the wind and the sound of the river shedding its tears into the
+ocean; dominating the mysterious sounds that fill the darkness. How
+many times had she heard the cries of cranes and petrels and Egyptian
+curlews over the Chateau d'Avignon in the season when the nights are
+long, when the sight of the fire rejoices the heart like a living
+thing full of promise, when the blackness of death envelops the world.
+The birds remind her also of the Christmas evenings, the evenings when
+the logs blazing in the huge fire-place and the many lamps seem to
+say: "Courage! the night will pass." And it is then that the wheat
+shows its green stalk, saying likewise: "Yes, courage! bad weather,
+like all other, comes to an end at last."
+
+Livette mused thus, and mechanically raised her eyes to the ceiling,
+from which the crocodile was hanging.[7]
+
+Livette did not say to herself that there was, somewhere on the other
+side of the great sea, in the same Egypt to which Saint Joseph and the
+Virgin Mary fled to protect the Child Jesus from the persecution of
+King Herod, a great river, the mighty brother of the Rhone, and that
+in the hottest hours of the day, on the islands in the Nile, the
+crocodiles crawl in great numbers out upon the overheated sands to
+expose their backs to the rays of a sun as hot as any oven.
+
+She did not say to herself that Saint Sara, the swarthy patron saint
+of the gipsies, is called by them the Egyptian, and that they water
+their gaunt horses in the Nile as well as in the Rhone. She could not
+say to herself--because she knew it not--that the Egyptians inherit
+from the Hindoos a debased sort of magic, and that it was the same
+sort, even more debased without doubt, that gave Zinzara her power.
+
+Nor did Livette know that Zinzara carried in one of the boxes in her
+ambulatory house--between a crocodile from the Nile and a sacred ibis,
+both found in an Egyptian crypt--the mummy of a young girl, six
+thousand years old, whose face, from which the bandages had been
+taken, wore a mask of gold. She could conceive no connection between
+the ibis of the Nile and yonder creature of the same name killed
+within the year on the shore of the Vaccares, but she underwent the
+influence of all these mysterious connecting currents to which space
+and time are naught.
+
+The lifeless creatures, scattered all about her, lived again by virtue
+of the power of retaining their form forever. And fear seized upon
+her, for suddenly the mad idea, at once vague and precise, entered her
+mind of a resemblance between the profile of the great reptile hanging
+from the ceiling and the lower part of the gipsy queen's face.
+
+Livette thought that she must be ill, and rose to go, determined to
+wait no longer, but as she put out her hand to the door she uttered a
+cry. A centipede was crawling along the key, as lively as you please.
+She recoiled, and saw upon the white wall, at about the level of her
+head, a _tarente_, that seemed to be watching her with its pale-gray
+eyes. The _tarente_ is inoffensive, but Livette knew nothing of that.
+It is the Mauritanian _gecko_, which abounds in Provence, a reptile
+repugnant to the sight, with gray protuberances on the head and back
+like those upon cantaloupe melons. And then the little fellow, the
+tiny creature, resembles the crocodile!--Surely, Livette has the
+fever.
+
+"What's the matter, my child?"
+
+Monsieur le cure has entered the room. He has a kindly air that
+comforts the poor child at once.
+
+He points to a chair. She sits down and dares not say a word. Where
+shall she begin?
+
+He urges her.
+
+"Well, my child?"
+
+He closes his eyes, that he may not embarrass her by his glance, which
+he knows to be searching. He has left his spectacles up-stairs on his
+great book. He closes his eyes; and with compressed lips, presses his
+jaws against each other to a sort of rhythm, so that you can see his
+temples bulge out and subside like a fish's gills. It is a nervous
+affection. His hands are folded on his waist; he clasps his fingers
+and plays at making them revolve about one another, mechanically; but
+he is keenly attentive. Monsieur le cure loves the souls of his
+fellow-men. He knows that they suffer, that life is infinite, and that
+they veer about and call to one another in the boundless expanse of
+space and time, like birds in a storm. He is reflecting. He is a
+kind-hearted priest. He is imbued with the spirit of the Gospel. He
+is indulgent. Does he not know that some great saints have been great
+sinners? He desires to be kind. He knows how to be.
+
+What can be the matter?
+
+At last, Livette speaks. She tells him everything; the gipsy's first
+appearance, her refusal to give her the oil she asked for insolently,
+with jeering remarks about extreme unction; then of the ominous spell
+she cast upon her, realized even now perhaps; the change in her
+Renaud's character, his coldness, his flight; and then, that very
+morning, the scene of the snakes; how she had been attracted--partly
+by curiosity, no doubt, but also by her conviction that she should
+hear something of Renaud. And how she gave her hand to the gipsy to
+have her fortune told! That, she had done against her inclination! She
+knew that it was wrong. Who would have dared say a moment before that
+she would commit such a sin? But she was afraid of seeming cowardly,
+not because of what the world would say, but because of _her_, the
+gitana, in whose presence she deemed it her duty to display pride and
+courage. She felt that she was very hostile to her. She was afraid of
+her, and yet, in her despite, she would defy her. She was the stronger
+of the two.--At last, she arrives at her most shocking avowal--she is
+jealous. A terrible thought has come into her mind; is it possible
+that Renaud could----? But no. Did he not, to save her from Rampal,
+risk his life by leaping down from a first-floor window the whole
+height of the house? To be sure, Rampal had stolen a horse from
+Renaud, and Renaud had been looking for him for a long time----
+
+Livette is undone. She has glanced at Monsieur le cure, who, before
+replying, is listening to his own thoughts, in order not to be
+diverted from the matter in hand. He is still playing with his clasped
+fingers, making them revolve about one another.
+
+Around them the swans, the pelican, the red flamingo, the petrel, the
+ibis, look on with their eyes of glass imbedded in those heads that
+have lived! There they stand, those phantom birds, with wings
+outspread and one claw put forward, exactly similar in shape, color,
+and plumage to the birds that are soaring above the Nile and the
+Ganges, beyond seas, at this moment, and no less like other birds that
+lived six thousand years ago.
+
+The reptile on the ceiling, laughing down at them with his numerous
+long, sharp teeth, does, in very truth, resemble some one a
+little--but whom?
+
+Livette, as she puts the question to herself, suddenly comes to the
+conclusion that she is insane, utterly insane, to have had such an
+idea! She smiles at it herself. And she seems to _feel_ her smile. She
+does feel it. She fancies she can see it!
+
+And at the moment she is conscious of a sensation--and a painful
+sensation it is--of being there, in that same room, surrounded by
+those creatures and in the presence of a priest--_for the second time
+in her life_!
+
+Yes, all her present surroundings _she has seen before_--this that is
+happening to her _has happened before_. But the first time was a long
+while ago, oh! such a long while! The great reptile on the ceiling
+remembers, perhaps. That is why it laughs.--But she has forgotten _all
+about it_. Why is she here? She no longer knows even that. She was a
+fool to come here!
+
+This Camargue country, you see, is the home of malignant fever. It
+rises from the swamps in the sunshine, with fetid odors, exhalations
+that disturb the brain and the action of the blood. From the dead
+vegetation, from the dead water, bad dreams and fever rise like vapor.
+There is an _evil atmosphere_ there; and the _evil eye_ too, thinks
+Livette.
+
+But who can say of what the mummy lying in Zinzara's wagon is thinking
+all this time--the mummy of which Livette knows nothing, and which is
+of the same age as Livette, plus six thousand years? Like Livette, it
+has wavy hair, very long, but somewhat faded by time. It was once as
+black as jet like that of the women of Arles. The mummy is of the same
+age as Livette, plus six thousand years! The gipsies believe that so
+long as the dead body retains its shape, something of its spirit
+continues to dwell within it. Zinzara affirms that this mummy, which
+she procured in Egypt, speaks to her sometimes and tells her things.
+
+Ah! if we should undertake to go to the bottom of the simplest facts,
+how they would puzzle us! Our Saracen mares of Camargue, sisters of
+Al-Borak, Mahomet's white mare, and the bulls of the Vaccares,
+brothers of Apis, sometimes absent-mindedly take into their mouths, in
+the heart of the swamps, the long, gently-waving stalk of the
+mysterious lotus that lives three lives at once, in the mud with its
+root, in the water with its stalk, in the blue air with its flower.
+
+Not without reason do the zingari, descendants of Coudra, flock to the
+crypt of the three-storied church, there to adore the shrine of Sara,
+Pilate's wife--the Egyptian woman.
+
+Monsieur le cure, who is a profound student, is revolving all these
+things confusedly in his mind--with no very clear understanding of
+them himself--and pondering them.
+
+Ah! if he could, how quickly he would sweep the island clear of the
+gipsy vermin! But he cannot. Tradition forbids. Sara in the crypt is
+their saint. There is a mixture of pagan and Christian in the affair,
+painful to contemplate certainly, but with which he has no right to
+interfere. The essential thing is that the Christian shall triumph
+over the pagan, that God shall prevail against Satan--for certain it
+is, whatever the gipsies may say, that they are not descended from the
+wise king who was a negro and who brought the myrrh to Jesus.
+
+How to protect Livette?
+
+"Do not remain alone with your thoughts, my child. Carry your rosary
+always with you, and tell your beads often, not mechanically but with
+your whole heart. Confide your sorrows to your good grandmother, whose
+Christian sentiments I well know. That simple-minded old woman has a
+great heart.
+
+"Avoid the town. Tell your father--who has always done as you wished,
+nor has he had reason to repent of so doing--to have an eye to his
+house, and never to leave you alone. Avoid Renaud for some little
+time; at all events, do not seek him. He must have an opportunity to
+read his own heart clearly; we must not--by trying to bring him back
+to you--help him to mistake his affection for you, which is not,
+perhaps, so deep as it should be. I will speak to him myself when I
+have an opportunity. The day after to-morrow is the day of the fete at
+Saintes-Maries. Do not fail to be present; bring us that day a heart
+filled with faith and with the desire to do what is right. You will
+meet many unfortunates there. Turn your eyes toward those who are more
+wretched than yourself, and by comparing their lot with yours, you
+will see how fortunate you are, who have youth and good health.
+
+"The health of the soul depends upon ourselves. You will save yours.
+
+"You will be the one, on the day of the fete, to sing the solo of
+invocation just as the reliquaries descend--I ask you to do it, and,
+if need be, I will lay the duty upon you as a penance.
+
+"She who thinks on God and the holy women forgets all earthly ills.
+Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. They who fear shall be
+reassured. Blessed are they who weep, for they shall be comforted----"
+
+Monsieur le cure broke off abruptly. He realized, the kind-hearted
+man, that his discourse was, by force of habit, degenerating into a
+commonplace sermon, and, rising from his chair, he walked quickly
+toward the door, bestowing an affectionate tap on the trembling
+maiden's cheek with two fingers of the hand that held his snuff-box,
+saying to her in a fatherly tone:
+
+"Go, little one; you have a good heart. The wicked can do naught
+against us. I will pray for you at Mass. Everybody in the country
+loves you. Have no fear, my daughter."
+
+Livette took her leave. The cure, left to himself, sighed. He saw that
+Livette was confronted by an ill-defined, strange, diabolical peril,
+of the kind that cannot be turned aside, that God alone can avert.
+
+"It is fate," he muttered, employing unthinkingly a word of twofold
+signification.[8] "It is fate," he repeated. "Life is a sea of
+troubles, and God is mysterious."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+ON THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH
+
+
+Renaud, after his victory, dismounted for a moment, and, sitting down
+beside Bernard, on the shore of the Vaccares, where the cattle and
+mares of his drove had resumed their attitude of repose, he set about
+reviewing recent events in his mind.
+
+To overturn his projected marriage, to ruin his future for the sake of
+the gipsy, for the sake of the unworthy passion that was at work
+within him--most assuredly Renaud had no such idea.
+
+When the first fury of his desire was worked off by wild leaps and
+bounds, after the fashion of his horse Prince, he found a way to be
+reconciled with himself. His rugged honesty was impaired. He would try
+to satisfy his passion for the accursed gipsy when occasion offered;
+and that, he felt very sure, would do Livette no wrong!
+
+Like a clever casuist, he combated his own instinctively honest
+impulses with arguments which he invented with much labor, and then
+complacently refined and elaborated, playing tricks upon himself.
+
+Now that he could boast of having fought Rampal on Livette's
+account,--omitting in his thoughts the other two reasons he had had
+for fighting, namely, his determination to recover the stolen horse
+and his desire to display his strength and courage to Zinzara,--he
+could return to the Chateau d'Avignon with his head in the air, and
+meet his fiancee again as if nothing had happened.
+
+Why, after all, should he be ashamed? Had he not established a fresh
+claim to Livette's gratitude and the esteem of her relatives?
+
+He would take poor Blanchet back to her,--Blanchet, of whom she was so
+fond,--and he could tell old Audiffret that the stolen horse was once
+more browsing, with the drove, on the reed-grass of the estate.
+
+No: after mature reflection, he was sure that there was nothing that
+need make him ashamed.
+
+Indeed, when one is not married, is he required to be so absolutely
+faithful? And what is a man to do, when things fall in his way?
+
+The eyes see before one has had an opportunity to prevent them! Even
+after marriage, can one refrain from being moved by the sight of
+youthful loveliness? Can one control the movements of his blood?
+Desire is not a sin, and so long as Livette knew nothing, so long as
+she did not suffer through him, what reason had he, in all frankness,
+for self-reproach?
+
+Nothing had come about by his procurement. He was still determined not
+to speak to the gipsy woman--but he would be a great fool not to put
+out his hand if the golden peach should offer itself to him
+voluntarily.
+
+And the salt breeze that blew across the rushes, arousing the passions
+of the wild cattle, rushed through his veins, causing the blood to
+rise in sudden flushes to his cheeks.
+
+Of what avail against that breeze, which the heifers inhale with
+delight, is the "I will not" of a young man who feels his youth? The
+good Lord forgives it in others. "I have been worrying a great deal
+over a very small matter of late," thought Renaud. And he sagely
+concluded that he would return at once to Saintes-Maries, to set
+Livette's mind at rest, as it was his duty to do first of all, without
+avoiding or seeking out the other.
+
+Meanwhile, what had Livette been doing?
+
+When she left the cure, almost at the same moment that Renaud was
+unhorsing Rampal, Livette had no wish but to take her horse and ride
+home at once, without even waiting for dinner.
+
+She felt that she was lost in such close proximity to the ill-omened
+gipsies.
+
+Her first thought was that Renaud, if he had overtaken Rampal, whom he
+could not fail to master, would go without loss of time to the Chateau
+d'Avignon.
+
+But her second thought was that he would return to Saintes-Maries to
+make the most of his triumph. She knew Renaud well! He was proud of
+his strength and address. He was spoiled by the public at the races,
+who applauded with hands and voice, and he loved to hear the "Bravo,
+Renaud!"--He would return to the town, yes, he surely would!
+
+He might imagine, indeed, that she, Livette, had remained there, and
+return on her account--and a little on the other's account, at the
+same time!--Ah! poor child! suspicion was just beginning to creep into
+her mind. Just God! suppose that that zingara woman should fascinate
+her Renaud!
+
+Livette, having found her horse still tied to the church-wall, sent
+him to the stable at the inn and went to the fisherman Tonin's to
+share his _bouille-abaisse_.
+
+"You did well, Livette," said Tonin, "you have avoided a sharp squall
+of the _mistral_. But I know what I'm talking about; it's nothing but
+a squall, and you can go home this afternoon quietly enough. It will
+be too hot, if anything. But what's the matter, that you're so
+thoughtful?"
+
+Livette heard but little of all that was said at the fisherman's
+table, and, after due reflection, returned to Monsieur le cure's after
+the meal was at an end.
+
+"Are you still at Saintes-Maries, little one?" he said, with a sad
+smile.
+
+"I had a fright, my father----"
+
+Livette sometimes addressed the cure thus, because of the custom in
+confession.
+
+"A fright? how was that?"
+
+"Suppose they have fought, who knows what may have happened? _Mon
+Dieu!_ chance is uncertain, and that Rampal is so treacherous that
+Renaud may be the loser. I would like, with your permission, Monsieur
+le cure, to go up on the roof of the church at once; from there I
+could see Renaud much sooner if he comes back here."
+
+The happy thought had come to her of watching her betrothed, as he
+himself had, that same morning, watched Rampal from the wine-shop
+window.
+
+The cure smiled again and good-humoredly took down the keys of the
+little staircase that leads to the upper chapel and thence to the
+bell-tower.
+
+He left the house, followed by Livette.
+
+At the foot of the great bare wall of the church, so high and cold,--a
+veritable rampart with its battlements sharply defined against the
+blue of the sky,--the good cure opened the small door.
+
+They ascended the stairs.
+
+When they reached the upper chapel, which is just above the choir of
+the church, as we know, the cure said:
+
+"I will remain here, little one, to offer up a prayer to the holy
+women; you can go on alone."
+
+But Livette, without replying, knelt devoutly beside the cure for an
+instant, before the relics.
+
+The relics were there, behind the ropes coiled about the capstan, by
+means of which they were lowered into the church, as the little jug
+from which the lips of the faithful drank so eagerly was lowered into
+the miraculous well below;--there they were, on the edge of the
+opening through which they were launched into space.
+
+Through this window-like opening into the body of the church Livette
+could see the chairs systematically arranged below, and, higher up,
+the galleries, the pulpit, and the pictures--all well-nigh hidden in
+the dark shadow, intersected by two rays of light that darted in, like
+arrows, through the narrow loopholes.
+
+Away down, below the gallery at the rear, opposite where she stood,
+the chinks in the great square door were marked like fine lines of
+fire by the sunshine without.
+
+She gazed for a long moment at the blessed shrines, and conjured them
+to turn aside the evil spell that she could feel about her.
+
+And, do what she would, as she gazed at the shrines, which had the
+appearance of two coffins laid side by side and welded together,
+Livette was conscious that her thoughts became more melancholy than
+ever. Had she not seen, year after year, some poor, infirm wretch in
+despair lie at full length on cushions in the acute angle formed by
+the two lids of the double coffin? And how many of them had been
+cured? One in fifty thousand, and only at long intervals?
+
+And yet, what scores of votive offerings that lofty chapel
+held,--pictures, commemorative marble tablets, crutches, guns with
+shattered barrels, and small boats presented by sailors saved after
+shipwreck! Aye, but in how many years have the miracles been performed
+of which these offerings are the tokens?--One shudders to think how
+many.
+
+And Livette, well content to divert her thoughts from such painful
+subjects, left Monsieur le cure at his prayers, and went up on the
+roof of the church.
+
+The bright glare of the sky, bursting suddenly upon her, dazzled her.
+She had to close her eyes; then she looked down upon the plain. The
+plain was a flood of light.
+
+The rascally _mistral_, that blows three, six, or nine days at a time
+when it has fairly buckled down to work, had simply taken a whim, as
+Tonin had foreseen. Not a leaf was stirring now. The sea had not had
+time to grow angry below the surface. It was laughing. The ponds were
+as smooth as mirrors. The sun shone hotter than ever in the clearer
+air.
+
+The swallows and martins circled about Livette's head, uttering in
+endless succession shrill, piercing cries that constantly came nearer
+and again receded. The pointed wings of the martins, also called
+_arbaletriers_ or cross-bowmen, brushed against the turrets and shot
+into the loopholes like arrows.
+
+Livette looked off into the desert straight before her, and, not
+seeing what she expected, she let her glance wander here and there
+over the vast expanse, attractive but monotonous, which one can
+traverse, from end to end, without ever seeing aught but endless
+repetition of the same sand, the same tufts of grass, the same
+gleaming waters.
+
+From the top of the church the horizon seemed almost limitless in
+every direction, for the golden peaks of the little Alps, vaguely
+outlined down in the northeast, seem to be no more than jagged bits of
+cloud.
+
+When you are looking at them from that point, you have at your right,
+to the eastward, Crau and the _sansouires_, Martigues, and Marseilles
+beyond the salt marshes of Giraud, cut into rectangular mounds of
+glistening salt. In the west is little Camargue, with its temporary
+ponds, its rare groves of pine, its euphorbium and branching asphodel,
+and its Etang des Fournaux, the father of mirages, and filled with
+shells, although it has no connection with the sea.
+
+In this vast, flat region, the mind and the eye fall into the habit of
+looking always to the horizon, embracing as much space as possible in
+the hope of finding some inequality.
+
+But they cannot escape the unchanging monotony, even less varied than
+the monotony of the sea, for the sea changes color, and is by turns
+black, blue, pale-green, dark-purple, or golden.
+
+In our desert there are everywhere the same tamarisks, the same reeds,
+and--round about the six thousand hectares covered by the waters of
+the Vaccares--always the same horizon lines, nowhere absolutely
+unbroken, but almost everywhere festooned with clumps of tamarisks;
+the mirage will always show you a pond gleaming in some spot of the
+plain where none is to be found; and the fisherman, walking along the
+shore, increases enormously in size as he recedes, because of the
+refraction.
+
+Sometimes the month of May is as hot in Camargue as August.
+
+    "Au mois de Mai
+    Va comme il te plait."
+
+Livette was dazzled by the glare, and lowered her eyes to scan, with
+her keen glance, the most distant clumps of tamarisks, to follow the
+almost invisible ribbon of the cart-road that leads from the Vaccares
+to Saintes-Maries. Her eyes are tired, and scorching in her head.
+There is nothing in the landscape to give them rest.
+
+Everywhere the treeless soil exhales a burning breath that rises in
+visible vibrations. The spirit of the earth breaks its bonds and
+hovers over her. She can see it ascending in hot waves. Her eyes
+perceive the transparent undulations, the heat trembling in the cool
+air, the very soul of the interior fire that trembles so to the sight
+that one fancies he can hear it rustle. It is the never-ceasing dance
+of the reflected light.
+
+Weary of the glare of the plain, Livette turned toward the sea, but
+the sea was simply an immense burnished mirror which flashed back at
+the eyes, from the countless facets of its swiftly moving fragments,
+the glow of the blazing sky multiplied beyond expression.
+
+When she looked down once more upon the plain, she saw, about a league
+away, a horseman trotting briskly toward the Saintes-Maries. By an
+indefinable something in the bearing of that tiny speck she recognized
+her Renaud.
+
+So no harm had come to him!
+
+She was on the point of going down again, when suddenly she forced
+herself to bide a little there, to see what he would do when he
+arrived.
+
+He was already passing the public spring. He turned to the left, and
+disappeared for a moment behind the houses. He was coming toward the
+church.
+
+From embrasure to embrasure she ran, to follow him with her eyes; and
+in a few seconds he rode out into the square in front of the church,
+at the foot of the Calvary erected there.
+
+She leaned over and watched him. Where was he going? He had stopped.
+His tired horse was standing quite still, simply moving his long tail
+from side to side to drive away the gnats and gadflies that were
+riddling his bleeding flanks with wounds, for, after the _mistral_,
+the gadflies dance! And then? Nothing. Absolute silence in the vast
+glowing expanse. Livette instinctively noticed that the horse's dark
+shadow, clearly marked upon the ground, was already elongated,
+indicating that it was four o'clock.
+
+She continued to question herself as to Renaud's attitude--what was
+he doing there, standing still like that?--when suddenly the sound of
+a woman's voice singing floated up to her ears.
+
+In the perfect silence, that voice, clear as a bell, poured forth
+outlandish words that neither Renaud nor Livette could understand.
+
+The zingara sang:
+
+"Allow the romichal, the tzigane, to pass. He is the spectre of a true
+king. Kingly is his tattered cloak. A saddle is his throne. Is the
+whole earth thy kingdom, Romichal?
+
+"At Boerenthal they speak the language of the Zend. Oh! the Coudra
+would become pope! Thinkst thou it was the evil-doer who invented
+evil? Nay, nay; put not thy trust in God, and remain free, Romichal!
+
+"The Rhine, too, is a Nile. And the Rhone likewise. But thy mare
+prefers to drink in the river of Chal! The Nile alone can make thy
+hope neigh aloud, O Romichal!"
+
+With her eye, like a migratory bird's, Zinzara had long before spied
+Livette perched up aloft between the crenelles of the church-roof,
+and, seeing Renaud riding toward her, she, in joyous mood as always,
+had begun to sing, from mere caprice and bravado, within the circle of
+the echo of the lofty walls.
+
+Like the serpents at the sound of her flute, Renaud was fascinated.
+The gipsy suspected as much.
+
+And when she had finished her song she showed herself.
+
+"Surely thou hast killed thy foe, romi?" she said. "But how is it that
+I do not see his heart at the point of thy spear? Thy maiden whose
+blood is like snow will ask thee for it ere long. Ah! that was a kiss
+well avenged--for a Christian! For if thy foe still sat in his saddle,
+thou wouldst not be in thine, I suppose? Listen, then, my
+beauty--although it be, in very truth, a crime for us zingari women to
+deem a Christian fair to look upon, I must tell thee, none the less:
+On the honor of a queen, romi, thou art handsome as a son of my own
+race, brave as a highwayman, as fine a horseman as the best of us,
+proud as a free man! I regret neither my anger of the other day, nor
+my song of a moment ago, nor the compliment I pay thee now: for I
+never do aught save that which pleases me! and my very anger does me
+better service than reflection! Adieu, romi, may thy God guard thee,
+if He knows me!"
+
+Livette had heard nothing but the sharp, incisive tone in which the
+gipsy spoke; she could not distinguish her words.
+
+But as Zinzara went away, she took good care, before she disappeared
+at the corner of the square, to send a kiss to the drover with her
+finger-tips--a kiss which seemed to him, because he could see her
+smile, a bit of raillery, but which was in Livette's eyes a token of
+requited love. Renaud thereupon admitted to himself that he had
+returned to Saintes-Maries in quest of nothing else than this
+compliment from the gipsy--something that drew him nearer to the
+seductive creature!
+
+  [Illustration: Chapter XVI
+
+    _From embrasure to embrasure she ran, to follow him with her
+    eyes; and in a few seconds he rode out into the square in
+    front of the church, at the foot of the Calvary erected
+    there._
+
+    _She leaned over and watched him. Where was he going? He had
+    stopped._]
+
+Now he had no choice but to turn back. He preferred not to see Livette
+at once! He preferred to return to the free air of the desert, to set
+his thoughts in order, discover his real feelings, reckon up his
+chances, and, after that was done, to be left alone with the image of
+the gitana, from whom he parted willingly, however, for he was very
+glad to be at a distance from her, with unrestrained freedom of
+movement, the better to think of her.
+
+Before leaving the roof of the church, Livette cast a glance upon the
+broad expanse of Camargue at her feet. Ah! how empty was that immense
+space! The few scattered houses which would have delighted her eyes in
+the plain, were hidden by the clumps of umbrella-like pines beneath
+which they stood. Nothing human replied to the cry of distress uttered
+by her poor heart, which longed to follow the bewitched drover into
+the desert, and which seemed to her to flutter down from the summit of
+the tower to the ground, where it was crushed by the fall like a bird
+fallen from its nest.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE OLD WOMAN
+
+
+Renaud rode at a foot-pace to the _Menage_, one of the farms belonging
+to the Chateau d'Avignon. He had ordered Bernard to bring Blanchet to
+him there, intending to take him back to the chateau. It was but a
+short distance from one to the other.
+
+He was exceedingly astonished to find that the more he reflected upon
+what had happened to him--and it was really what he had hoped for--the
+more dissatisfied he was.
+
+He believed that he had finally formed, in spite of everything, a
+fairly accurate estimate of the gipsy's character--a fact that pleased
+him. He had simply said to himself that she was an uncivilized
+creature, since she could forget all shame of her nakedness in her
+haste to punish as best she could a man she deemed overbold. From her
+very immodesty, from the arrogance and malignity she had exhibited at
+their first meeting, he had, strangely enough, evolved a proof of
+chastity so sure of itself, so disdainful of peril, that the
+shameless creature seemed to him only the more desirable.
+
+He knew that the gipsy women esteem thieves, but not prostitutes, and
+he had enjoyed seeing in Zinzara a sort of savage virgin, ferocious as
+a wild beast of the Orient, over whom he, the tamer of beasts, would
+be the first to enjoy the pride of triumph. And, lo! she suddenly
+aroused in him a feeling of repulsion which he could not explain.
+Simply because he had heard her pronounce a few words, of obscure
+meaning, like all gipsy words, and threatening in tone as he ought to
+expect,--more amiable, in point of fact, than he had any right to
+hope,--he believed her, as if it had been revealed to him in a dream,
+capable of anything, a _wicked woman_! He felt that the devil was in
+her.
+
+He had no precise knowledge as to her age. Was she seventeen or
+twenty-five? The swarthy tint of her impassive yet smiling face told
+nothing, hid blushes and pallor alike.
+
+Her face was extremely young, and its expression was of no age. Renaud
+had undergone the inexplicable fascination of that face, whereon the
+malignity born of a woman's experience of the world, false for the
+sake of omnipotence, was mingled with something child-like.
+
+Stronger men than he would have been caught in the snare. Neither king
+nor priest could have escaped the evil fascination of the gitana! She
+would have had but to will. The very things that repelled one were
+attractive!
+
+So Renaud was caught, and his manner showed it. Sitting upon his tired
+horse, upon the stallion whose fiery nature was subdued by so much
+hard riding in all directions, and who carried his head less high, the
+drover, supporting the head of his spear upon his stirrup while the
+handle rested against his arm, seemed like a vanquished king,
+humiliated by the feeling that he was a prisoner in the free air.
+
+He found Bernard at the _Menage_, in the huge room on the lower floor,
+like those in all the farm-houses of the province, with the high
+mantelpiece, the long massive table in the centre, the kneading-trough
+of well-waxed walnut, the carved bread-cupboard with little columns,
+fastened to the wall like a cage, and the shining copper pans. Upon
+the whitewashed wall a few colored pictures were hanging: the
+Saintes-Maries in their boat; Napoleon I. on the Bridge of Arcola, and
+Genevieve de Brabant, with the roe, in the depths of a forest.
+
+An old shepherd was seated at the table, beside Bernard, slowly eating
+his slice of bread.
+
+"Is it you, king?" said he as Renaud entered. "I have seen you hold
+your head higher! What's the matter with you? you look downhearted.
+Aren't you still a cattle-herder, my boy? A shepherd's virtue, young
+man, is patience, remember that. What you can't find in a day you may
+find in a hundred years."
+
+"Ah! there you are, Sigaud, eh?" Renaud replied, without answering
+his questions. "When do you start for the Alps?"
+
+"Right away, my son. We are behindhand this year. I am just getting
+ready."
+
+Nothing more was said. When they had eaten in silence their bread and
+sheep's-milk cheese, and drunk a cup of sour wine made from the wild
+grape, they rose.
+
+The shepherd threw his cloak over his arm, took his staff from a
+corner, and having doffed his broad-brimmed hat before an old image of
+the Nativity, that hung on the wall, embellished with a branch laden
+with cocoons, and beneath which, on a carved oak stand, stood a little
+lamp, long unlighted, he went slowly from the room.
+
+When Renaud, mounted upon Prince and leading Blanchet, left the
+_Menage_, he rode some time with the shepherds, by the side of the
+enormous flock on their way to the Alps, where they were to pass the
+summer season.
+
+Two thousand sheep, led by the rams, and arranged in battalions and
+companies, under the care of several shepherds of whom old Sigaud was
+the chief, were trotting along the road with hanging heads, making
+with their eight thousand feet a dull, smothered pattering, as of
+falling hailstones, in the dense clouds of dust. The Labry dogs ran to
+and fro along the edges of the flock, full of business, but frequently
+turning their eyes toward their master.
+
+A few asses scattered among the different companies bore upon their
+backs, jolting about in double wicker-baskets, the sleepy, bleating
+lambs.
+
+Old Sigaud was in high feather, thinking of the cool, fresh air of the
+Alps, where the grass is green and the water pure, and where he could
+gaze in peace every night at Cassiopeia's Chair and the Three Kings
+and the Pleiades in the heavens studded with myriads of stars.
+
+"Adieu, Sigaud," said Renaud, drawing rein when the time came for him
+to part from the flock and its guardians.
+
+Sigaud also stopped in front of him.
+
+"Adieu, Renaud," said he gravely. "There must be a woman at the bottom
+of your trouble. You are too sad. But we called you _King_ to do honor
+to your courage, you mustn't forget that. Remember, too, that
+everything is of some use, my boy, and that good may come out of evil.
+It takes all kinds to make the world!"
+
+Renaud found Livette sitting on the stone bench in front of the door
+of the chateau. He had not leaped down from Prince before she was
+covering Blanchet with kisses. Audiffret was very glad to learn that
+the stolen horse had returned to the drove, but when Renaud explained
+that he had come, on this occasion, to return Blanchet, Livette showed
+some feeling.
+
+"So you are not satisfied with what he has done for you?" said she.
+"Such a pretty horse! and so clever!--or perhaps you are tired of
+teaching him for me, of preventing him from learning bad tricks in the
+stable, of training him so that I can have the pleasure of seeing him
+return a winner from the races at Beziers, where my father is anxious
+to send him next month?"
+
+"Certainly, Renaud," said Audiffret, "you ought to keep him. He gets
+rusty here in the stable. But I am surprised at what Livette says.
+Why, would you believe that she was regretting him this very morning,
+saying that she proposed to ask you to bring him back to-day. And now
+she doesn't want him!--It takes a very shrewd man to understand these
+girls!"
+
+But what Audiffret could not understand, Renaud, for his part,
+understood very well. The lovelorn damsel said to herself that, by
+returning the horse, her fiance would rid himself of a reminder of
+her, which was a cause of remorse to him perhaps--whereas, he ought,
+like a jealous lover, to have wanted to look after Blanchet, and take
+care of him for her, as long as possible.
+
+Renaud resisted as best he could. He would have a deal of hard riding
+to do at the time of the fetes, he said, and he did not want to
+overwork Blanchet or to leave him with the drove to become wild again.
+
+Thereupon, Audiffret, easily influenced by the last who spoke, agreed
+with Renaud.
+
+While the discussion was in progress, Renaud had put up both horses in
+the stable. That done, he went slowly up to the hay-loft, whence he
+threw down an armful of hay into the racks through the openings in the
+floor.
+
+When he went down again, Blanchet was standing alone in front of the
+mangers, nibbling at the hay.--Renaud ran to the door. Livette, having
+removed Prince's halter, was shouting at him and waving her pretty
+arms to drive him away, naked and free. Honest Audiffret, delighted at
+his daughter's cunning, laughed and laughed. And Prince, overjoyed to
+return to the desert after these few days of slavery, thinking no more
+of the oats to be had at the chateau, stood erect like a goat, neighed
+shrilly with delight, shook his luxuriant mane, flung up his tail and
+thrashed the air, alive with the flies he had driven from his
+flanks--and darted away toward the horizon through the lane between
+the trees in the park.
+
+Renaud had no choice but to submit with an affectation of gratitude,
+and to laugh with the rest;--but it was more distasteful to him than
+ever to ride a horse that belonged to him less than any other in the
+drove, a horse that was his fiancee's.
+
+Thereupon, Audiffret went about his various tasks; and, two hours
+later, when they were all assembled in the lower room of the
+farm-house, Renaud, being suddenly seized with _ennui_ at the thought
+that he was likely at any moment to have to endure an embarrassing
+tete-a-tete with this same Livette whose company he had so ardently
+desired a few days before, spoke of taking his leave. Audiffret
+remonstrated, and invited him to supper. They would drink a glass in
+honor of his victory. Renaud refused awkwardly, conscious how lacking
+in courtesy such an utterly motiveless refusal was.
+
+But when the grandmother, who hardly ever spoke, urged him to stay, he
+stayed.
+
+The old woman rarely spoke, for her thoughts were always with the dead
+and gone grandfather, who had been the faithful companion of her
+toilsome life. She was slowly drying up, like wood that is sound in
+all its fibres, but has lost its sap. Hers was a lovely old age, such
+as are seen in the land of the grasshopper, where people live sober
+lives, preserved by the light. Already advanced in years when she came
+to Camargue, she had never suffered from the malevolence of the
+swamps. It was too late. The cypress-tree does not allow the worms to
+draw their lines upon its surface.
+
+She was patiently awaiting death, sometimes mumbling _paters_ upon her
+rosary of olive-nuts, gazing fearlessly, with her dimmed eyes,
+straight before her at the vague shadow wherein her departed old man,
+her good, faithful Tiennet, was waiting for her;--Tiennet, who had
+never, in forty years, caused her a pang, and whom she had never
+wronged by a smile, even in the days of her gayest youth. Tiennet,
+from the depths of the shadow, sometimes called to her softly, and
+then the old woman would be heard to murmur, in a dreamy voice: "I am
+coming, good man! I am coming!"
+
+Being left alone for a moment with Livette, just before supper,
+Renaud did not know what to say. Nor did she. He did not dare to lie,
+and she hoped that he would open his heart and confess. At one moment,
+she felt that the very fact of his silence was sufficient proof of his
+treachery, and the next moment, on the contrary, she said to herself:
+"If there was an understanding between them, he would not be here! I
+was mad! He loves me."
+
+At supper, he was very talkative, told about his battles and his
+hunting exploits; how, the year before, with that rascal of a Rampal,
+he had beaten up two coveys of partridges, on horseback, in a single
+morning. They had taken twenty-eight, more than twenty being killed on
+the wing at a single casting of their staves, Arab-fashion.
+
+Audiffret, overjoyed at the recovery of a horse he had thought lost
+forever, drew from under the woodpile an old-fashioned bottle, a gift
+from the masters, those masters who are always absent--like all the
+landowners of Camargue, who prefer to dwell in cities,--Paris,
+Marseilles, or Montpellier,--leaving the desert to their _bailiffs_.
+
+"Ah! the masters in old times!" said Audiffret, "they had more courage
+and were better served and better loved!" Renaud, becoming more and
+more animated, stood up for the times we live in. The grandmother,
+grave and serious as always, said once to Audiffret at table,
+speaking of Renaud: "Wait upon your son, my son." Well, well, he was
+decidedly one of the family.
+
+And that certainty, which it behooved him to retain at any price,
+instead of moving his heart to gratitude, led him on to play the
+hypocrite. He was ready to betray Livette, without renouncing her, for
+he loved her so dearly, so sincerely, that he felt that he was ready,
+on the other hand, to renounce the gitana, without too great a pang,
+if circumstances should make it necessary. He laughed a great deal,
+raising his glass with great frequency, and winking involuntarily at
+Audiffret, as if to say: "We are sly fellows!" But honest Audiffret
+could not detect his excitement. He had never interested himself in
+anything except the farm accounts. He had never divined anything in
+all his life, not he!--As far as the gipsy was concerned, she
+certainly would not leave Saintes-Maries before the fete, that is to
+say, for a week or more. After that, she could go where she chose! it
+would make little difference to him. What could he hope for from a
+wandering creature like that? An hour's meeting at the cross-roads on
+the way to Arles! Nothing more!
+
+As to Zinzara, he had hopes; as to Livette, he had certainty. And he
+was very light of heart.
+
+So it was, that, when the time came for him to take his leave, he
+indulged in an outburst of affection toward his new family, quite
+contrary to his usual habit, and to the habit of all drovers, who are
+rough-mannered by profession.
+
+You must know that the peasants, in general, do not kiss except on
+great occasions--weddings or baptisms. Only the mothers kiss their
+young children. The man of the soil is of stern mould.
+
+"Audiffret," the grandmother suddenly said to her son, laying her
+knitting on the table and her spectacles on her knitting;--"Audiffret,
+every day brings me a little nearer the end, and I would like to see
+this marriage take place before I die. You must hurry it as much as
+possible, now that it's decided on. And if I can't be present on the
+wedding-day, don't forget, my children, that the old woman blessed you
+from the bottom of her heart to-night."
+
+And, without another word, she calmly took up the stockings and
+needles.
+
+She had spoken almost without inflection, in a grave, calm tone,
+moving her lips only.
+
+Every one was deeply moved. Livette looked at Renaud. He, carried away
+by his emotion, forgot everything except this new family that offered
+itself to him, the orphan. Livette saw it and was grateful to him for
+it. She felt that he was won back, like the stolen horse, and she
+sprang to her feet in a burst of enthusiasm.
+
+"Kiss me, my betrothed!" said she proudly.
+
+He kissed her with heartfelt sincerity.
+
+The father and the grandmother looked on with eyes that gradually
+became dim with tears.
+
+When he had pressed the father's hand, Renaud turned to the
+grandmother, as she stuck her knitting-needle into the white hair that
+fluttered about her temples.
+
+"Kiss me, grandmother!" he said, with a smile.
+
+The old woman gave a leap, then stood erect, recoiling a little as if
+in fear:
+
+"Since my husband died, no man has ever kissed me," she said, "not
+even my son there! Let young people kiss. Life is before them. I," she
+added, "am already with the dead."
+
+And with that, the old peasant-woman, straight and stiff and
+withered,--the image of a by-gone time, when it was deemed a
+praiseworthy thing to remain true to a single sentiment,--sought the
+bed of her old age, which was soon to see her lying dead, with the
+tranquillity of a simple, loving, faithful heart upon her
+parchment-like face.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE BLESSED RELICS
+
+
+The great day has arrived. From all parts of Languedoc and Provence,
+pilgrims, rich and poor, have come to Saintes-Maries. There are fully
+ten thousand strangers in the town.
+
+For three days past they have been arriving in vehicles of all shapes
+and of all ages.
+
+Many of these pilgrims lodge with the villagers at extraordinary,
+princely rates. A bunch of straw on the floor brings twenty francs.
+The villager himself sleeps on a chair, or passes the night in the
+open air on the warm sand of the dunes. If the bulls arrive during the
+night for the sports of the following day, he assists the drovers to
+drive them into the compound, in the wake of the _dondaire_, the
+enormous ox with a bell.
+
+The houses are soon filled to overflowing. New-comers are obliged to
+camp. Tents are pitched. People live in carts and wagons, in breaks,
+tilburys, caleches, omnibuses, as far away as possible, be it
+understood, from the gipsy encampment.
+
+Around the little town, the hundreds of vehicles constitute a roving
+town of their own, resting there like a flock of birds of passage
+around a swamp.
+
+And on all sides naught can be seen but tattered, crippled,
+hunchbacked, deformed, blind, or one-eyed creatures, broken in health,
+lame, maimed, scrofulous, and paralytic, dragging themselves along or
+dragged by others, carried in men's arms or on litters, some with
+bandages over their faces, others displaying unhealed wounds from
+which one turns aside in horror.
+
+Here a poor fellow who has been bitten by a mad dog wanders about with
+gloomy brow, tormented by insane anxiety and hope, for a pilgrimage to
+Saintes-Maries is especially efficacious against hydrophobia.
+
+All varieties of misfortune are represented. All the children of Job
+and Tobias have journeyed hither to find the healing angel and the
+miraculous fish.
+
+A motley crowd swarms upon the public square in the bright sunlight,
+and in the narrow streets, under the luminous shadow of the awnings.
+From time to time, it parts, with loud shouts, before a drover, who
+rides proudly by, his sweetheart _en croupe_ with her arms about his
+waist.
+
+Here and there flat baskets laden with rosaries, sacred images,
+Catalan knives, and handkerchiefs of brilliant hue stand out like
+islets in the midst of the sea of promenaders, and all the merchandise
+displayed for sale takes on a pink or pale-blue tint through the great
+stationary umbrellas that shield it from the sun.
+
+Amid the fantastic piercing notes of a _galoubet_, or high-pitched
+flute, tambourines can be heard humming in cadence in the interior of
+a wine-shop, where young girls of the province are dancing in
+Provencal costume, dark-skinned girls with white teeth beneath their
+sensuous lips; very like Moors they are, the descendants of some
+Saracen pirate who ravaged the Ligurian shore.
+
+The town is flooded with joyous light. Everybody is in his Sunday
+dress. Upon the fever-haunted strand, whither a whole people flocks to
+pray to the Saintes Maries for bodily health, that joyous sun is
+dangerous. The whole scene has the appearance of a hospital ball, a
+fete given by dying men. The devil wields the baton, it may be. One
+would think it, to see the faces of the gipsies, whose expression,
+notwithstanding certain cunning leers, is and remains undecipherable.
+
+In the church with the black, dirt-begrimed walls, filled with a fetid
+odor by such an accumulation of misery, diseased flesh, and perspiring
+humanity, the people crowd about the iron balustrade of the little
+well, as if it were the Fountain of Youth. The poor, green,
+dilapidated pitcher humbly descends at the end of its cord to bring up
+from the sand below brackish water that to-day seems sweet.
+
+Keep faith with them, O saints!--Faith gives what one wishes.
+
+They are waiting for four o'clock, the hour at which the relics
+descend.
+
+At four o'clock precisely, the shutter of the high window up yonder,
+under the ogive arch of the nave, will open. The relics will come down
+toward the outstretched arms. The little children will be lifted up
+toward them. The dead arms of the paralytics will be raised toward
+them. The blind will turn toward them their sightless eyes, or their
+empty, blood-stained orbits.
+
+Meanwhile, Livette, who is standing there in the centre of the crowd,
+directly in front of the altar, facing the grated door through which
+you go down into the crypt, is preparing to sing the solo of
+invocation. Her fresh, pure voice is to be the voice of all these
+wretched creatures, crushed under the weight of impurity and disease.
+
+Just below the high altar, which is studded with tapers, the gipsies
+are huddled together in their crypt, with tapers in their hands,
+invoking Saint Sara. The vault is dark. The gipsies are black. The
+little glass shrine of Saint Sara has become black under the
+accumulated filth of years. From the centre of the church you can see
+through the grated opening, which resembles an air-hole of hell, the
+innumerable twinkling lights of the tapers below, waving to and fro in
+the hands that hold them. A muffled sound of praying comes up through
+the opening.
+
+In the church, every hand now has its taper, and they are rapidly
+lighted one from another. The lights dance about in the air. But the
+interior of the nave is dark. The high walls, pierced by narrow
+windows, are grimy with age. And all this obscurity, where suffering
+and misery crawl and cower, is studded with stars like heaven. To the
+gipsies in the crypt, who will not see the blessed relics descend, the
+body of the church, which they can see from below through the
+air-hole, is a heaven beyond their reach, the world of the elect.
+
+But the elect, alas! are damned. Their heaven is the chapel up yonder,
+in which the power they invoke lies sleeping, beneath the stained wood
+of the boxes, like to a double coffin--the power that may remain deaf,
+the all-powerful power that will never perhaps awaken for any one, the
+marvellous power upon which cures depend and which withholds
+happiness!
+
+Such was the interior of the three-storied church of Saintes-Maries on
+that day. And above the lofty chapel, there was the bell-tower
+overlooking the whole country-side. Surrounded by endless numbers of
+swallows and sea-gulls, for centuries past it has looked upon the
+glistening desert, the dazzling sea, the dumb infinitude of space,
+which could explain things if it would, but only beams and laughs.
+
+The hour drew near. The crowd was panting with heat and hope and fear.
+
+Renaud was not there.
+
+"Remember--we promised to burn three tapers each before the relics,"
+Livette had said to him.
+
+"I will come to-night," was his reply. "There's the branding to-day.
+I have to look after my bulls."
+
+So Livette was a little distraught. She was thinking of joining
+Renaud, of being present at the branding, of keeping an eye on her
+betrothed. Where was he?
+
+But Monsieur le cure made a sign: Livette began to sing. Alas! why was
+not her lover there? Her voice, which she knew was pleasant to the
+ear, might have some effect on him. How eagerly he listened to the
+gipsy's singing the other day!--Livette sang, and the buzzing of
+prayers and litanies and invocations of all sorts, that every one was
+indulging in on his or her own account, subsided as her clear, pure
+voice arose. O God! what is this humanity of ours? It is vile and
+abject, but it has some sense of shame. The basest know how to pray
+that they may be cured of their baseness. And, however much they may
+have rolled in the mire of their natural inclinations, a time comes
+when they set the flame alight, when they burn incense, and when all
+keep silent to listen to the voice ascending to Heaven, imploring for
+them a grace that no one knows, that perhaps does not exist, but that
+every one imagines and desires!
+
+"Eat your excrement, dog!" say the gipsies; "what care I? There is a
+light in the dog's eye that is not often seen in the eyes of kings."
+
+Livette sang. The cure said to himself:
+
+"O my God, mayhap this child of Thine will obtain favor in Thy sight!"
+
+Livette's voice was as fresh as the water of salvation for which the
+assembled multitude thirsted. And how intently they listened! But, at
+the end of each stanza, weary of restraining their tumultuous
+ejaculations of hope, they sent up from thousands of throats an
+inarticulate roar in which only the two words: _Saintes Maries!_ could
+be distinguished.
+
+Livette sang:
+
+    "Quand vous etiez sur la grande eau,
+    Sans rames a votre bateau,
+          Saintes Maries!
+    Rien que la mer, rien que les cieux----
+    Vous appeliez de tous vos yeux
+    La douceur des plages fleuries."[9]
+
+"_Saintes Maries!_" roared the people; uttered at the same moment by a
+thousand voices acting upon a common impulse, the frenzied appeal was
+like an explosion.
+
+Every one shouted with all his strength, for the saints must be made
+to hear! Every one shouted with all his lungs, with all his heart,
+with all his body, one might say. Heaven is so far away! Open-mouthed,
+their faces twitching convulsively, they gazed upward. The veins in
+their necks were swollen to the bursting-point. The muscles swelled
+and thickened in faces to which the blood rushed in torrents. The
+brothers, lovers, husbands, mothers, fathers, of the sufferers,
+availed themselves of their own strength to call for help, howling
+like wounded wild beasts turned toward the dawn. All this suffering
+multitude, all this swarming heap of tainted, diseased flesh, uttered
+the terrifying roar of a monster in pain--and still the
+preternaturally shrill shriek of some doting mother would soar above
+the horrid uproar. And all around the church, filled with the nameless
+appeals of these damned of earth, lay the calm, silent desert, the
+blue, foam-flecked sea, the brilliant sunlight, insensible to
+everything.
+
+    "Sous le soleil, sous les etoiles,
+    De vos robes faisant des voiles
+          (Vogue, bateau!)
+    Sept jours, sept nuits vous naviguates,
+    Sans voir ni trois-ponts ni fregates----
+    Rien que la mer et la grande eau!"[10]
+
+"_Saintes Maries!_" roared the people, and each time the shout burst
+forth from thousands of throats, suddenly and at the same instant,
+with the effect of a strange kind of explosion.
+
+    "Dieu qui fait son fouet d'un eclair,
+    Pour fouetter le ciel et la mer,
+          Saintes Maries!
+    Amena la barque a bon port----
+    Un ange, qui parut a bord,
+    Vous montra des plages fleuries!"[11]
+
+"_Saintes Maries!_" the people roared again. And the appealing cry,
+made up of so many cries, burst forth with a sound like that made by a
+great wave that breaks against a cliff and is instantly scattered
+about in foam! And again the young girl's voice arose above all the
+vociferating, grinning creatures. Might not one fancy that he saw a
+sea-swallow, white as the dove of the Ark, soaring over a bottomless
+abyss?
+
+    "Vous pour qui Dieu fit ce miracle,
+    Voyez, devant son tabernacle,
+          Tous a genoux,
+    Souilles du peche de naissance,
+    Nous invoquons votre puissance,----
+    Saintes femmes, protegez-nous!"[12]
+
+And for the last time, the deafening, harsh cry arose:
+
+"_Saintes Maries!_"
+
+Oh! the thousand, two thousand ejaculations of insane longing that
+flew upward, at a single flight, flapping all their wings at once, to
+fall back, dead, upon themselves.
+
+It is very certain that there was in that frenzied appeal all the
+madness of suffering, all the wrath of unsatisfied longing, and rage
+as of unchained beasts, against the very beings they implored.
+
+Meanwhile, the double shutter up above had not yet been thrown open.
+And Livette, in accordance with the cure's instructions, was to repeat
+the last verse.
+
+So she began again:
+
+    "Vous pour qui Dieu fit ce miracle----"
+
+But these first words had hardly passed her lips when her voice
+faltered and died away. For a few seconds there was a silence as of
+utter amazement in the church. Of what was Livette thinking? Of
+what?--For the last minute, just God! her eyes had been obstinately
+fixed upon the black opening leading to the crypt. In that opening, on
+a level with the floor of the church, she had seen a head: it was the
+gipsy queen, who had come up from the crypt, in mischievous mood,
+curious to see Livette singing. Immediately below the great altar she
+emerged from the dark depths of the cellar amid the ascending smoke of
+the tapers. She came from her kingdom below, and with her copper crown
+and gleaming ear-rings, her swarthy skin and her fiery black eyes, she
+seemed to Livette a genuine devil from hell.
+
+Zinzara ascended two steps more and her bust appeared. She darted a
+keen, penetrating glance at Livette. That is why Livette was confused,
+and why she called with all her strength upon the women of compassion,
+the holy women above, for help against this woman from the chapel
+below.
+
+But the shutters that concealed the shrines were opened at last. And
+slowly, very slowly, they descended, swinging from side to side, with
+a slight jerky movement, at the ends of the two ropes, embellished
+here and there with little bunches of flowers.
+
+Is not this the image of every life? Is there aught else in the world?
+Something descends from heaven, something ascends from hell; and we
+suffer with hope and fear.
+
+"_Saintes Maries!_"
+
+Amid the vociferations of the crowd, Livette lost her head, she
+forgot to sing, and, carried away by the prevailing excitement, hope,
+and terror, she began to cry aloud with all the rest, like a lost
+soul, while Zinzara, from below, continued to gaze fixedly at her.
+
+What would you say, Monsieur le cure, to Livette's thoughts,
+who,--poor creature of the world we live in!--between the holy women
+and the woman devil, no longer knew which way to turn? Had she not
+reason to tremble? For the shrines descend to no purpose, they bring
+us naught but dead relics--while the sorceress is a creature of flesh
+and blood, whose feet walk, whose eyes see!
+
+Far away from us, in the land of dreams, of supernatural hopes, above
+the sky and the stars, are the sainted souls that have pity for
+mankind; as far from man as Paradise itself are the chaste women who
+embalm the crucified ones in herbs and spices, while _she_ is close at
+hand, always ready, always armed against the repose of Christian
+souls, she, queen of diabolic love, who, seeking only to gratify her
+caprice, makes sport of everything!
+
+Livette became more and more confused beneath Zinzara's steadfast
+glance, and she tried in vain, after silence had at last been
+restored, to resume the invocation. She faltered and stopped again.
+
+Thereupon there was great confusion among the waiting multitude. All
+those men and women who were holding their peace in order to listen
+to the outpouring of their own souls in the maiden's voice, to the
+pure, unspoken prayer which was in their hearts, but which they could
+not put in words, had been thrown back once more, and more
+despairingly than ever, upon themselves, upon their own helplessness,
+when Livette's voice died away. Just at the decisive moment, their
+interpreter failed them! They were afraid of their profound silence,
+so contrary to the impulses of their hearts. In order to be heard on
+high, their prayer must be offered; and, seized by the same thought,
+every one began to shout or sing on his own account, some beginning
+again at the very beginning, others taking the stanza they knew by
+heart or had before them in a book, others repeating at random bits of
+the litanies, one the _credo_, another the _pater_, and never did
+prayers offered up to God create such a hellish uproar, since the
+discordant cries of all the sorrows of mankind ascended to Heaven.
+
+Stronger women than Livette would have been disturbed as she was,
+would have felt their powers failing. She put her hand to her forehead
+to detain her mind that seemed to be making its escape. Was not she
+the cause of all this trouble? What would become of her, in this
+state? She was afraid and ashamed at once.
+
+Instead of looking up, instead of watching the blessed relics that had
+now accomplished half of their descent, she could not refrain from
+returning the fixed stare of the gipsy woman below, whose eyes seemed
+to pierce her soul.
+
+Livette suffered keenly. The gipsy's gaze entered into her very being,
+and she felt that she could do nothing. It seemed to her as if a
+sharp-toothed beast were gnawing at her heart. Instead of praying, she
+listened to the terrible thoughts within her. She fancied that she
+could feel the hatred go out from her with the glances that shot from
+her eyes! She tried to stab to the heart with it that creature who was
+defying her down there. Would not somebody kill the witch, who was the
+cause of everything? Ah! Saintes Maries! what thoughts for such a
+place! at such a time!
+
+The relics slowly descended, and, amid the roars that greeted them,
+Livette, in her overwrought imagination, fancied that she saw herself
+clinging to Renaud, beseeching him to be faithful and kind to her, and
+not to go to that other woman; and when he refused and left her, she
+leaped at the gipsy's face and scratched her and clawed at her like a
+cat.
+
+Thus the sorceress's soul passed into Livette. Already, without
+suspecting it, she had begun to resemble her enemy, the gitana who
+leaped at the nostrils of Renaud's horse the other day. And yet this
+little fair-haired girl was not one of the dark-skinned maidens of
+Arles, who have African and Asian blood in their veins! No matter;
+she, too, has a wild beast's fits of passion. Love and jealousy are at
+work making a woman's soul.
+
+The relics were still descending; and Livette feverishly told off
+_paters_ and _aves_ on her rosary.--Patience! on the day after the
+fete, the gipsies, she knows, will leave the town! Two more days and
+her agony will be at an end.
+
+Meanwhile--she makes this vow in presence of the relics--she will not
+gratify Renaud by showing that she is jealous, as she is, and not
+until later--when Zinzara is far away, and there is no chance of her
+coming back--will she, perhaps, tell her promised husband that he lied
+to her, that he is a traitor, because, instead of avenging her upon
+the gipsy, he was false to his fiancee with her--for of course he is
+false to her, as he is not there!--She will tell him, then, not in a
+passion, but to punish him. It will be no more than justice.
+
+By dint of uncoiling themselves by little jerks, the ropes have
+lowered the relics almost within reach of the hands stretched up to
+meet them. Thereupon the rabble of poor devils could contain itself no
+longer. Every one was determined to be the first to touch them. Those
+who were already in the choir, directly below the hanging relics, lost
+their footing, crowded as they were by those who were pressing in from
+the body of the church, jostling and crushing one another with a
+constant pressure. Livette was borne along on the wave, seeing
+nothing, and with but one thought in her mind--to touch the
+consecrated relics herself!--That she felt she must do, so that she
+might escape the influence of the glance the black woman had cast at
+her. She would seek to turn aside the fatal spell that had been upon
+her ever since her first meeting with the sorceress! But would she
+reach the shrines?--Livette felt that she was seized by two strong
+arms. She turned: it was Renaud! He had just entered the church with
+two other drovers, his friends. These three young men, glowing with
+the outside sunlight, healthy and strong, amid the lame and halt and
+blind, had the insolent bearing--cruel without meaning to be--of manly
+beauty, of life itself. They extricated the girl and made a ring about
+her. She was able to breathe.
+
+"Would you like to touch the relics, demoisellette?"
+
+Forcing their way before her, without great effort, but pitilessly,
+through the crowd of cripples, they cleared a passage for her. Livette
+walked quickly, she drew near the spot, and Renaud, seizing her around
+the waist, lifted her up like a child so that she touched the
+consecrated relics first of all!
+
+Still with the three youths as a body-guard, before whom all were fain
+to stand aside, and without further thought--poor you! it is the law
+of the world--of the innumerable, nameless perils by which she was
+encompassed, she left the church content. Peace had found its way into
+her heart once more. Her Renaud was there by her side. Was all that
+she had dreaded a dream and nothing more?
+
+"Ah! it is good to be outside!" he said, filling his lungs with the
+fresh air.
+
+"Yes, but when will you light the tapers, Renaud, that you are to burn
+in the church as I promised for you?"
+
+"Oh! I have a whole day before me," he replied. "Now let us go to the
+races."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE BRANDING
+
+
+The relics having descended, the majority of those present left the
+dark church and returned to the dazzling outside world.
+
+As the crowd poured out through the narrow side-doors, another crowd
+was forcing its way in through the main entrance, making but slow
+progress,--two or three steps in a quarter of an hour,--all hot and
+perspiring, in a cloud of luminous dust.
+
+Many young men were there, for the pleasure of being pressed by the
+crowd against the pretty girls, their sweethearts, whose sinuous
+bodies they could feel against their own, and who could not escape
+them there. How many hands and waists were squeezed which the mothers
+could not see!
+
+And in undertones they said:
+
+"I love you, Lionnette."
+
+"Fie, Francois!"
+
+"Let me go, Tiennet!----"
+
+Thus, beside the infirm and incurable, who know naught of the good
+things of life, love saucily sports and laughs, feels its own force,
+and seeks return. The incense in the church serves only to inflame its
+desire, and more than one youth offers his beloved a rosary, whose
+boxwood cross he has ardently kissed before her eyes, so that she may
+find the kiss with her lips.
+
+All day long, the pilgrims and invalids enter the church. Many will
+pass the night there, keeping vigil with the tapers, on their knees or
+prostrate before the relics; and more than one, each in his turn, will
+lie down upon them, on cushions brought expressly for the purpose.
+
+For the moment--it is the first day of the fete--nothing is talked
+about in the streets of the town save the bulls and the sports.
+
+"Are you going to the races?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does Prince run? He's the best horse in all the droves."
+
+"No, he won't run; Renaud, who usually handles him, told me that he
+was too tired."
+
+"Pshaw! what a pity!"
+
+"What about the bulls? Shall we have any that are a bit ugly?"
+
+"There's _Sirous_ and _Dogue_ and _Machicoulis_. I cut them out myself
+with Bernard and Renaud. They gave us a lot of trouble! They refused
+to leave the herd. As soon as we got them out, back they would go
+again. But we set _Martin_ and _Commetoi_ at them, two bull-dogs that
+can't be matched anywhere; and even _Machicoulis_ obeyed at last!"
+
+"_Martin_ and _Commetoi_?--Those are curious names for dogs!"
+
+"It's a joke. When any one asks: 'How is your dog called?'[13] The
+dog's master replies: '_Commetoi!_' [Like yourself.] The other man
+gets angry, and it raises a laugh."
+
+"And what about the full-blooded Spanish bull, with the horns twisted
+like a lyre; shall we see him?"
+
+"_Angel Pastor?_ He is sick. I like our straight-horned bulls better.
+The important thing is that the horns should be far enough apart for a
+man's body to go between them."
+
+"Are there any heifers?"
+
+"One, a wicked one--_Serpentine_."
+
+"And _bioulets_?"
+
+"Young bulls, do you mean? Renaud has kept six of them, expressly to
+give the strangers a chance to see a branding."
+
+"When will the branding come off?"
+
+"In a moment. Suppose we go to see it."
+
+The gipsy was present at the branding.
+
+The arena was against the church, at the end opposite the main
+entrance.
+
+The many-sided irregular enclosure was formed on one side by the high
+wall of the church; on another, by a house standing by itself, against
+which was a series of roughly made benches, one above another; on
+still another side by three or four small houses, each of whose
+windows formed a frame for a dozen or more heads of young men and
+women, crowded together and all laughing gaily. At the base of one of
+these houses was a cafe with a glass door opening on the arena and
+barricaded by tables and overturned chairs. On each side of the door
+was drawn, in deepest black, a silhouette of a bull of the Camargue
+type, that is to say, with straight horns of ample proportions.
+
+On all sides of the enclosure where there were no stone walls, their
+place was supplied by wagons bound firmly together by their shafts.
+
+At the corner of the wall of the church, there were three great iron
+rings one above another, and through them were thrust three wooden
+bars, which could be moved back and forth at will.
+
+These bars were to be let down for the young bulls which were to be
+turned out of the arena, one by one, after they had been branded, to
+find their way alone to the desert. Outside the bars, a system of
+barricades closed the streets of the town to them, and--by compelling
+them to go behind the few houses facing the arena--guided them,
+whether they would or not, to the margin of the open plain in less
+than a hundred steps.
+
+Zinzara was present, as we have said, standing in a wagon. She
+followed with impassive glance all the happenings within the arena,
+grotesque and heroic alike.
+
+These duels between man and beast are grand or disgusting according
+to the character of the adversaries. It sometimes happens that the man
+attacks in a cowardly fashion, or that the beast, from astonishment it
+may be, or fatigue, turns about and tries to return to the stable.
+Fine contests are rare.
+
+Sometimes a sharp stone is thrown from a safe distance by a disloyal
+foe. The surprised beast receives it full in the face; the blood flows
+in long streams from his nostrils to the ground. He looks straight
+before him, his great eyes filled with mirage, and does not budge, as
+if he were at once saddened and contemptuous.
+
+Sometimes a mischievous rascal has the happy thought of coming very
+close to him and throwing sand in his eyes by the handful. Another,
+more mischievous than he, covers the bull with filth collected from
+the gutter! But the sand-thrower, being spattered thereby, himself
+picks up a handful, and the two heroes engage in a fierce battle with
+dung picked up smoking from the ground under the bull's very tail,
+amid the laughter and applause of a whole population, until the
+champions, reeking with filth, are abruptly separated by the bull, who
+bestirs himself at last and charges them.
+
+"This way! this way, Livette!"
+
+Livette had just come into the arena. Her young friends called her and
+gladly moved closer together to make room for her on the benches.
+
+A stable just beside the cafe had been transformed into a _toril_.
+Just above the door of the stable was the long window of the hay-loft,
+level with the floor. Two herdsmen, sitting in the window with their
+legs hanging outside, rose from time to time, and could be seen
+pricking the _dondaire_, the beloved leader of the herd, through the
+holes in the floor above the hay-racks. The _dondaire_ would thereupon
+go out and lead the tired bull back to the stable. Every time that a
+new beast left the _toril_, or one that was tired out returned, a
+dexterous hand swiftly closed the door.
+
+All these things, which were probably by no means new to the gipsy,
+who was doubtless familiar with the tragic entertainments of Madrid
+and Seville, left her unmoved. Her eye did not kindle; it was as dull
+and vague as a heifer's.
+
+The "amateurs" played with a few bulls. They were not ill-tempered.
+Somebody seized one of them by the tail. A whole party clung to his
+skirts, dancing the farandole--but were soon scattered. The
+performance thus far was not inspiriting, but it was amusing.
+
+Behind the glass door of the cafe, which opened on the arena, some
+congenial spirits were emptying a bottle and smoking while they
+enjoyed the spectacle. The door was barricaded by a rampart of
+overturned tables, with their legs in the air and passed through a
+net-work of broken chairs.
+
+Suddenly the bull, overturning tables and chairs, put the drinkers to
+flight: he had thrust his bulky head through a square of glass. The
+cafe rang with shouts of alarm mingled with amusement. The wagons in
+the arena shook with the joyous stamping of their occupants; the
+planks were torn off by excited hands; the people at the windows of
+the little houses rattled the shutters noisily in their delight. To
+see the crowds on the roofs laugh made one fear that they would fall
+in. Thus was the frolicsome bull applauded. The gipsy alone did not
+smile.
+
+A great oat-bin stood in a corner of the arena, placed there purposely
+perhaps. A very old man,--not too old to play the merry-andrew,--armed
+with an old red umbrella, raised the lid, climbed into the bin, and
+opened his umbrella, which was of the most brilliant shade of red. The
+bull rushed at him--the old man let the lid fall. Bin and umbrella
+closed at the same moment upon the laughing bald head. The hilarity of
+the public was at its height. The gipsy did not seem amused by the old
+man's drollery.--Nor did she laugh when a manikin was set up in the
+centre of the arena and the bull carried him off on his horns and
+hurled him into the midst of the spectators; and she did not even
+smile when, a window on the ground-floor of one of the houses being
+thrown open, a little child was seen in his mother's arms, behind the
+iron bars, teasing the furious animal. Laughing with glee, he held a
+plaything out through the bars, a little pasteboard windmill, whose
+pink and blue wings were made to turn by the monster's breath.
+
+Then came a tragic episode. A man--an _amateur_--struck by the sharp
+horns; his thigh pierced from side to side; the first cowardly
+movement of flight on the part of the other contestants; the return of
+the valiant fellows, who diverted the bull's attention and drew him
+off while the wounded man was removed, accompanied by the piercing
+shrieks of his wife and daughter.
+
+At last, the serious business of the day began. It was announced that
+the branding was about to take place. Immediately thereafter would
+come the game of the "cockades," which consists in snatching a cockade
+suspended between the bull's horns by a thread. With his hand or with
+a hooked stick the rider breaks the thread, snatches the
+cockade--_Crac!_ a quick recovery, and the victor has won the scarf!
+
+The branding is hard work turned into a game; it consists in branding
+young bulls with a red-hot iron, with their owner's cipher.
+
+A young bull having been turned into the arena, Renaud walked up to
+him, and, as the beast made a rush, cleverly avoided him by turning
+upon his heel. The bull having, thereupon, stopped short, Renaud
+seized him by the horns.
+
+Clinging to him with his hands, closed like knots of steel about the
+horns, the man was dragged for a moment, standing, over the ground, in
+which his thick soles dug ribbon-like furrows. The spectators clapped
+their hands. The bull lowered his head and stood still. Renaud, with
+his legs apart and bent a little, and his feet firmly planted in the
+ground, threw all his weight to the left. All the muscles of his chest
+and arms stood out beneath his shirt, which was glued to his skin by
+perspiration. The bull, with all his sluggish strength, tried to throw
+himself in the opposite direction. Suddenly Renaud gave way, and the
+bull, losing the support of his resistance, fell heavily before a
+sudden contrary effort. And there he lay at full length on the ground,
+gasping for breath.
+
+The man, who had not released his hold, forced his head to the ground
+by sitting on it.
+
+"Bravo, king! bravo, king!" cried the crowd.
+
+Bernard took the red-hot iron from a brazier and carried it to Renaud,
+who, thereupon, let go one horn, and kneeling heavily upon the beast's
+withers, seized the iron with his right hand and pressed it against
+his shoulder. The hair and flesh smoked and crackled. Renaud rose
+quickly, and the bull, springing suddenly to his feet, shook himself
+all over, lashed his sides with his tail, bellowed with anger, pawed
+the ground with his foot, and, amid the shouts of the crowd, darted
+through the barrier, which was opened at that moment. A moment later,
+he could be seen far away on the plain, galloping at full speed. He
+soon rejoined the drove which he or any of his fellows can readily
+find for themselves, even if it be on the other side of the Rhone,
+which they often swim.
+
+Six bulls, one after another, were thus thrown down by Renaud.
+
+The sport enlivened him, he was intoxicated by the consciousness of
+his great strength. Excited even more by the applause of the people,
+he trembled from head to foot. From time to time, he wiped the great
+beads of perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.
+
+A sunbeam fell across one side of the arena, which lay in the dark
+shadow of the high church-wall. Renaud ran thither, hatless, in
+shirt-sleeves and close-fitting red breechcloth, shaking the short
+curly locks of his thick, jet-black hair.
+
+The girls applauded, I promise you, more loudly than the young men,
+who were somewhat jealous. Zinzara's eye--her wagon was standing in
+the ray of sunlight--kindled at last.--And Livette, blushing deeply,
+was proud of her king.
+
+When the sixth bull he had thrown was still under his knee, Renaud
+made a sign to Bernard. Bernard ran to him, knelt beside him, and
+seized the bull by the horns in his stead. Another drover came to help
+Bernard hold the beast, and Renaud rose.
+
+He walked across the arena, and when he came to where Livette sat,
+beckoned to her. Everybody understood and applauded.
+
+She walked forward to the edge of the platform on which the benches
+were built, and lightly placed her foot on the strong cross-bar that
+served as a support to the spectators in the front row; from there she
+jumped confidently into Renaud's arms, who caught her about the waist
+and set her down as if she had been a little child.
+
+He took her hand and led her toward the bull.
+
+If Renaud had looked at Zinzara at that moment, he would have
+surprised in her eyes a gleam which she did her best to hide behind
+her half-closed lids. The smile vanished from her mocking lips.
+
+But Livette and Renaud, the pair of comely lovers, were thinking of
+naught but the fete, of themselves, of this strange betrothal at which
+all their people were present, and the like of which not even princes
+could give, for it required rare strength and address on the part of
+the fiance. It was, in very truth, the triumph of a manly king.
+
+"Bravo, king! bravo, queen!"
+
+As they passed the brazier in the centre of the arena, he stooped
+quickly, and seized with his free hand--without stopping or releasing
+Livette's hand--the red-hot iron, which he handed to her as soon as
+they were beside the bull. She took it, and, leaning forward, branded
+the bull on the shoulder, and when they saw the flesh smoking under
+the iron she held in her strong little hand, when the bull began to
+quiver with wrath, the enthusiasm of the people burst forth. Hats and
+hands and scarfs were waved in the air.
+
+"Bravo, king! bravo, queen!"
+
+And Renaud, envied by all, escorted the maiden back to her place,
+while the bull, set free, rushed from the arena in his turn and out
+upon the plain. No, Zinzara no longer laughed.
+
+The game of the "cockades" was next on the programme.
+
+The first two or three were easily carried off--one from the head of
+Angel Pastor himself, the Spanish bull--by the young men of
+Saintes-Maries, and it had not occurred to Renaud to take part in the
+sport.
+
+At last, Serpentine, a nervous little heifer, was let loose in the
+arena. Every one realized instantly that she was in a bad temper and
+would defend herself.
+
+Several tried their fortune against her, but, just as they put out
+their hand to the cockade, Serpentine would turn about so quickly, and
+with such agility for a heifer, that they fled. Ah! the hussy! Zinzara
+suddenly became interested in the game. Renaud had gone down into the
+arena.
+
+"The king! the king! bravo! king!" shouted the crowd.
+
+And Renaud performed prodigies of skill.
+
+Three times he placed his foot upon Serpentine's lowered head, and
+allowed himself to be hurled into space, to fall again upon his
+elastic legs. And as soon as he reached the ground the third time, he
+turned like a flash, ran straight to the heifer, snatched away the
+cockade,--avoiding the blow she aimed at him with her horns in her
+rage,--and was calmly walking away, when the agile creature returned
+to the charge.
+
+Renaud ran, as chance guided him, closely pursued by the beast, and
+when he had leaped upon the nearest wagon, he found himself beside the
+gipsy, whom he had instinctively seized around the waist.
+
+The heifer had already turned her attention to some of the other
+contestants, and very fortunately, too,--for the gipsy, who was
+standing on the edge of her wagon, leaning against the insecure
+boarding, lost her balance, and leaped down, perforce, into the arena,
+carrying Renaud with her.
+
+Livette turned pale as death.
+
+The heifer came galloping back at full speed toward Renaud and
+Zinzara, the latter of whom, being entangled in the folds of her
+ragged finery, thought that she was lost.--Boldly she turned and faced
+the danger, too proud to fly, at least when to fly would be useless.
+But Renaud had already stepped in front of her to protect her, and,
+seized with some insane idea or other,--the bravado of a
+horse-breaker, or of a lover, if you choose,--instead of entering into
+a contest with the heifer, instead of seizing her by the horns or the
+legs, stopped, and, without taking his eyes from the beast's face,
+quickly knelt upon one knee, squatted upon his heel, folded his arms,
+and, with his head thrown back, defied her. Like an experienced
+"trapper," he counted upon the beast's astonishment, and she did, in
+fact, stop short, and scrutinize him suspiciously. The gipsy, her lips
+pressed tightly together, having regained her place upon the wagon,
+looked back and saw her protector still in that singularly foolhardy
+attitude. As may be imagined, everybody was shouting: "Vive Renaud!"
+It seemed as if they would never weary of it.
+
+When he rose, he was again charged by Serpentine, and had barely time
+to regain his place of refuge beside the gitana; and the furious beast
+attacked the flooring of the wagon just at their feet with such a
+fierce blow of her powerfully armed head, that it was caught there for
+a moment by the horns, so that Renaud had to force them out by
+stamping upon them with the heel of his iron-shod boot.
+
+Then the gipsy smiled, and, bending over toward the drover's ear,
+whispered a word or two that made the handsome horse-breaker smile
+with her.
+
+Livette--who was a long distance away, at the other end of the arena,
+but almost opposite them, and so placed that she could see them in the
+bright light--had not lost a single gesture, not a single glance.
+
+What jealousy does not see, it divines, and that is not surprising,
+for it sees what does not exist.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE SNARE
+
+
+The relics were exposed twenty-four hours in the church.
+
+The second day, they reascended to their chapel, amid the howling of
+the same poor wretches whose hopes they carried with them.
+
+At the moment when the relics take their departure, the spectacle
+becomes terrifying. What! all is over! what! they leave us in our
+misery, our woes sharpened by the disappointment! And it is all over!
+over, for a whole year! And yet the power that can heal is here, shut
+up in this box, so near us! among us! They rush at the shrines and
+cling to them!--Nails are broken and bleeding against the iron-bound
+corners!--And the inexorable capstan up above turns and turns, tearing
+from the writhing crowd at the bottom of the well the strange coffin,
+that goes up, up, at the end of the straining ropes. Standing on
+tiptoe, jostling, overturning, crushing one another without pity, the
+poor devils struggle for the last touch--the last, supreme touch that
+may, perhaps, because it is the last, secure the coveted grace.--And
+all in vain. Amid the sobbing prayers, the mysterious closed vessel
+goes up toward the lofty chapel, carrying the water of salvation of
+which so many feverish lips long to drink. And when the shrines pass
+out of sight, near the arch, behind the lowered shutters,--then
+veritable shrieks of agony go up from the frenzied crowd who cannot
+endure the death of hope.
+
+Then the uproar becomes truly frightful; then selfishness breaks
+forth unbridled, each one uttering for his own behoof the bestial cry
+that should bring down on him alone the saints' compassion; then the
+lamentation is wild, the supplication horrible to hear, the prayers
+are prayers of rage! And in this deep moat, whose walls tremble with
+the noise, there is a great uproar as of unclean beasts, thirsting
+for their God as for a physical blessing, as for a vainly awaited
+promised land! And, nailed against one of the bare walls of the
+fortress-church, a great crucifix, with open arms and upturned face,
+above all those distorted faces, all those raised and writhing arms,
+seems to mingle with the fierce lamentations of the human brutes its
+divine but no less fruitless and much more despairing cry!
+
+And yet, it is almost always at the last moment, at the precise second
+when the shrines disappear, that the miracle takes place, and a
+paralytic walks or a blind girl sees. One cries out: "Miracle!"
+
+Lucky girl! She is surrounded, almost suffocated.
+
+"Can you see?"--"I did see."--"Can you see
+now?"--"Wait--yes!"--"What?"--"A bright red lily! a flash! an
+angel!"--"Miracle! miracle!"
+
+A man, a villager, immediately takes the child in his arms. Ah! he has
+seen miracles before! See how he hurries to take the child away on his
+shoulders, on the shield! He carries her thus so that all may see the
+miraculously-cured; so that no one shall forget that genuine miracles
+are done at Saintes-Maries, and come again! And the crowd follows,
+giving thanks. They hurry to the parsonage; the miracle is recorded in
+the presence of several assembled priests.
+
+"Did you see?"--"Yes, I saw!"
+
+And the procession moves on.
+
+Ah! Christophore, the old pirate!--How he hurries along, with his lie
+on his shoulders!--He is a poor inhabitant of Saintes-Maries to whom
+the presence of so many strangers every year brings in something, as
+it does to all the rest, and he trots joyously off with his living
+decoy.
+
+The next day, the child of the miracle is found alone at the foot of
+the Calvary, on the beach, left there for a moment by the woman or
+child who acts as her guide.
+
+"Well, can you see?"--"No."--"What about the miracle, then?"
+
+Poor child! In her plaintive voice, she replies: "It has gone
+again!"--"But you did see, yesterday?"--"Yes."--"If you could see, why
+did they carry you?"--"Oh! monsieur, I couldn't see anything but
+flowers, bright red lilies; but as to walking--oh! no, I couldn't see
+to do that! And now it is all dark. I can't see anything at all any
+more; yes, the miracle--has gone away!"
+
+As soon as the relics had disappeared, everybody left the church in
+procession, to go to bless the sea--the sea that bore the saints to
+Camargue--the sea whereon the brave fishermen risk their lives every
+day.
+
+The cure walked at the head of the procession. He held a relic in his
+hand; it was the Silver Arm, a hollow object in which some relics of
+the saints can be seen through a little square of glass.
+
+The crowd followed in order. There were hundreds, yes, thousands of
+them. Great numbers of pilgrims, sitting on the dunes, watched the
+procession winding its way along the sandy beach where a few
+flat-boats lay high and dry.
+
+Behind Monsieur le cure, six men bore on their shoulders a carved and
+painted wooden image, of considerable size, representing the two
+saints in the boat. There was so much jostling, by so many of the
+crowd, to secure the honor of replacing the bearers, that the boat
+pitched and rolled on their shoulders as if it were at sea in a high
+wind.
+
+Saint Sara, the black saint, came next, borne by dark-haired,
+swarthy-faced gipsies, with eyes that glistened like jet. Their little
+ones meanwhile glided through the crowd like rats, creeping between
+people's legs and stealing handkerchiefs and purses.
+
+And in the wake of the saints came young men and maidens, carrying
+lilies, sweet-smelling lilies, collected in sheaves every year for the
+procession of the faithful.
+
+Others held tapers whose light could not be detected in the bright
+sunlight, but the lilies filled the air with perfume. These lilies
+were Livette's delight.
+
+Monsieur le cure reached the water's edge. He held out the Silver Arm.
+Thereupon, the sea, for an instant, recoiled--only a little. The poor
+fishermen's wives quickly crossed themselves.
+
+And all those who were standing on the dunes, watching the procession
+pass, saw the bearers marching at the head loom taller and taller at
+every step by reason of the mirage. And the saints on the bearers'
+shoulders gradually increased in size with them, and seemed to rise
+heavenward, of prodigious size, as in a vision.
+
+"Protect us, great saints! May the sea be kind to us of Saintes-Maries
+this year!"
+
+Poor people, poor souls! Wait till next year.
+
+Every year it is the same thing. All this returns and will return,
+like the seasons.
+
+On the day following that on which the relics returned to their
+retreat, the majority of the pilgrims left the village. All the camps
+were struck at almost the same hour.
+
+The carriages of all sorts, the cabriolets, dog-carts,
+_chars-a-bancs_, _jardinieres_, break-necks, the rich farmers' breaks,
+and the peasants' wagons, covered with canvas stretched over hoops,
+carried away seven, eight, ten thousand travellers of all ages, sick
+or well, and the long line crawled like a serpent over the flat road
+between two deserts. Here and there, at the left of the line, mounted
+men, many of whom carried a girl _en croupe_, rode back and forth,
+looking for one another, now waiting, now riding on at a gallop to
+take the lead of the caravan.
+
+This departure of the pilgrims was another spectacle for the good
+people of Saintes-Maries, who stood around in noisy groups on the
+outskirts of the village, waving a last adieu to the guests whose
+presence they had taken advantage of to the utmost.
+
+Those who had been compelled to give shelter to friends and had
+consequently been unable to put so high a price on their hospitality,
+good-humoredly repeated the amusing sentiment, that certainly smacks
+less of Arabia than do the horses of the district: _Friends who come
+to visit us always afford us pleasure; if not when they arrive, at all
+events when they depart._
+
+On the second day following that on which the gipsy had smiled upon
+the drover, when the party of zingari passed in their place at the
+tail of the procession, some mounted on sorry nags, others jolting
+about in their wretched wagons,--some of the women on foot, the
+better to beg, carrying their children slung bandoleer-wise over their
+backs,--it was observed that the queen's wagon was not among them.
+
+Zinzara had remained at Saintes-Maries.
+
+She proposed to give herself the pleasure of administering a rebuff to
+the drover, with whom she had made an assignation for that very
+evening.
+
+This is what had taken place.
+
+During the branding, Renaud had whispered in Zinzara's ear:
+
+"Ah! now I have you, gipsy! what a pity that it is before all these
+people!"
+
+"On my word, I have the same thought _at this moment_," she replied,
+deeply touched by the grand presence of mind he had just shown in
+defending her.
+
+"All right," he said, "I'll come and speak to you very soon. These are
+lovely nights."
+
+"No, to-morrow," said she, "to-morrow, do you understand? after the
+wagons have gone."
+
+But at the close of the performance, when he saw Livette coming toward
+him with pale cheeks, so pale that she looked like a corpse, he was
+seized with poignant remorse.
+
+"She saw me," he said to himself, "and she is suffering from
+jealousy."
+
+And so great was his pity for the poor little girl that he felt
+capable of sacrificing to her, once for all, at the very moment when
+it had become more difficult than ever, his insane passion for the
+other. All the chaste affection he had felt for Livette from the very
+first, so different from passion and so pleasant to the senses, came
+back to him like the puff of fresh air that awakens one from a bad
+dream.
+
+Furthermore, he was surprised, almost disconcerted, to find that the
+gipsy's formal promise did not afford him the pleasure he had expected
+when he had dreamed of it in anticipation.
+
+Livette left him to join her father, who was not to take her back to
+the chateau until the evening of the following day, two or three hours
+after the departure of the pilgrims, in order to remain until the end
+of the fete, and to avoid the thick dust and the enforced slowness of
+the long procession.
+
+And that day--in the afternoon--Renaud fell in with Monsieur le cure.
+
+"Good-day, drover. What is the matter, my boy? You seem preoccupied."
+
+"Oh! cure," said Renaud, "sometimes it is difficult to do what is
+right!"
+
+With that he was about to pass on, but the cure seized his arm and
+detained him.
+
+"Eh! cure," said Renaud, "you have still a powerful grasp!"
+
+"Beware, Renaud," said the cure very slowly, "lest you become a great
+sinner. I know what I know. Your betrothed wife is weeping. She is
+jealous. Already rumors are in circulation concerning you. And for
+whom, just God! would you betray that virtuous girl, who, wealthy as
+she is, gives herself to you, a poor orphan? You would ruin a whole
+family, poor you! and your honor and the repose of your heart,
+forever! The devil is crafty, you are right, and to do right is
+difficult, but those whom the devil inspires, when you follow their
+momentary caprice and your own fancy, lead you on to abysses deeper
+than the _lorons_ of the _paluns_. You are walking at this moment on
+the moving crust! If it bursts, adieu, my man! You will be engulfed
+body and soul. As for yourself, that is a small matter! but by what
+right do you compel the little one to run the risk of your downfall?
+You are dealing with an accursed creature, a woman who does not know
+herself, who is submissive to nobody, and who cares nothing for the
+misfortunes of others. Whatever she does is for her own amusement. I
+have seen her and watched her. The saints have taught me many things.
+Beware! The little one is brave. Some day there may be innocent blood
+on your hands, if you keep on in the road I forbid you to follow, for
+the devil is in the affair, I tell you, and all sorts of monsters are
+awaiting you at the turning in the evil road. A betrothed lover's
+infidelity, like a husband's, lays an egg filled with ghastly
+creatures, which sometimes hatches. If you have a heart, show it,
+Renaud, take my advice, and go back to your horses and cattle in the
+solitude of your plains, where the malignant fever is less to be
+feared than the disease you are taking here!"
+
+Renaud, the tall, strong, dashing blade, listened to these wise words,
+hanging his head, poor fellow, like a child scolded for not knowing
+his catechism.
+
+"If you are a man, make up your mind at once, and give me your word as
+a true-hearted drover."
+
+"Take my hand, Monsieur le cure. I give you my word. I was in a fair
+way to go wrong. A spell was on me."
+
+The two men exchanged a grasp of the hand.
+
+The cure walked away with an anxious heart. He knew that Renaud was
+sincere, but he knew the strength of man's passion and his ingenuity
+in lying.
+
+So the cure had been asking questions?--In that case, to consort with
+the gipsy was to risk a rupture with Livette.
+
+Renaud was about to leave the village,--or, if you please, the
+town,--with his mind firmly made up to renounce the gitana. Yes, he
+would sacrifice her to Livette, to his earnest desire to have a
+peaceful, happy home and a family, he, the wandering cowherd, the
+orphan, the foundling of the desert. That was happiness;--a roof to
+shelter one, a roof whose smoke one can see from afar on the horizon,
+thinking: the wife and little ones are there.
+
+He would renounce the gitana; yes, but he proposed to make known his
+resolution to her himself. At the thought of leaving Saintes-Maries
+without _seeing her again_, for the purpose of telling her that he
+would not _see her again_, a weary feeling came over him; it seemed to
+him that he was suddenly shut up in a narrow space, and left there
+without air, without horizon.--But he would see her again--he must. It
+would be better so. Must he not soothe her anger first of all? She
+would be angry enough in any event. Why exasperate her?--In very
+truth, if he did see her again, it was--he reached this conclusion
+after much thought--it was principally in order to protect poor
+Livette against her! Yes, yes, it was for her sake that he would see
+her again. See her again! At those words, which he repeated softly to
+himself, a joy in living, in moving, in breathing, took possession of
+him.
+
+Meanwhile, Zinzara, for her part, was vowing inwardly that she would
+enjoy a hearty laugh at the drover when he should presently seek her
+out!
+
+Why, in that case, had she answered _yes_ to his amorous questions?
+Oh! because at the moment when he whispered them in her ear, if she
+had been able, upon the spot, to give herself to this savage, all
+aglow from his conflict with bulls and heifers, doubtless she would
+have done it. He had awakened desire in her, as heat awakens thirst,
+as a summer evening awakens longing for a bath.--And then it had given
+her pleasure to say to herself that, over at the other end of the
+arena, the woman to whom he had paid queenly honor by giving her the
+smoking, red-hot iron, like the sceptre of a magician or a wicked
+zingaro king,--that that woman was suffering torments.
+
+But he came too late. The desire had passed away. And the acme of
+delight to her now lay in the thought of refusing the promised favor
+to the Christian she detested, while giving Livette to believe that he
+had been false to her.
+
+Sitting upon a stone, alone, at some distance from her wagon, she
+awaited the drover. Her resolution to take vengeance by refusing was
+written upon her compressed lips, whose smile became more malicious
+than ever when she saw him riding toward her.
+
+A few steps away he stopped. As he looked at her, he felt a sudden
+rushing of the blood in all his veins, a strange, delicious pressure
+at the pit of the stomach. He recognized the characteristic agitation
+of love; but he made an effort, and said, in a voice which he felt to
+be unsteady: "I expected to be free to-night, but I am not. The master
+has sent for me, and I must be far away from here by night-fall. So I
+must go at once. Adieu, gipsy!"
+
+Zinzara understood instantly that he was running away from her, and
+why!---- She rose, like the serpent that rises on its tail and hisses
+with anger. All her harsh resolutions vanished in a twinkling; and, in
+a short, sharp, jerky voice, entirely different from her natural
+voice, she said: "I want you, do you hear? No one else shall give you
+orders when I have orders for you. What I want done is done. Are you
+going to act like a coward, pray--you, who have taken my fancy
+because, when you are on your horse, you resemble a zingaro who knows
+neither master nor God? Come, go on!"
+
+Thus, the same motive of passionate hatred,--as pleasant to her taste
+as love,--that a moment before induced her determination not to go
+with Renaud, now threw her into his arms. And to him the love or
+hatred of such a woman, at the moment when she gave herself to him,
+was one and the same thing; were there not still her passion, her
+animated features, her gleaming eyes, her lips that, as they moved,
+disclosed two rows of pearly, sparkling teeth? Was there not her
+flexible, ballet-dancer's body, significantly held out toward him to
+whom she laid claim?
+
+A thrill of savage joy shook Renaud from head to foot; and, as his
+rider shuddered, as if he had been touched by a cramp-fish, the horse
+seemed to experience a similar sensation, and pawed the ground an
+instant, between the knees that involuntarily pressed closer to his
+sides.
+
+What was he to do? Ah! blessed saints! His betrothal had kept him
+virtuous for a long while, you know; had held him aloof from the frail
+damsels with whom he formerly consorted, and his youth was speaking
+now. The sea-bull must have the wild heifer. Lions that have loved
+gazelles, so says the Arabian legend, have died of it. Living
+creatures, by the law of nature, crave paroxysms of passion; so long
+as they have them not, they seek them; and pay for them, if need be,
+with their own and others' blood. Who of us will blame them for
+becoming delirious sometimes, if we remember that life longs to live,
+and that that longing overshadows the fear of death?
+
+"Come, go on!"
+
+The queen uttered love's command. And with one bound she jumped to the
+saddle behind him. In a twinkling she had wound her right arm about
+the horseman's waist: "Go on!" she said again; and then, in an
+undertone, in a voice that was no more than a warm, speaking breath
+upon the man's neck, and made him shudder to the very roots of his
+hair, she added: "I want you, do you understand? I want you! So go on,
+go on! The man who goes on, arrives!"
+
+He was caught, fast bound. The sorceress's arm was about his loins. He
+felt it against him, living, trembling, stronger than aught else.
+
+The stupefied Renaud tried to regain his self-control,--to shake off
+the spell. He sat there, dazed, unable to disentangle his thoughts, to
+determine what he should do, trying to collect his ideas of a moment
+before, the good cure's advice, his word of honor, none of which could
+he remember or repeat to himself in his mind, intelligibly. It had all
+gone from him, out of reach of the effort of his memory. When an
+intense amorous passion guides our movements, it is as legitimate as
+physical force,--honor is not betrayed: it has ceased to exist!
+
+Those few seconds of hesitation afforded Zinzara perfect comprehension
+of what was taking place within him. His desire was no longer ardent
+enough to satisfy her pride, since it was possible for him to waver
+ever so little!
+
+"Where are we going?" said she, resuming her sharp, jerky tone, in
+which there was a suspicion of a hiss. "Where are we going? You must
+know of a hiding-place somewhere, some deserted cabin in the midst of
+your swamps here,--a perfectly safe place, all your own, where you
+have taken other women--what do I care? _Pardi!_ I don't suppose that
+you waited for me, to _learn_! I will go wherever you take me.
+Remember this--it must be somewhere where nobody can find me, for my
+race doesn't mix with yours: the zingara who gives herself to a
+Christian is the only despised one among us, and if one of our people
+should see me, there would be knives in the air, you may be sure, for
+you and for me!"
+
+He still hesitated, remembering that he had reasons for hesitation,
+but unable to remember what they were. Mechanically he held back his
+horse (it was Blanchet!), who was acting badly.
+
+At last, in the hurly-burly of his thoughts, he seized, at random,
+upon one thing he had entirely forgotten, the tapers promised by
+Livette to the Saintes Maries. He was to have lighted them devoutly in
+the church, during the night before or that morning. Yesterday his
+fiancee had reminded him again of the promise. Doubtless, Livette had
+lighted them for him, but that was not the same thing. And so the
+devil had him, do what he would. He lost his head. He felt that he was
+sliding down an inclined plane, and finding his struggles of no avail,
+he abandoned himself to his fate and hastened his fall.
+
+"I know where we will go," he said; "to the Conscript's Hut, in the
+swamp."
+
+It seemed to him that he was forced to reply, but he no longer felt
+any internal revolt against that obligation--far otherwise.
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"Yes, in Crau, on the other side of the Rhone, near the Icard farm.
+The devil couldn't find me there. Rampal might come there, no one
+else----"
+
+"Wait," said she at that name, with a sudden gleam in her cat-like
+eyes.
+
+She whistled.
+
+He said to himself that some one from Saintes-Maries would certainly
+see them, and that Livette would learn the whole story--that it would
+be better now to start at once.--Or perhaps--who knows?--the delay was
+a good thing! Livette might pass, herself, and all would be changed.
+He would hasten to her side. They would be saved. Who would be saved?
+and from what? from a vague, terrible thing that was before him. He
+could not have told what it was; but it was simply the renunciation of
+his own will.
+
+The gitana's clear, shrill whistle summoned a little zingaro of some
+ten years, a veritable wild cat, who came running to the horse's side.
+
+From the saddle she said a few words in the gipsy language to him, in
+a short, imperative tone of command. The gipsy language is composed of
+German, Coptic, Egyptian, and Sanscrit. Renaud listened without the
+slightest suspicion of the meaning of the words.
+
+In a fit of amorous hatred, the swarthy queen said to the little
+fellow:
+
+"You know Rampal, the drover? go and find him. He is in the village; I
+saw him not long ago. Go at once and tell him this: he will find me
+to-night, with his enemy, whom you see here, in the Conscript's Hut,
+which he knows! And I will join you and the wagon to-morrow evening,
+in the town of Arles, by the old tombs."
+
+She thought of everything. The wild cat disappeared.
+
+"What did you say to him?" Renaud inquired.
+
+She began to laugh, an insolent laugh.
+
+He felt that he abhorred her, that he would delight to see her
+conquered, under his heel, absolutely in his power, gipsy queen and
+sorceress that she was, like an ordinary woman.
+
+Each desired the other in hatred.
+
+She laughed as she thought that the man about whom her arms were
+thrown like a lover she was luring to his destruction. That very
+night--before or after the joys of love; what cared she for
+that?--there would be between him and that other a struggle as of wild
+beasts, which she longed to see; a witches' carnival of love, to
+rejoice the souls of the dead; and she laughed.
+
+"Queens," said she, "cannot leave their kingdoms without issuing
+secret orders. Come, my beast!"
+
+Was she speaking to the man or the horse?--To the man, doubtless, in
+whom she had awakened an animal like herself.
+
+She pressed him tighter, and again she whispered:
+
+"Come, come!"
+
+He felt the vampire's breath playing in the short hair on his neck and
+descending in hot flushes to his feet, which were nervously tapping
+his horse's flanks. Renaud trembled. His passion had taken possession
+of him once more in all its intensity. It seemed as if a hurricane
+were raging in man and horse alike. They started off at full speed.
+
+Renaud believed that he had a victim in his grasp, but he was himself
+the victim, and he rode away with the witch clinging fast to him--as
+the kite sometimes flies away with the serpent, thinking that he has
+mastered it, only to be strangled in its folds at last.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+HERODIAS
+
+
+They galloped across the plain. At every step, Renaud felt the gentle
+pressure of the woman's arm. Zinzara and Renaud galloped away upon
+Livette's horse!
+
+Of what was the drover thinking? Was she girl or woman? His pride made
+him persist, in spite of himself, in wishing that she might be the
+former, although it seemed hardly probable, heathen females mature so
+early!
+
+A breath of air blew in their faces. It brought to their nostrils the
+pungent smell of tamarisk blossoms. He slackened his horse's pace.
+
+"Go on, go on!" said she, "press on! We will talk later--by ourselves,
+romi, where nobody can see us."
+
+The horse darted forward afresh.
+
+Renaud was conscious of a vague yet overmastering feeling of pride in
+being there, in trampling the grass of the plain with four feet, in
+knowing no obstacles, in having that woman close beside him--and, over
+yonder, another!
+
+One would run risks and be false to the traditions of her race for
+his sake. The other, if she should know, might die of the knowledge.
+And, although he loved her, the thought caused a thrill of savage joy,
+but he promptly repressed it. Luckily, however, she would know nothing
+of it. And he became intoxicated with the rapid movement and with
+pride, man and beast combined, fairly launched upon his mad career.
+
+Magnificent was the sky, studded with more stars than the dunes have
+grains of sand and the desert waving flowers clinging to the twigs of
+the _saladelles_. The Milky-Way was as white as the pyramids of salt
+seen through the morning mist. One would have said that a vast bridal
+veil, torn in strips, was floating above the whole plain, alive with
+murmurs of love.
+
+Innumerable little snails were perched, like blossoms, upon the stalks
+of the reeds, and swung to and fro.
+
+A very gentle breeze was blowing and raising a slight, uncertain
+ripple along the edges of the marsh, with the sound of a furtive kiss
+among the flowering rushes. At times, a lark or a flamingo, asleep
+among the reeds or in the shallow water, would awaken ever so little
+and chirp to let his mate know that he was there, not far away.
+
+June is no hotter. Sometimes the smell of roses filled their nostrils,
+coming in long puffs from far-off gardens. Yonder, in the park of the
+Chateau d'Avignon, the Syrian tree was sending forth its pollen.
+
+Renaud, after skirting the sea for some distance, rode due northeast,
+beyond the pond of La Dame.
+
+He was bound for Grand-Patis. The people at Sambuc had some boats that
+he knew of.
+
+For a moment, they rode beside a drove. Bulls, standing in water up to
+their thighs, hardly noticed, were feeding on the flowering reeds.
+White mares fled at their approach, followed faithfully by stallions
+anxious not to lose sight of them. The sap of May was flowing in the
+reeds and rushes, in the sambucus and tamarisk. The very water exhaled
+a saline odor, stronger than usual, and more heavily laden with
+desires. The wild vine called to its mate, that came borne upon the
+heavy breath of the blooming desert.
+
+Again Renaud stopped, seized with a mild, pleasurable vertigo.
+
+The fresh, love-compelling breeze in which they were bathed laid an
+imperious command upon him.
+
+"Get down," said he, "get down at once! This is a good place to rest."
+
+But she remembered the order she had given.
+
+"We must go where we were going," said she. "I will not get down until
+we are there. We must cross the Rhone, you say? Press on, press
+on!--Gallop! The gipsy loves the horse."
+
+She would have none of his caresses except at the place appointed. She
+would not submit to him until they should be where he was, by her
+agency, in danger of death or suffering. A kiss under other
+circumstances would be a triumph for him, and she gave herself to him
+for her own pleasure alone. She desired to feel, in the interchange of
+caresses, that the moisture of her lips was poison, that her bite
+would cause death or madness.
+
+Firmly seated _en croupe_, still clinging fast to the drover--her
+victim--with her arm wound about him, her bare legs hanging in the
+folds of her skirt which the wind raised as they sped along, with her
+head thrown proudly back, she swayed gracefully with the rocking
+motion of the gallop; and her face, which had a sallow look in the
+moonlight against the neck of the man whom she was leading astray,
+albeit she seemed to be carried away by him--her face was wreathed in
+smiles.
+
+When Herodias had obtained the head of John the Baptist, she lifted it
+by the hair from the gold charger, whereon it lay with a circle of
+blood around the neck, raised it to the level of her face, and after
+gazing upon it with deep interest, examining the closed eyelids and
+long lashes and the transparent pallor of the cheeks, she suddenly
+placed her mouth upon that lifeless mouth and sought to force her
+tongue between the lips to the cold teeth too tightly closed in death,
+esteeming that kiss, inflicted on her dead foe, more delicious than
+the incestuous caresses for which he had reproved her.
+
+What was left of Renaud's suspicions of Zinzara, while she was smiling
+in the darkness, and the warm breath from her lips was playing upon
+his neck? He had ceased to reflect; he rode on. He willingly postponed
+the longed-for hour, now that he was forced to go on. He thought no
+more of violence. His happiness was secure. He could wait. In the
+midst of the deserted plains, still warm from the sunlight though
+refreshed by the night air, love came without calling, but he enjoyed
+the anticipation more than anything he had known.--And then she might
+escape him even now. He must be careful not to startle her. When they
+reached the nest yonder, he would keep her there some time. And so he
+rode on, inhaling the saline air of the desert, which was his--with
+his stallion's four shoeless feet trampling through the sand and
+water, which were his also--bound for the horizon, which would soon be
+his.
+
+Once, however, in the midst of a swamp, where the water was above his
+horse's knees, he stopped again.
+
+"What is it?" said she.
+
+Renaud turned his head, and throwing himself back, called her with a
+smacking of his lips.
+
+"When I am ready!" said Zinzara in a mocking tone.
+
+As she spoke, Blanchet leaped forward, with all four feet in the air,
+and made a tremendous splashing in the water, which fell about their
+heads in a heavy shower.
+
+And, unseen by Renaud, the gipsy smiled against his neck, as she
+replaced in her hair the long gold pin she had plunged into the
+beast's flank.
+
+Suddenly there was a shout of _Qui vive?_ directly in front of them,
+so unexpected in the solitude, that Blanchet jumped again.
+
+"_Qui vive?_" the voice repeated.
+
+"The king!" Renaud replied gaily.
+
+"Ah! is it you, Renaud?"
+
+It was the revenue officers; but Renaud hurried by, at a safe
+distance, so that they might not recognize the gitana.
+
+They were near the salt spring of Badon. The rectangular heaps of salt
+seemed like so many long, low houses, with sharp roofs. In its
+shroud-like whiteness the spot resembled a little town, geometrically
+laid out, asleep under dead snow.
+
+They reached the shore of the main stream of the Rhone.
+
+Zinzara was on the ground before Renaud had stopped his horse.
+
+He alighted in his turn, and handed the rein to the gipsy. She held
+Blanchet while he was drinking in the river.
+
+"Now for some oats!" said Renaud.
+
+He took a small sack that was fastened across his saddle-bow, from
+holster to holster, and at Zinzara's suggestion emptied it into her
+dress which she held up with both hands.
+
+Poor, poor Blanchet! there was only a handful of grain.
+
+"Wait for me; I'll go to find the boat."
+
+Renaud disappeared in the darkness behind the reeds and willows that
+grew along the bank, drowned in the mist, floating like pallid
+spectres in the darkness.
+
+Zinzara heard nothing save the plashing of the water, and the
+crunching of the oats between Blanchet's teeth, as he swept them up
+with his long lip from the hollow of the dress.--Oh! if Livette could
+have seen that!
+
+"Here I am, come!" said Renaud's voice.
+
+He approached, raising the oars. She walked to the water's edge.
+
+"Hold the reins fast. The horse will follow us."
+
+She stepped into the boat and stood in the stern. Blanchet followed,
+in the wake.
+
+Renaud knew the current at that spot. He rowed diagonally across and
+reached the other shore more than a hundred yards farther down.
+
+He tied the boat to the trunk of a willow and tightened the girths,
+and they were off again.
+
+It was necessary to ascend the stream a long distance to find a place
+to ford the canal that runs from Arles to Port-le-Bouc. When they had
+crossed the canal, he said:
+
+"We are almost there."
+
+They had ridden nearly five hours.
+
+His desires were approaching fruition. He was seized with the
+impatience that comes with the last half-hour. He had a vision of what
+was to come.
+
+"It is in the _gargate_," he said. And he explained: "The _gargate_ is
+like thickened water. It is about the same as mud. The cabin we are
+going to is in the midst of one of these patches of mud. Ah! we shall
+be well protected there, gitana, I promise you. A man once lived there
+for a long while; a conscript who wanted to evade the draft. And
+later, an escaped convict, a native of the neighborhood, who knew
+about the place. No one could dislodge him there. Others know the
+spot; but never fear, I have a way to fool them. Trust me, gitana, we
+shall be well guarded there, by death hidden in the water around us!"
+
+They reached their destination.
+
+Renaud tied his horse to a tree, and took Zinzara's hand.
+
+"Follow me," he said.
+
+The moon was rising. With the end of a stick, he pointed out to her,
+just above the surface of the water, the heads of the stakes, looming
+black among the stalks of thorn-broom and reeds and the broad,
+spreading leaves of the water-lily.
+
+"Always step to the left of the stakes," he said; "they mark the
+right-hand edge of the solid path just below the surface of the
+water."
+
+Renaud had taken off his shoes and stockings. She lifted her skirts
+and walked with bare legs, and he held her hand. They walked thus for
+some time. Her interest was aroused by her surroundings. The place
+pleased her.
+
+The water was disturbed a little here and there. She stopped and
+watched.
+
+"Turtles," said he; and added: "Here is the cabin."
+
+The cabin stood in the midst of the bog, built on piles, as was the
+path leading to it. Reeds and a few tamarisks surrounded it, and made
+it invisible from almost every direction. On the gray, thatched roof,
+shaped like a hay-stack, the little cross gleamed in the moonlight,
+bent back as if the wind had tried to blow it down.
+
+The back of the cabin was turned to the _mistral_. They entered.
+Renaud took a candle from his wallet and struck a match. The light
+danced upon the walls.
+
+The low walls were of grayish mud, set in a rough frame-work. The
+floor was covered with a bed of reeds. A cotton cloth, to keep out the
+gnats, hung before the door. There was a stationary table against the
+wall at the right, near the head of the bed; it was a flat stone
+supported by four pieces of timber fastened to the floor.
+
+Renaud set his candle down on the stone. The gitana, already seated on
+the rough bed, watched him with a savage look in her eyes. She began
+to feel that she was a little too much in his power, that it was a
+little too much like being under his roof.
+
+The cabin was like all the cabins in the district. From the ceiling
+bunches of reed blossoms hung like waving silver plumes. The big
+cross-timbers of the ceiling were pinned together with wooden pegs,
+the large ends of which projected, and some few scraps of worn-out
+clothes were still hanging from them. There was a fire-place in one
+corner, made of large stones placed side by side, and in the roof,
+directly above it, was a hole for the smoke.
+
+Renaud hung his wallet on one of the pegs.
+
+"Now, wait for me," he said, with a loud laugh, "I'm going out to
+attend to the horse."
+
+She was surprised, but after she had glanced at him, she could think
+of nothing but Rampal.
+
+He went out to Blanchet, removed the saddle and laid it on the ground,
+then mounted him, bareback, and rode him to a pasture some distance
+away, where he hobbled him and left him.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, Renaud returned, with his saddle across
+his shoulders, to the cabin where Zinzara was awaiting him. But, as he
+walked along the solid path, a black ribbon covered by a sheet of
+shallow water, he took up the stakes that marked one edge of the path,
+and moved them from the right side to the left;--so that, if that
+beggarly Rampal, the only man likely to follow him to that lair, chose
+to come there, he certainly would not go far, but would remain there,
+buried up to his neck at least!
+
+When he had changed the position of the first twenty stakes, the only
+ones visible from the shore of the bog, Renaud stood up and walked
+swiftly toward the cabin. His heart at that moment was sad, and more
+filled with slime and noxious things than the waters of the swamp,
+which, though they glistened in the moonlight, were black beneath the
+surface.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+IN THE NEST
+
+
+In the contracted cage, whose thatched roof, with its peak of red
+tiles, shone in the moonlight amid the marsh plants, the two beasts of
+the same species, Zinzara and Renaud, were shut up together.
+
+"I am hungry," said she, in a hostile tone.
+
+He took a tin box from his wallet and raised the cover; it contained
+the wherewithal to support life; he cut the bread and uncorked the
+bottle.
+
+She ate silently, still with the savage look in her eyes. He waited
+upon her, partaking also of the dry bread himself, and putting his
+lips to the flat bottle, filled with the strong wine of the wild
+grape.
+
+When they had eaten, he handed her a small flask of brandy. She drank
+from it, joyfully, and soon her eyes began to sparkle. He looked at
+her, ready to embrace her. She answered him with a glance so mocking
+and unfathomable, that he hesitated, waiting for he knew not what,
+weary besides, and feeling that his brain was confused.
+
+He saw her thereupon take her tambourine, which she wore fastened to
+her belt by a small cord, under her dress; and she began to play upon
+it. She was sitting on the bed. She struck regular, monotonous blows
+upon the vibrating skin, and at every blow the charms depending from
+the tambourine jangled noisily.
+
+Then she began to sing outlandish words, in slow measure, beating time
+with the tambourine. And this proceeding at length fascinated the
+drover, who gazed at her, as completely under the spell as the lizard
+listening to the locust in the sunshine on a summer's day.
+
+This lasted an hour. He watched her, enchanted, proud, thinking of
+nothing but her, and he felt his heart leap and quiver in his breast
+at every touch upon the tambourine.
+
+But one would have said that she had drawn about herself a circle that
+he could not cross. He waited until the circle should be broken. He
+was like one of the great dogs trained to guard droves of bulls; that
+are so fearless of blows from the horns of their charges, but sit
+obediently by watching their master at his meals, waiting for the
+crumb he tosses them, slaves of the king, of their god, who is man.
+
+She had now the effect upon him of a genuine queen, a queen in some
+fairy tale, with her studied attitudes accompanied by the monotonous
+music, which was accentuated by the ceaseless motion of the sequins of
+her crown of copper against her swarthy brow and the dead black of
+her hair.
+
+Suddenly she laid her tambourine aside. He started toward her. She
+held him back with a stern glance, and snatching away the silk
+handkerchief that covered her shoulders, appeared before him in a rich
+waist of many colors; and he saw upon her breast necklaces of gold
+pieces--her fortune.
+
+"Await my pleasure," said she. "Leave me in peace a moment."
+
+She covered her head with the ample handkerchief she had taken off and
+remained hidden behind that veil for a moment. Renaud heard her
+muttering unfamiliar words--_mormo_, _gorgo_--words of sorcery,
+without doubt.
+
+When she threw back her veil, she was laughing.
+
+What vision had the sorceress evoked? what had the seer seen?
+
+"It will be better than I hoped!" said she. "Now, look!"
+
+She rose, and to the accompaniment of the jangling of the sequins in
+her diadem and the gold pieces of her necklace, set in motion by her
+slow dance, in the course of which she did not move from where she
+stood, she removed her garments, one by one.
+
+By the flickering light of the candle, that waved back and forth as a
+breath of air came in through the door, Renaud watched the familiar
+vision reappear.
+
+Zinzara swayed this way and that as she unfastened, one after
+another, her waist, her skirts--and took them off, bending gracefully
+forward and backward, raising her arms above her head or lowering them
+to her ankles. And now you would have said it was a bronze statue,
+glistening in the half-darkness. Renaud knew that figure well, from
+having seen it one day in the bright sunlight, and so many, many times
+since then, in his imagination.
+
+The necklace tinkled upon her swelling breasts; several large rings
+were around her ankles, and upon her brow, the crown from which the
+trinkets hung.
+
+She turned and twisted gracefully about, her dark skin gleaming like a
+mirror.
+
+"You see," said she, "Zinzara gives herself, no man takes her, romi.
+The wild girl belongs to no one but herself. And even now I could, if
+I chose, nail you where you stand, forever!"
+
+As she spoke, she threw down upon her clothes a keen-edged stiletto
+that had gleamed for an instant in her hand.
+
+"Come!" said she.
+
+They lay, side by side, on the floor of that hovel, upon the crackling
+reeds.
+
+At that moment, he looked into the depths of her eyes, and he saw
+there vague things by which he had already on several occasions been
+profoundly alarmed. The gitana's hidden purpose, as to which she
+herself had no clear idea, flickered uncertainly in her glance,
+making its presence felt, but giving no hint by which it could be
+divined.
+
+Her smile, which was ordinarily visible only at the corner of her
+mouth, had spread, more unfathomable than ever, over her whole face,
+which wore an expression of triumphant mockery. More mysterious she
+appeared and more desirable. If Renaud had been familiar with the
+carved stone animals that lie sleeping in the Egyptian desert, he
+would have recognized their expression, an expression that words
+cannot describe, upon the speaking face that gazed at him and called
+him.
+
+And, lo! the hatred he had once before felt for that face, for that
+glance, returned swiftly, imperiously, to his mind; an irresistible
+desire to seize the woman by the neck and choke her with cruel,
+unyielding hands.
+
+Even that feeling was love, for otherwise it would have occurred to
+him to part abruptly from the sorceress, to fly from her; that thought
+would have come to him, once at least, and it did not come. On the
+contrary, he felt that he could not really possess her except by some
+violence of that sort. Is it not true that mares look upon bites as
+caresses?--She saw the thought in his eyes, and began to laugh.
+
+Again she recognized distinctly, and with delight, the brute like
+herself that she had aroused in him. And she did it to demonstrate her
+power to subdue the brute, with a look.
+
+"Oh! you may!" she said, with a smile.
+
+As she spoke, he caught a rapid glimpse of the part she was to play
+in his destiny: the pollution of his life, the loss of real happiness,
+of all repose, and the false love--the strongest of all passions.
+
+Their glances, laden with amorous hate, met and struck fire like
+knife-blades.
+
+He seized her around the neck and was very near choking her in good
+earnest; he thought that he would strangle her. "Come, come!" she said
+in a languishing voice; but, suddenly feeling the pressure of the hand
+that was really squeezing her throat, she leaped up at him, and, with
+a strangled laugh, hurled her mouth at his and bit his lips. They
+could hear their teeth clash. He uttered a cry which was at once
+stifled, for their angry lips had no sooner met than they were
+appeased.
+
+She gazed at him for a long while, looking always into his eyes. She
+saw them more than once grow dim and sightless, and then, exulting in
+the thought of this wild bull's weakness in her hands, she laughed
+silently; but no emotion dimmed the brightness of her eyes. Suddenly,
+when he had grown calmer, a profound sigh caused him to look with more
+attention at the savage creature he had conquered at last. A pallor as
+of the other world overspread her swarthy face; her features were
+distended. She was no longer smiling. The wrinkle that ordinarily
+raised one corner of her lips and gave her an air of mockery had
+vanished. The corners of her mouth, on the other hand, drooped a
+little, imparting a sad expression to her face. One would have said
+she was a different being. There was no trace of animation upon her
+features. She no longer belonged to herself. An attack of vertigo had
+taken away her power of thought. She was like a drowned woman drifting
+with the tide. Something as everlasting as death had proved stronger
+than she.
+
+As if from the midst of one of those dreams which, in a second, open
+eternity to our gaze, she returned to herself with amazement.
+
+The snake-charmer realized that she had been defeated in a way she was
+unaccustomed to; she experienced a curious sensation of shame, a sort
+of proud regret that she had forgotten herself as never before.--And
+was he, without even suspecting the trap she had set for him,
+tranquilly to carry off the gratification of his passion with which
+she had baited the trap? In that case she would have betrayed herself!
+She would be the victim of her detested lover! of Livette's
+betrothed!--The mere thought was intolerable to her. And in a frenzy
+of rage and humiliation she put out her hand and felt among her
+clothes that lay in a pile near by, for the stiletto she had
+insolently thrown upon them just before.
+
+Renaud understood only one thing; the beast was becoming ugly again!
+He seized her wrists and held her arms to the ground, crossed above
+her head, and then he began to laugh in his turn.
+
+Her insane rage came to the surface; she writhed about and tried to
+bite, but could not. She felt that her power was gone, that she was in
+the hands of one stronger than herself. Without understanding her, he
+felt that she was dangerous and he mastered her. The Christian had her
+in his power! It was too much. She felt her eyes bursting with the
+tears that were ready to gush forth, but she forced them back. A
+little foam appeared at the corner of her mouth.
+
+"Dog!" she exclaimed.
+
+At that, the man whose face she saw above her own, bending over and
+rising again quickly, touched her lips with his. And he had the
+feeling that the hand that grasped the stiletto relaxed its hold.
+
+At that moment, a wailing cry rent the air above the cabin, then
+ceased abruptly, before it had died away in the distance, as if the
+bird that uttered that signal of distress had lighted among the reeds
+near at hand, and had at once become mute.
+
+Renaud took his eyes from the gitana's face.
+
+"What is that?" said he.
+
+"A curlew flying over!" she replied, without moving.--"The curlew goes
+south in winter."
+
+Renaud was on his feet, pale as death.
+
+"King," said she, "do you love your queen? Then look at her!"
+
+And, as she lay upon her back, she began to make her snake-like body
+undulate and gleam like a mirror, keeping time with her tambourine,
+which she held above her head.
+
+The bursts of laughter with which she punctuated the outlandish music
+displayed her glistening teeth from end to end.
+
+"Come back here," she said, "are you afraid?"
+
+He was ashamed, and, returning to the straw pallet, resumed his role
+of subjugated watch-dog in love with a she-wolf.
+
+In that one night, the young man felt the whole power of his youth,
+learned more of life and realized more dreams than many real kings.
+
+The pleasures of love are no greater to the prince than to the
+charcoal-burner.
+
+The day was breaking. Bands of violet along the horizon changed to
+pink and then to yellow. An awakening breeze passed like a shiver over
+the desert of sand and water, entered the cabin, and blew out the
+flickering light on the stone table.
+
+A cock in the distance welcomed the dawn.
+
+Thereupon, Renaud started to go to find his horse. The wallet was
+empty, too.
+
+"At the Icard farm," said he, "I can get what I need."
+
+"Do you suppose," said she, "that I intend to stay here all day like a
+captive goose?"
+
+"Is it all over, then?" said he, "and are you going away, too?"
+
+"To return may be a pleasure," said she, "but to remain is always a
+bore."
+
+She hummed in the gipsy language:
+
+    "God gave thy mare no rein, Romichal."
+
+"If you choose," she continued, "we will ride together till night. My
+horse has wings."
+
+"Very good," said Renaud. "Do you cross over to solid ground first. We
+will go together and get my horse. It will be a fine day."
+
+"And a good one! be sure of that!" said she, in her jerky voice, her
+voice which resembled _another's_.
+
+He went with her as far as the first of the stakes he had displaced,
+to point out the safe road to her, and when he saw her reach the edge
+of the swamp sixty feet beyond, he stooped and began to put the stakes
+in place one by one as he walked toward the firm ground.
+
+When he reached the last, he sprang to his feet with haggard eyes.
+
+Livette, with head thrown back, face turned toward the sky, eyes
+closed, mouth open, and grass mingled with her straying hair, was
+lying among the water-lilies, as if asleep, and in the throes of a bad
+dream. He also saw her two little clenched hands, above the water,
+clinging to the reeds.
+
+Transformed for a moment to a statue, Renaud soon aroused himself,
+and, bending over Livette, put his hands under her armpits. The poor
+body, buried in the thick, black ooze, came slowly forth, torn from
+its bed like the smooth stalk of a lily.
+
+When he had the poor body in his arms, inert and cold, perhaps
+dead,--the body of the poor, dear child, whose skirts, entangled in a
+net-work of long grasses, clung tightly to her dangling legs,--Renaud
+suddenly uttered a roar as of an enraged wild beast, and ran like a
+madman at the top of his speed to the nearest farm-house.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE PURSUIT
+
+
+One forgives only those whom one loves; only those who love forgive.
+Love at its apogee is naught but the power of inspiring forgiveness
+and bestowing it; and the social laws, which are of the mechanism of
+human justice, seem to have realized that fact, since they ignore the
+testimony of all those who would naturally be expected to love the
+culprit.
+
+Sympathy is simply a laying aside--in favor of those we love--of the
+implacable severity which we use but little in dealing with ourselves,
+and which attributes to those who pass judgment an unerring wisdom
+which is not human, or a self-confidence which is too much so.
+
+Livette, as she lay sick upon the best bed in the Icard farm-house,
+already had, in her sorrowing heart, an adorable feeling of indulgence
+for Renaud, which would have made the blessed maidens who laid the
+Crucified One in his shroud, smile with joy in the mystic heaven of
+the lofty chapel. She believed that she would die by her fiance's
+fault, and she pitied him. Forgiveness sooner or later redeems him
+who receives, and consoles him who accords it. In the sentiment of
+compassion is hidden the divine future of mankind.
+
+Renaud was still ignorant of Livette's indulgence. Indeed, he could
+not deserve it until he had come to look upon himself as forever
+unworthy.
+
+For the moment, he had not gone to the bottom of the hell of evil
+thoughts.
+
+When he found Livette half drowned in the _gargate_, his first
+impulse, born of true love and pity for her, in absolute forgetfulness
+of himself, lasted but an instant--but it had existed. Renaud at first
+suffered for her and for her alone.
+
+His second impulse, almost immediate, and praiseworthy still, although
+there was a touch of selfishness in it, was to condemn himself,
+through fear of moral responsibility. Had he not with his own hand
+displaced the stakes that marked the path, with the idea, indefensible
+at best, that Rampal would be misled by that treacherous method of
+defence? Yes, almost immediately after he uttered his cry of agony, he
+shuddered with terror at the thought of the remorse that was in store
+for him, as soon as he felt that Livette was like a dead woman in his
+arms.
+
+When he had given her in charge of the women at the main farm-house of
+the Icard farm, where there was great excitement over such an
+adventure at that time of day, he questioned two old peasant-women who
+knew more than all the doctors in the province. After doing what was
+necessary for Livette, they cheerfully declared that the poor girl
+would not die of it; they even said that it was "nothing at all." He
+did not even try to understand how she had come so far to fall into
+the trap!
+
+She would not die! That was the essential thing at that moment. What a
+relief _to him_, for he was already accusing himself of his little
+sweetheart's death! He had been so afraid! And it turned out to be
+only a warning! God be praised, and blessed be the mighty saints who
+had performed such a miracle!
+
+But the devil rejoiced when he looked into Renaud's conscience, for he
+saw the course his ideas were about to take, a course that would lead
+him from bad to worse.
+
+Reassured as to Livette,--and as to himself,--he flew into a passion
+with the accursed gitana, the indirect cause, at least, of all this
+misery.
+
+"Ah! the beggar! I will kill her!--it will be easy to find her again.
+She can't be far away--I will kill her!"
+
+His wrath took full possession of him--he ran for his horse. Kill
+her!--kill her! Nothing could be more righteous.--And he went about
+it.
+
+Poor Renaud! the victim of all the involuntary falsehoods which,
+starting from ourselves, one engendering another, sometimes render the
+best of us irresponsible and drive us on to disaster when passion
+makes us mad.
+
+This chain, often undiscoverable, of false but specious reasons with
+which men deceive themselves, each fitting into the last without
+violence, each explaining and justifying the one that follows
+it--leads insensibly to acts incomprehensible to him who is not able
+to follow it back, link by link. It is the chain of FATALITY, in which
+the links, consisting of trifling but suggestive facts, of decisive
+circumstances, unknown sometimes to the culprit, alternate with the
+fictitious good motives he has invented for his own benefit in the
+reflex movements of his mind. To re-establish the logical sequence of
+facts, of sensations suddenly transformed into ideas, is the work of
+equity which reasons, or of love which divines. In default of tracing
+back the chain of insensible, imperious transitions, we find between
+the criminal who has long been an honest man and his crime, the abyss
+at sight of which fools and unthinking folk, filled with the pride of
+implacable sinners, never fail to exclaim: "It is monstrous!" But if
+God, infinite Love, does exist, everything is forgiven, because
+everything is understood; there are, mayhap, simply the miserable
+wretches on one side, and divine pity on the other.
+
+Yes, Renaud would have killed the sorceress, with savage joy, to
+avenge Livette. But was not that desire, which he deemed a
+praiseworthy one, simply a pretext for seeking her out again that same
+day, for seeing her once more?--That, at all events, is what the devil
+himself thought as he crouched on the floor of the crypt in the
+church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on the spot occupied the day
+before by the dark-browed gipsies, beneath the shrine of Saint Sara.
+
+And so, mounted upon Blanchet, Renaud galloped furiously away upon his
+tracks of the night, intending to kill Zinzara.
+
+Livette would not die!--That idea caused him great joy, so great that
+he was no sooner out-of-doors, away from the painful, wearisome
+spectacle of the poor unconscious child, than he yielded, alas! to the
+influence of the bright sunlight, and breathed at ease. He had already
+ceased to think of Livette's sufferings. His satisfaction had already
+ceased to be anything more than selfishness: not only would he not
+have to reproach himself for her death, but, more than that, now that
+she knew everything, was he not absolved, as it were? There was
+nothing more for him to fear. The worst that could happen had
+happened! And he actually felt as if a weight had been taken from his
+shoulders, as if he were once more sincere in his dealings with
+Livette, a better man, in short, thanks to what had happened. Although
+he did not reason this out, the thought went through his mind. It was
+what he felt. For everything serves the passion of love; it turns to
+its own profit the very things that would naturally tend most to
+thwart it. Moreover, he need feel no qualms of conscience, as he was
+going to chastise the malignant creature, to kill her, in fact:--a
+vile race!
+
+No, she could not be far away. Doubtless, if she had planned the
+catastrophe, she had concealed herself near at hand to see the result.
+
+He rode back toward the bridge over the canal. No one had seen the
+gipsy there. He descended the Rhone to the spot where they had left
+the boat the night before. The boat was in the same place, fastened by
+the same knot.
+
+He began to fear that he might not find her. But when, after searching
+two hours, he was certain of it, he was much surprised to find that he
+did not feel the righteous wrath of the officer of justice at the
+thought of a culprit eluding the vengeance of the law, but the sudden
+distress of a betrayed lover. He did not cry to himself: "I shall not
+have the pleasure of punishing her!" but: "I shall never see her
+again!" And that cry burst forth in his heart as a fierce revelation
+of unpardonable, pitiless love. What! he loved her! he loved her! and
+he learned it for the first time at that moment! he admitted it to
+himself for the first time!--yes, beyond cavil he loved her--_now_!
+His heart failed him. He was bewildered. He felt a vague sense of
+well-being, due to the mere joy of loving, marred by a feeling of
+intense chagrin at the thought of the certain misery that lay before
+him. He was horrified at himself, and, at the same moment, decided
+upon his future course in a frenzy of excitement.
+
+The physical power of love is superb and appalling. It stops at
+nothing. And the man who is watching beside the dying or the dead,
+even though it be some one who is dear to him, feels a thrill of joy
+rush to his heart, if the being he loves with all the force of his
+youth passes by.
+
+Renaud had just held Livette almost dying in his arms, and already he
+had no regret save for the other, for the woman he should have
+trampled under his feet!
+
+Thereupon, all the events of the night returned to his mind, and
+finished the work of poisoning. He could not be reconciled to the
+thought that he should never again see what he had had for so short a
+time. No, it could not be at an end. If she were a criminal, why then
+he would love her in her crime, that was all! The black bull was
+loose.--But Livette? aha! Livette? a swan's feather, or a red
+flamingo's, under his horse's hoof.
+
+What was the placid affection the young maid had inspired in his heart
+compared to the frenzy of sorrow and joy the other caused him to feel?
+Sorrow and joy combined, that is what love is; and the love men prefer
+is not that which contains the greater joy as compared to the keener
+sorrow--it is that in which those emotions are most intense. It was
+that law of passion to whose operation Renaud was now being subjected.
+He realized that he had definitely chosen the other, the gipsy,
+despite the cry of his outraged sense of honor.
+
+That cry of his honest heart, to which he no longer lent a willing
+ear, he still heard, do what he would, and he suffered half
+consciously, for many reasons which he did not distinguish one from
+another, but which resulted in producing a confused feeling in his own
+mind that he was a monster.
+
+A monster! for now that he considered the matter more carefully, it
+became his settled conviction that the gitana had intended to kill
+Livette--and yet it was that same gitana that he loved!
+
+Ah! the witch!--She had certainly seen Livette, her poor little head,
+like a dead woman's, lying on the water among the grass, her mouth
+open for the last cry for help, her teeth glistening with water in the
+sunlight! She could not have helped seeing her.--And she had passed
+her by without a word!--It was because she was determined to be her
+ruin. She had evidently led her into the trap. How? What did it
+matter! but it was no longer possible to doubt that it was the fact.
+
+But in that case--if she was really guilty--there could be no doubt,
+either, that having seen her desire accomplished, she had fled. She
+would appear no more! he would have no opportunity to kill her! he
+would never see her again! And the thing that moved him most deeply in
+connection with Livette's misfortune was the thought that it involved
+Zinzara's flight. He tried in vain to put away the abominable regret;
+it returned upon him like a wave. What! he should never see her again!
+
+Oh! those caresses of the night before in the cabin of the swamp were
+clinging to his arms and legs like serpents. They twined about his
+body as creeping plants about the branches of the tamarisk, or as one
+eel about another: biting at his heart. And he shivered from head to
+foot.
+
+"Ah! the witch!" he repeated. "Ah! the witch! What! never again!"
+
+Never again!--Why, did he not think that night that he should be able
+to keep her on his island; that it would last a year at least, until
+the next year's fetes; that he would have the wild beast to himself in
+the desert, in his wild beast's lair--all to himself, with her lithe,
+graceful body, her ankle-rings and bracelets, and her beggar queen's
+crown?
+
+But did she not love him? Had it all been mere trickery and craft on
+her part?
+
+The horse's blood flowed freely under the drover's spurs; but the
+horseman's heart was bleeding within him a thousand times more
+cruelly.
+
+All mere trickery and craft! He repeated it again and again to
+himself, and would not believe it.
+
+That she was false to the core, he firmly believed, and, by dint of
+thinking about it, soon ceased to believe it. That would have been too
+horrible, really! His self-pity and the feeling that he must be proud
+of her forced back the thought, which, driven away for a moment,
+returned again at once with more force as a sure, proven, established
+fact. It returned like a flash of light which hurt his eyes. Yes, yes,
+she was false to the core! yes, from pure wantonness the woman had
+deceived him again and again since the day of the bath, when she
+exhibited her naked body to him with the deliberate purpose of leading
+him astray, of leaving him, some day, stranded in the desert, without
+his fiancee, without his love--alone.
+
+And he struggled desperately to see her again--in his memory at
+least--in order to question her crafty features, but, try as he would,
+his mind was unable to restore the picture, drowned as it was beneath
+a wavering, irritating mist. He opened his eyes to their fullest
+extent, as if, by causing them to express a fixed determination to see
+her again, he could compel her to appear before him in flesh and
+blood. And he no longer saw the trees or the moor that lay before him,
+or the sky or the horizon, but neither did he see her whose image he
+sought to evoke. Then he suddenly closed his eyes, and for a brief
+second--in the darkness--he caught a glimpse of her. Was it really
+she? He had not time to recognize her. Once, however, the image became
+clearer, and he _saw_ her; but still it was only a shadowy face, still
+veiled with falsehood and impenetrable to him.
+
+  [Illustration: Chapter XXIII
+
+    _She went to the farther end of the Allee des Alyscamps,
+    between the rows of tall poplars, amid the stone monuments,
+    and lighted a fire of twigs, to give her light enough to look
+    about and select a spot where she could sleep comfortably._]
+
+What he was seeking was her real face, WHICH DID NOT EXIST, for a face
+is the expression of a soul, and she had no soul. Had she ever loved
+him? that is what he would have liked to ascertain, if nothing
+more. Had she smiled on Rampal? Perhaps--God! could it be
+possible? Who knows? Of what was she not capable to consummate her
+crime?--And yet he secretly admired her for the extraordinary perfidy
+he attributed to her. The Saracen blood, the blood of heathen pirates,
+did not flow in his veins for nothing.
+
+Yes, indeed, if, in her hate-inspired work, she had had need of
+Rampal, with whom he had several times seen her talking, was it not
+possible that she had given herself to him in order to make him
+absolutely submissive to her will? What was he thinking of? Given
+herself to him? No, not that!--Not in its fullest meaning, at all
+events--but she might have let him steal a kiss--a long kiss,
+perhaps--from her lips. And the herdsman felt the keen point of the
+spear of jealousy pierce his heart.
+
+He thought and thought, feverish with passion, excited by his
+excessive exertions for several days past, and he rode through the
+fields and swamps, amid the grass and stones of Crau, surrounded by
+buzzing insects maddened by the heat, which was terrible.
+
+Great God! only the night before, he had believed that she had a
+veritable woman's passion for him, a passion like those he had often
+aroused in women, with his strength, his courage, and his prowess as
+horse-breaker and cavalier. And as she was the daughter of a free
+race, and queen of her tribe, he had been proud of his conquest. He
+had straightened himself up in his saddle, like a crowned king,
+conqueror in many battles. He had handled his spear with a firmer
+hand. He had glanced proudly at the other drovers, his comrades, with
+a distinct feeling that he was "better than they," since this savage
+queen, who, in her travels, had doubtless seen so many brave and
+comely men, had chosen him--even though he were not the first!--that
+she, whom the laws of her people forbade to love a European dog, the
+slave of cities, had chosen him, the drover of Camargue!
+
+Now that that happiness was gone from him, he suddenly realized its
+value. An immense void lay before him. For the first time, the desert
+seemed a melancholy place to him, too vast, too bare. He realized that
+henceforth his whole life would lie in the past. He was no longer the
+king! He would never be the king again! She had never loved him! And
+she had pretended that she did!
+
+But when she had cried out and turned pale in his arms, had she not
+forgotten that she was acting a lie? If that were so, she must be very
+sure of finding elsewhere such ardent caresses as his, from another.
+Otherwise she would not have fled, for he scouted the idea that she
+was afraid. Such a one as she could have no fear! And if, as he
+thought the night before, he had really taken her fancy, would she not
+have remained, guilty or not, to enjoy his caresses anew, even though
+she were to die of them?
+
+But she would not have died of them! She, sorceress as she was, must
+have known that he would have forgiven everything. Therefore she had
+_wanted_ to go. She cared nothing for him. If, on the other hand, it
+had pleased her to keep him with her, to continue their liaison, she
+would have found a way to do it, in spite of everything. She had only
+to desire to do it. She did not _desire_!--Even so, he desired her!
+
+He rode away at headlong speed. He must find her again. Then they
+would see! And he circled round the cabin in the swamp like a hawk,
+examining all the clumps of thorn-broom, all the tamarisks and reeds.
+Oh! he would find her!
+
+He had been riding for several hours, and he began to feel that his
+quest was useless. If she were outside the limits of the last greater
+circle that he had described in his search for her, it was all over!
+he was too late.
+
+At last, convinced of his discomfiture, he leaped from his horse and
+seated himself on the sloping bank of a ditch. It was near midday. He
+was neither hungry nor thirsty, but the sun told him that it was
+midday.
+
+The gnats were humming about his ears, devouring him, riddling the
+hide of his horse, who hung his head and sniffed at a tuft of salt
+grass without eating it, pulling a little upon the rein which Renaud,
+still seated, held loosely in his hand.
+
+Renaud was looking straight before him, and now that he was assured of
+his misfortune, now that he had neither betrothed nor mistress,
+neither present nor future, he felt that he was becoming cold and
+hard, and was astonished to find it so. It seemed to him as if his
+misfortune had happened to a piece of wood or stone. The wood and the
+stone were himself. How could he have had such dread of the certainty
+that had come to him at last? While he had that dread, he still hoped
+and suffered. Now that all was said, he found that he was insensible
+to it all--dead, in a measure. And that gratified him.
+
+He who had wept so bitterly the night that he tried to put aside his
+nascent passion, now, in this final catastrophe, which should have
+called forth all the tears in his body, felt as if the springs had run
+dry. Instead of being more deeply moved than ever, he found that he
+was strangely composed, as if armed against fate.--He received the
+blow like a soldier, like a drover. His tranquillity became more
+pronounced and more extraordinary as the excessive severity of the
+disaster became more certain.
+
+Tranquillity for an hour, perhaps! But what did that matter? He had no
+suspicion of it. He found that he was strong in the face of disaster.
+Ah! she could make up her mind to go? She was laughing at me? Very
+good! I have no need of her, the vagabond! I have seen through the
+sorceress! I know her, I know her! Good-evening!
+
+He rose, to return home. As he raised his head, he saw the
+gitana--five hundred yards ahead of him.--Her back was turned to him,
+and she was walking tranquilly along.
+
+In a twinkling, he was in the saddle. "Stop!" Blanchet, smarting under
+a blow from the stirrup-leather, flew over the ground, making the sand
+and stones fly, snorting with wrath as the spur tore his flank. In
+four minutes they made half a league. The gipsy, still in front, with
+her back turned to them, walked quietly along. It was her orange
+handkerchief, her copper crown, her undulating gait. It was certainly
+she!
+
+Suddenly, when she reached the shore of a pond, she walked out, with
+the same tranquil step, upon the surface of the water, which bore her
+weight as if it were covered with ice; while, not far away, a large
+brig, decked out with flags, was bearing down upon him, with all sail
+set, through the furze-bushes and prickly oaks of Crau, across the
+arid fields.
+
+Renaud sadly hung his head. The brig explained it all. It was all a
+spectre due to the mirage! Discouragement came upon the man and
+crushed him.
+
+Thus, all the strength he had expended, his shameful acceptance of
+such a love, his toilsome day of fruitless search, after the mad ride
+of the preceding night, the exhaustion of horse and rider, all came to
+an end in the endless trickery of the mirage!
+
+The sorceress must be far away! And in what direction? There was
+nothing for him to do but abandon the pursuit. He retraced his steps
+to the Icard farm. The fruitlessness of the effort affected him more
+keenly than the effort itself.
+
+He no longer looked about, he no longer thought, he no longer loved or
+hated. Weariness had suddenly fallen upon his shoulders and his loins
+like a weight too heavy to be borne. He rode on, bent almost double,
+swaying like an inert thing, with the motion of his horse. He felt as
+if he were falling from a great height in a sort of sick man's dream.
+His eyes, worn out with gazing over the fields and scrutinizing every
+bush, closed in spite of him. His nerveless hand knew not where the
+reins were; nor did his brain know what had become of his ideas.
+
+Blanchet went forward mechanically, with his head almost touching the
+ground. He, too, was without will-power, overdone, exhausted, his eyes
+injected with blood; his breath was short and quick, and his flanks
+beat the charge.
+
+At another time, the careful horseman, who loved his beasts, would
+very quickly have noticed that his horse's wind was broken, when he
+felt his sides rise and fall with that short, hard, jerky breath; but
+Renaud was conscious of nothing. There was nothing in his head but a
+burning void. He did not even long for shade or rest. He was suffering
+from the utter dejection that follows terrible crises, from the great
+sorrow caused by death, from hopeless despair. Overwhelmed as he was
+by his selfish weariness, if he had been capable of recognizing any
+sentiment in his mind, he would have found there a vague, cowardly
+feeling of annoyance at having to enter a sick-chamber, at having to
+witness the spectacle of Livette's suffering. He would have liked--but
+he had not the strength to do it--to dismount from his horse, to lie
+down in the fresh air, under a tamarisk, and sleep there a long, long
+time; to forget himself, to cease to see or speak or hear or listen or
+exist!--He was like one walking in his sleep.
+
+Suddenly Blanchet stopped, and began to tremble in every limb, and,
+before his rider had come to his senses, his four legs, planted
+stiffly like stakes, seemed to be broken by a single blow, and he fell
+in a heap.
+
+Renaud awoke, standing on his feet beside his fallen horse. Blanchet
+was dying. It was soon over. The honest creature opened, to an
+unnatural width, his great glazed eyes, green as the stagnant water in
+the swamps, and filled with that wondering expression which the
+infinite mystery of living or of having lived imparts to the gaze of
+little children, animals, and dying men; he straightened out his four
+legs, trembling like the reeds in the marshes. A shiver ran over his
+whole body, riddled with the stings of a myriad of gnats and great
+flies, some of which flew up into the air and settled down again in
+the corners of the dim, wide-open eyes. Then the poor creature became
+motionless, with an indefinable something that was alarming and
+terrible in his immobility, something that put joy to flight, that
+seemed to imply finality. It was death. Blanchet had ended his humble
+Camarguese life in the open desert, in the bright sunlight. Livette's
+horse was dead in the service of Renaud's passion for Zinzara!
+
+The faithful beast did not know what had happened; he did not know the
+reason of the forced journeys, the multiplied wounds inflicted by
+Renaud's spurs, by the stings of the gadflies, and by Zinzara's pin,
+buried in his flesh; he had submitted, without a murmur, to the
+destiny that bade him suffer at the hands of those who might have made
+life pleasanter for him, and, as he lay dead, his eyes still expressed
+his endless amazement at his failure to understand what was expected
+of him.
+
+It was all over. He was dead. The affectionate creature had fallen a
+victim to the violence and malignity of human passions. Man had
+betrayed him for a woman's sake. And now his graceful form, made for
+swift movement, was infinitely sad to see, because the eye could see
+clearly all that there was in its immobility contrary to the purpose
+for which it was designed--and irreparable.
+
+Renaud gazed stupidly at him.--He saw again, like so many reproachful
+words, Blanchet's last look, his short, rapid breath, the shudder that
+ran over his bleeding skin. And, restored to his senses by this
+unforeseen catastrophe which awoke a thousand salutary thoughts in his
+mind, he felt his heart grow soft. He burst into tears.
+
+Thus Blanchet served his mistress still by his death. "Everything is
+of some use," said Sigaud.
+
+Renaud stooped and returned, upon his still warm nostrils, the kiss he
+had received from him on the day of his first despair; then, having
+removed the saddle and bridle and concealed them in a safe place, he
+returned on foot to the Icard farm, with an intense, affectionate
+desire to do his utmost to care for and comfort poor Livette, for the
+death of her horse brought him back to her more quickly than anything
+else could have done.
+
+He promised himself that he would return and bury Blanchet, but he did
+not have time. The good horse belonged to the vulture and the eagle.
+
+In the evening of that same day, while Livette, sleeping soundly,
+seemed to everybody to be out of danger,--while Renaud lay, like a
+dog, in front of her door, determined to defend and save her,--Zinzara
+arrived at the Alyscamps at Arles.
+
+There, thinking that Renaud might, with the devil's assistance,
+succeed in overtaking her,--although she may have had her reasons for
+thinking that his horse was not in condition for service at that
+time,--she left her house on wheels, in order that she might not be
+taken by surprise therein like a wild beast in its lair,--not from
+fear, but because she was desirous, before all else, not to see him
+again. She went to the farther end of the Allee des Alyscamps, between
+the rows of tall poplars, amid the stone monuments, and lighted a
+fire of twigs, to give her light enough to look about and select a
+spot where she could sleep comfortably.
+
+She went there late, when the lovers who congregate there on May
+evenings, to make love upon the tombs, had returned to the sleeping
+city.
+
+Along the whole length of the avenue, between the tall, straight
+poplars, run two rows of sarcophagi, some very high, with massive
+lids, others low and without lids, with a few scattered blossoms, sown
+by the wind, at the bottom. The dead who once slept there were sent
+down to Arles in sealed urns, abandoned to the current of the Rhone by
+the cities farther up the river. Now flowers are springing from their
+dust; and their open tombs are nothing more than beds for vagabonds
+and lovers.
+
+By the bright light of her fire, which cast her shadow, enormously
+exaggerated, upon the wall of the ruined chapel, Zinzara selected her
+couch. She tossed an armful of grass and leaves upon the bottom of a
+sarcophagus; and, while the nightingale, who builds his nest there
+every year, was singing for dear life, the strange creature slept
+peacefully, with her face to the sky, trusting in her destiny; and, as
+a ray of moonlight fell upon her calm face with its closed eyelids,
+the sorceress resembled her black mummy, which concealed and idealized
+corruption--embalmed beneath a golden mask.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+IN THE GARGATE
+
+
+When he received Zinzara's message from the gipsy child, Rampal, who
+was still suffering from his fall of a few days before, did not think
+of going in person to surprise Renaud. He did better than that. He
+went at once to Livette, and told her of the rendezvous at the cabin.
+
+"Your lover, Livette, who defends you so fiercely against a harmless
+kiss, is with a woman to-night--you ought to be able to guess who she
+is--in the Conscript's Hut, near the Icard farm."
+
+As Livette stood aghast, with pale cheeks, he continued:
+
+"Your father has good horses; if you want to see for yourself, you
+can. It will be worth your while."
+
+"Thanks, Rampal," said Livette.
+
+Not for an instant did she doubt the truth of what he told her, and
+she said to her father:
+
+"Go with me to the Icard farm, father, as you know the people there.
+Let us go to the Icard farm at once; my happiness depends on it.
+There is something there that I want to see to-morrow morning."
+
+The poor man did not understand, but he always yielded to her caprice.
+They set out at once for the Chateau d'Avignon.
+
+They left the wagon at the chateau; they harnessed the best pair of
+horses to the cabriolet, and made seven or eight leagues without
+stopping.
+
+"Thanks, father. I must be here to-morrow morning. I will tell you
+why----"
+
+It was eleven o'clock at night.
+
+When all were in bed, Livette, being familiar with "the place," which
+her father had pointed out to her anew at her request,--Livette
+furtively left the house to prowl about the spot where disaster
+awaited her, for love knows no obstacles, and we follow our destiny
+through everything, and rush on to death in pursuit of our last
+sorrow.
+
+And then?--Ah! throughout the visions of her sick-bed Livette
+constantly lived over that terrible moment when she was prowling
+around the swamp. In truth, she was still there, in agony of mind.
+
+About the swamp, in the darkness, Livette hovered like a sea-gull in
+distress. Like a lost soul from hell she flitted about the edges of
+the bog, trying to pierce with her gaze the dark clumps of reeds and
+tamarisks.
+
+From time to time, according to the spot from which she looked, she
+could see the gray roof of the cabin, silvered by the moonlight.
+
+Was any one there? Had Rampal told her the truth? Ought she to lose
+this opportunity of convincing herself with her own eyes of Renaud's
+treachery?
+
+Should she give her life to a traitor without endeavoring to unmask
+him, although warned? With her widely dilated eyes, she imagined that
+she saw lights that did not exist; or--if she did really see a feeble
+gleam through the chinks in the door--she refused to believe her eyes.
+
+The blood was tingling in her ears, and she thought she could hear
+voices. It seemed to her at times as if her head were bursting. She
+could see, inside her head, beneath her skull, a great white light,
+and in the centre of the light Renaud and the gipsy together. Oh! to
+think of not finding out!
+
+And, if it should be so, what should she do?
+
+The essential thing was to find out. Afterward, she would see. If she
+were strong enough, if she could do it--she would certainly kill the
+woman.--How? Livette did not know. Simply with a look, perhaps.--Madness
+rises from the swamps with the miasmatic exhalations at night. Livette
+felt that she was going mad.
+
+"How do you get to the cabin?" she had asked her father.
+
+Ah! yes, the path is marked by stakes, is it not? To the left of the
+stakes is the path. She cannot see the tops of the stakes in the dark
+water. Frogs were sitting on them, perhaps, to look at the moon; or
+turtles on those that were just level with the surface. But no, it was
+grass that covered them all. And Livette's eyes ached with her
+endeavors to open them wider in the darkness, and find some sign upon
+the indistinct objects about her.
+
+But suppose Rampal had deceived her?
+
+At one time, it seemed to her that she could hear something resembling
+the gipsy music that made the snakes dance--but so weak! Surely it was
+in her poor, tired head,--for if it had been the real music, all the
+reptiles in the swamp would have come out to dance, all at once, in
+the moonlight.
+
+Bah! Why should she be afraid? As if there were so very many of the
+creatures in the country! They are not fond of the salt in the bogs,
+nor the high winds.
+
+She hovered about the swamp like a sea-gull lost at sea!
+
+"Yes, yes, this is the way, here is the path under the water and the
+stakes that mark it! I must keep the stakes at my right as I walk
+along."
+
+She starts to take the first step, and dares not--but suddenly the
+sound of voices comes to her ears. She distinguishes two
+voices--two!--beyond any question. And now it is surely the metallic
+sound of the tambourine that floats through the reeds in the
+moonlight, bringing to her heart the frightful vision of the other's
+joy!
+
+She will go. After all, since her unhappiness is certain, what matter
+if she die of it! Ah! how bitter would be his punishment if, on coming
+out, at daybreak, he should find her there, drowned!
+
+She makes a step; she sinks! but she does not cry out. No, she will
+extricate herself unaided--she must. She clings to the long grass, to
+the reeds which break in her hands. She is sinking! Ah! God! is she to
+die there? They would be too well pleased, aye, both of them, to have
+caused her death! Therefore she must not die! She will not! She
+struggles, and sinks deeper. As she lifts one foot, she rests her
+weight on the other, which goes down, down, and the ooze gains upon
+her. It rises to her waist; and still she cannot refrain from raising
+her feet, one after the other, as if to climb an imaginary stairway,
+the solid ladder that she dreams of but cannot find!
+
+With every upward effort she sinks lower; it is horrible. Her hands
+are so small that she does not grasp enough grass, enough reeds, at
+once! Everything about her yields, everything fails to give support.
+How the reeds break between her fingers! like grass threads! It seems
+to her that clammy creatures are rubbing against her legs, her
+hands--ah! yes, the snakes--the bloodsuckers! She will be eaten alive
+by the bloodsuckers.--But where is the stake, near the edge of the
+swamp, that she thought she saw a moment ago? She lets go the grass to
+which she is clinging, with the result that she sinks deeper, still
+deeper. Now the cold water submerges her bosom, surrounds her neck,
+crawls up toward her mouth. Will she be compelled in a moment to drink
+that filthy water? At that thought, she makes one final effort. Her
+dishevelled locks cling about her neck, as if to strangle her, all
+drenched and cold and slimy, like veritable snakes!--She struggles,
+tosses her hands about this way and that--until one of them comes in
+contact with the wooden stake, firmly planted in the ground.--Saintes
+Maries!--She seizes it, twines her fingers about it, digs her nails
+into it, and does not relax her hold. Nor will she, even when she is
+dead! But her arm no longer has the strength to raise her, and her
+head falls heavily back--her eyes close. Is this death?--It was at
+that moment, just as she lost consciousness, that the brave-hearted
+maid cried out,--not until then. And her cry rang out over the swamps,
+like the call of the birds of passage, which ceaselessly, over all the
+waters upon earth, seek the repose that can never be found.
+
+That ghastly vision recurred again and again to Livette, while the
+women of the Icard farm were busying themselves, a little too noisily,
+around her bed. At last, there was silence in her room. She saw her
+father come in, but she did not choose to explain anything to him. She
+sent word to the grandmother not to be anxious, that she would return
+home in three days. Livette asked to see Renaud. Her father went to
+find him. She closed her eyes.
+
+She fancied that she could remember, now, certain things that
+happened to her during her sleep of death in the _gargate_, but were
+not reproduced in her dream. She felt Renaud's arms lifting her out of
+the mire, and that, after all, is the one thing to be desired, more
+than life itself--the protection of the man she loved, her lover's
+mourning for her, thinking that she was dead.--But before that, a
+moment before, had she not felt the weight of a fixed gaze upon
+her?--She had looked dimly forth between her drooping eyelids, through
+her long lashes which seemed to her like a thick grating; and she
+fancied that she saw the gipsy, the ill-omened gitana, standing before
+her. "Yes, it is she, it is really she. She is standing here beside
+me. She looks very, very tall. Her head touches the sky. She is on the
+path leading to the cabin. She is just coming from the rendezvous. She
+has been kissing Renaud! When will he come? Will the witch's black
+shadow, standing so straight there, never go? What more do you want,
+witch? Don't you see that I am dead? I must make you think I am dead.
+Then you will leave me, at last!--The wicked woman is always smiling.
+Ah! there she goes.--How heavy her glance was! And how tall she was!
+She kept all the light from me. Now I can see the sky again. Is it
+you, Renaud, is it you, Jacques, who take me in your arms as if I were
+dead?--It is you, at last!"
+
+Thus cried poor Livette, delirious once more. But Renaud was sitting
+beside her bed with his face in his hands, listening to her.
+
+"It is you," she went on; "you think me dead, and I can feel you take
+me in your arms and quickly carry me away. But why do you not weep,
+when you see me so? It is you, at last! I am dead, and still I feel
+you. You have me in your arms. Your heart beats fast. Mine has ceased
+to beat. Where were you, bad boy? What did you say to her? But that is
+past and gone!--Is that woman very dear to your heart?--Why do you
+come no more to my father's house in the evening? He is very fond of
+you. Grandma is a dear old soul. Do you see how faithful she is to her
+dead husband? People knew how to love one another better in her day,
+she says. Is it true? Do you believe it, Jacques? And if I die, won't
+you keep my memory sacred, as she keeps grandpa's?--Why do you make me
+suffer so?--Are we two never to walk under the great elm again? Our
+pretty stone bench under the rose-bushes is very sad now, and lonely
+like a tombstone. Ah! if you had chosen! I was pretty, yes, pretty,
+pretty! And now I shall be ugly. For I have done with life, even if I
+am not dead. My life is at an end, at an end!"
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE PHANTOM
+
+
+Livette, who had been carried back to the Chateau d'Avignon many days
+before, had not left her bed. The fever clung to her obstinately.
+Nothing could be done.
+
+Was it really true, O God, that she was doomed to die, and he to see
+it? Was he to lose the future he had dreamed of, a future of unruffled
+happiness, of love and peace, as her husband; the joy he had known for
+such a brief space, of having a woman, sweet and dear and helpless as
+a child, to cherish and protect?--Was he condemned never to know the
+pleasure of having a family--a pleasure that had been denied to him,
+an orphan, and of which he had often dreamed as of one of the joys of
+Paradise--was he condemned never to know it, because he had forgotten
+his longing for a single day? The picture, dear to country-folk, of
+the chimney with the smoke curling upward, that seems to say to them,
+as far as it can be seen: "The soup is hot, the wife is waiting, the
+children are calling," recurred sometimes to his mind, and he sighed
+profoundly.
+
+The punishment that he saw coming upon him did not seem to him
+proportionate to the offence. There was no justice in it!
+
+What is the meaning of that most terrible of all mysteries: that the
+love of the senses is more powerful than the love of the heart when
+separated from its object, even though the last be recognized as the
+more certain and the sweeter?
+
+Between the lofty chapel and the subterranean crypt of the church of
+Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on the level of human life, does the miracle
+come always from below? And if it be so, is it any less a miracle?
+Which of you has fathomed the meaning of life? Who can say: "It is
+unjust," or: "It is useless," or: "What I do not see does not exist"?
+Who can say if Livette's sufferings and Renaud's, their troubles and
+their heart-burnings, all the invisible and inexplicable movements
+within themselves,--of which they knew nothing,--were not preparing
+the way for realities inconceivable to our minds? The _ideal_, the
+dream of what is best, is the essential condition of the _material_
+development of mankind. No force is wasted; everything is transformed.
+"Everything is of some use," said the old shepherd Sigaud. "It takes
+all kinds to make a world."
+
+Livette had forgiven Renaud, Renaud had not forgiven himself.
+
+Sometimes he gazed at her, deeply moved, and he suffered with her for
+hours at a time. Sometimes he had sudden fits of rage against
+her--paroxysms of wickedness, as it were. Was she not an obstacle in
+his path? At such times, he believed that he was possessed by a devil,
+and he would kneel by Livette's bed and pray to the saints, the women
+of compassion.
+
+Ah! how thin she was! Her eyes seemed to have grown larger, and to
+have changed from blue to black, because the pupils were still
+dilated. Her long, fair hair no longer shone. It seemed as if the
+muddy water of the swamp had taken away its gloss forever.
+
+She often started at noises that she imagined she heard.
+
+She, who in the old days used to talk but little, was constantly
+telling of the things she had dreamed, and she would be vexed if they
+were not remembered.
+
+The doctors of Arles tried everything. Nothing was of any avail.
+
+"I want no more of their medicine," she said one day to Renaud. "They
+might do very well for swamp fever, but there is something else the
+matter with me. It was my heart that you drowned. I never could
+believe you again; it is much better that I should die."
+
+She had explained nothing to her father or grandmother.
+
+"They would have turned you out of the house," she said, "and I wanted
+to see you to the end."
+
+Her journey to the Icard farm, her nocturnal flight, her accident, all
+were attributed to an attack of fever, which was supposed to have been
+responsible for her actions, whereas, on the contrary, her illness
+was the result of them all.
+
+Renaud, by a desperate effort, mastered his passion at last. Was it
+forever? He chose to think so, because it was necessary that it should
+be so, in order to keep her alive.
+
+He tried not to think of the other. He tried to repent. Every moment
+he tore from his mind by an exertion of his will--as he would tear up
+grass with his hand--some one of his memories. He told amusing
+stories, pretending to laugh loudest at them.
+
+His heart was filled with a great pity for Livette, but, for all that,
+you would not have had to lift a very large stone to find there, in a
+spot that he knew well, the sleeping viper.
+
+"I shall die, I shall die!"--Livette often said, "but I want to see
+the fete of Saintes-Maries once more. I want to live till then. You
+must carry me there and lay me on the relics; that is where I want to
+die. And at my burial, I want the drovers, your comrades, to follow on
+horseback--promise me this--with their spears reversed, like the
+soldiers I saw at Avignon one day, marching to the cemetery, holding
+their guns that way."
+
+With a sort of gaiety, she often recurred to the subject of her
+burial, and embellished it with other details, saying, with the air of
+a playful child:
+
+"There must be lilies, as there are in the procession at
+Saintes-Maries when they go to bless the sea; I want lots of lilies!
+Lilies are so pretty and white! they are so proud on their stalks, and
+they smell so sweet!"
+
+Meanwhile, the season was hastening away; the months came and went,
+like the same months in years past for centuries.
+
+Summer set the sky and land and sea ablaze, drawing the last drop of
+moisture from the swamps, sowing the venomous seeds of miasma in the
+heavy air that people breathed. The crops ripened; then came the
+harvest. It was autumn. The redbreast sang in the park of the Chateau
+d'Avignon. The nights grew long once more. The leaves fell. The sad
+days of the year began.
+
+The buttercups had disappeared. The Vaccares, which had been dry all
+summer, no longer exposed to the sun its lovely mouse-gray bed; it was
+once more a sea. The light golden tint of the September sky was long
+since hidden from sight behind the rising mists.
+
+The birds of passage began anew their flight over the mirror-like
+island which promised them abundant prey. The eagle hurried from the
+Alps to make war upon the fish-hawks. And at night, when the wind
+howled and the rain fell in torrents, the storks and cranes and geese
+passed over in triangular flocks, at a great height in the drenched
+atmosphere, uttering cries like cries of alarm.
+
+Livette's suffering became more intense. She passed whole days sitting
+at her window.
+
+One evening, Renaud was sitting beside her, in silence, while the
+grandmother and Pere Audiffret were dining in the room below. The
+room was dimly lighted by a lamp. Suddenly Livette sprang to her feet,
+then fell back, crying:
+
+"There she is! there she is! No! no! don't go with her! I don't want
+you to! no, no, Jacques!"
+
+Renaud also had risen, and was staring vacantly at Livette; following
+the direction of her gaze, he began to tremble. Outside the window
+stood a pale, uncertain, but very recognizable spectre, the gipsy
+herself! He had no sooner recognized her than she disappeared, after
+making a significant sign to him, that said: "Come!"
+
+It was not a vision of the sick girl's imagination, for he, too, had
+seen it!
+
+Perhaps the fever-laden island had sown its poison in the blood of
+both. The germs of fever were taking root and flourishing in them. The
+blight of the _paluns_ implanted in their brains, as in a cloudy
+mirror, the image everlastingly repeated of the familiar plaintive
+objects of the desert, with which the current of their thoughts was
+mingled.
+
+"Don't go! don't go! my Jacques!"
+
+She dragged herself along the floor on her knees, shaken with sobs,
+imploring the drover, as she clung with both hands to his jacket.
+
+The father and grandmother had hastened to the room.
+
+The father, too, was sobbing, and knew not what to do. The grandmother
+slowly seated herself by the bed on which Renaud had gently laid
+Livette.
+
+Calm and silent, the old woman gazed long and with a beautiful
+expression of perfect trust upon the copper crucifix and the images of
+the saints that hung on the wall of the recess.
+
+And, on the bed, Livette, uttering cries like a lost bird, twining her
+fingers about her as if clinging to life, to the reeds in the swamp
+wherein she still fancied that she was drowning--Livette breathed her
+last.
+
+Livette was dead.
+
+The drovers, on horseback, with spears reversed, attended her body to
+the cemetery. Her favorite dog followed her thither.
+
+Renaud placed lilies on her grave. She sleeps in the cemetery of
+Saintes-Maries, at the foot of the dunes, under the cultivated lilies,
+among the wild asphodels, on the sea-shore.
+
+Renaud returned to the desert, too much like the bull that, when
+wounded in the arena, returns to the solitude of the swamps, where he
+can lick his wounds, give free vent to his rage, bellow at the clouds,
+and to no purpose, but to his heart's content tear at the steel left
+in the wound.
+
+One day they found, on the shore of the Vaccares, Rampal's bleeding
+body, pierced by horns in two places. Bernard alone saw his duel with
+Renaud one evening, when the sky was red with the afterglow. They
+fought hand to hand, in the midst of the drove, and Renaud, lifting
+his enemy from the ground in his arms, laid him face upward, dead, on
+the horns of a heifer that came rushing at them and, with one motion
+of her bulky head, tossed a corpse into the air.
+
+Rampal died without a cry. He lay three days where he fell. The black
+bulls, that mourn nine days when one of their kind falls dead in the
+pasture, bellowed for three days around Rampal's body, at a respectful
+distance.
+
+Bernard alone saw the duel and said nothing; but the people of the
+desert knew; they guessed the truth.
+
+Since that, Renaud has become like a phantom himself.
+
+In all weathers, summer or winter, rain or shine, he can be seen here
+and there, in the Camargue desert, sitting erect and melancholy on his
+horse, spear in hand.
+
+He regrets Livette. He loves Zinzara. He weeps only for himself, the
+wretched creature! He has lost the paradise of affection he had
+dreamed of, and the appetizing hell of savage love he had tasted. He
+has nothing. It seems to him that Livette's death, for which he blames
+himself, has left him free to abandon himself to his passion for the
+other; but the other is absent--and, though absent, she tortures him
+as relentlessly as on the day when, clinging to his horse's mane, she
+defied him with insulting words, and aroused his passions, while he
+dared not shake her off, trample upon her, or seize her.
+
+The memory of her is upon him like the gadfly that persists in
+following back the bloody track of its sting. Vainly does he shake
+himself; he cannot rid himself of it. Renaud loves Zinzara; he longs
+for her without hope, and, ruled by that single desire, he feels no
+other, so that the unexpended power of his youth accumulates within
+him and drives him mad.
+
+The friends' houses, the fetes he used formerly to visit, have no
+further interest for him, because the only being he seeks cannot be
+found. The desert, once peopled with hopes in his eyes, has become an
+empty void. The roads that traverse it no longer lead anywhere.
+
+He surprises himself sometimes, at night, bellowing with the bulls,
+against the wind that annoys them, toward the distant horizon. He is
+like one possessed. A devil dwells within him.
+
+When he is weary of wandering about and of being in the saddle, and
+chooses to lie down and sleep for a day, he repairs to the cabin of
+his love, in the _gargate_, and there, full sure of being undisturbed,
+raves like a wild beast, in his frenzy at being alone. In the morning,
+he emerges from his retreat, more depressed, more miserable, more
+haunted with visions than ever.
+
+At times, he fancies that he sees Livette under his horse's feet,
+imploring wildly, with hands outstretched--but he digs his spurs into
+his horse and rides on. A terrible shriek constantly rings in his
+ears.
+
+He rides toward another spectre that calls him from the farthest point
+of the horizon.--He says, to any one who cares to listen, that he has
+come from Egypt, where he was a king, and that he will return there
+some day, King of Camargue.
+
+His disordered mind seems the very incarnation of the wild moor. He
+fancies that he is flying about in circles with the birds of the
+swamps that weep in the drizzling rain. The _mistral_ lashes his
+wings. When the wind blows through his hair, he pities the poor grass
+of the plains because the _mistral_ is torturing it.
+
+All the lamentations of the reeds and swamps, of the river and the
+sea, are but the ringing in his ears, and their loud wailing is
+constantly punctuated by a shriek--oh! so heart-rending it is!--the
+shriek of Livette!
+
+As the bell-tower of the church of Saintes-Maries is filled with owls,
+so his heart is full of the remorse of a Christian; and the cure's
+kindness to him does not drive it away.
+
+When he stands upon the sea-shore, many times he feels an overpowering
+desire to urge his horse, bleeding beneath the spur, far out to sea,
+farther and farther, until he vanishes in the direction of the
+country, vaguely seen in dreams, from which the saints and gipsies
+come--but something stops him; his destiny holds him back; he belongs
+to his kingdom.
+
+If he has known one hour's peace of mind, it was on a certain morning
+when, among the usual hideous nightmares inspired by the memory of
+Zinzara, he had a pleasant dream, in which he saw Livette, dressed in
+white, with lilies in her hands like the saints in church pictures,
+smiling and saying to him: "I have forgiven you. FORGIVE YOURSELF."
+
+The respite was of brief duration, for the herdsman did not know that
+excessive repentance is a crime, when it goes so far as to dry up the
+springs of will-power in a man, when it renders sterile his field of
+activity, when it bars the way to doing better in the future.
+
+Self-pardon, at the proper time, after due penance has been done, is
+one of the secrets of the wise among men; for, without it, the first
+misstep would lead to never-ending despair, and would render all
+courage useless forever.
+
+Such was the cure's opinion, which Renaud listened to, in the
+confessional, without paying heed to it.
+
+He suffers, therefore, incessantly, awaiting the hour when his
+suffering shall be allayed. He is like the camping-grounds abandoned
+by shepherds and flocks, the _jasses_ of the desert, still black from
+an old conflagration, and surrounded by briers where rose-bushes once
+flourished. He is like the aloes that wither instantly in desolation,
+after the stalk their love has caused to bloom has risen high into the
+air.
+
+The dream in which Renaud saw Livette was explained to him several
+times by Monsieur le cure, but always to no purpose.
+
+How, indeed, could his remorse cease, when his passion still endured,
+and when he was constantly committing anew, in desire, the sin that
+caused all the misery?
+
+My friends, there is but one wise course to pursue: "Plant a tree,
+build a house, rear a child. Be patient--everything comes in due time.
+The thing that does not happen in a hundred years, may happen in six
+thousand. The future is still yours!"
+
+When Renaud, in the dreams of his unhealthy life, feels, as he
+sometimes does, that his love is stronger in him than his passion, it
+seems to him as if Livette were drawing him toward death, but
+truthful, kindly beings never inspire thoughts of self-destruction.
+
+Of one thing, at least, he is certain. He feels that voluntary death
+would not remove him from the circle of the accursed. He would, on the
+contrary, descend still lower in the spiral pit of mortals damned by
+love.
+
+They say that persons drowned in the Rhone, borne along without doubt
+by the irresistible current, which brings them all together at the
+mouth of the river, return, on certain evenings, to hold a carnival of
+despair on the surface of the water.
+
+Happy are they since they are, on those occasions, united.
+
+But they who are drowned in stagnant waters, and they who, to join
+them, die by their own hand, are never aught but solitary spectres.
+They seek each other all the time, but always unavailingly. They are
+the souls of the damned. They wander through the desert, calling to
+one another; but never even approach or see one another; and at night,
+in the deserts of Crau and Camargue, the traveller hears long-drawn,
+wailing cries, flying unavailingly hither and thither over the vast
+plains, forever and forever.
+
+Even the clouds call and answer one another in their aerial flight.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] "Do not wear out your shoes on the hard roads;
+    Rather take boat and so descend the Rhone.
+
+    "Leave Lyon and Valence behind;
+    Salute them with a nod as you pass beneath their bridges.
+
+    "Avignon is the queen,--but pass her by as well;
+    Not till you come to Arles will you find your love----
+
+    "The plain is fair and broad, O comrade,----
+    Take your love _en croupe_, and off you go!"
+
+[2] "On the bridge of Avignon every one must pay toll."
+
+[3] The name Vincent is pronounced very much like _vingt cent_, twenty
+hundred, or two thousand.
+
+[4] "May this work of mine, begun in God's name, be constantly blessed
+with the favor of Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit wisely guide my
+hand, my pen, and my understanding."
+
+[5] What would the good cure have said had he been told that a
+contemporary poet, Monsieur Pierre Gauthiez, has adopted the too
+common error? According to him, an Egyptian Marie came to Camargue in
+the boat with the saints.--When they approached the shore, it became
+necessary to reward the devoted boatman who had helped them to
+accomplish the prodigious journey. One of them gave him a sprig of
+rosemary that had touched the lips of the Christ; another, a lock of
+her fair hair. And as to the third--
+
+    "L'Egyptienne au doux oeil sombre,
+    Debout aupres d'un olivier,
+    Regarda le beau batelier.
+
+    "Elle prit son voile de lin,
+    Et decouvrit sa chair de vierge
+    Pure et luisante, ainsi qu'un cierge,
+    Sous le soleil a son declin.
+    Elle fut toute nue, et comme
+    Sur le sable roux, le jeune homme
+    S'agenouillait, la levre en feu,
+    Tendant ses bras comme vers Dieu,
+    La sainte, sans robe ni voiles,
+    Pareille aux celestes etoiles,
+    Lui dit: 'Tu vois, mon batelier,
+    Je n'ai que Moi pour te payer!'"
+
+(Translation.)
+
+"The Egyptian of the soft dark eye, standing beside an olive-tree,
+gazed upon the comely boatman.
+
+"She put aside her linen veil and discovered her virgin flesh, all
+pure and glistening, like a wax taper, beneath the setting sun. She
+was quite naked, and, as the young man knelt on the red sand, with
+lips on fire, holding out his arms to her as if to God, the saint,
+like the stars in heaven, wearing no gown or veil, said to him: 'Thou
+seest, my boatman, I have naught but Myself wherewith to pay thee!'"
+
+[6] The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak.
+
+[7] The _tarasque_, perhaps, is nothing more than a reproduction of
+the crocodile of the Rhone, increased in size to an absurd degree by
+the popular imagination. This one, the last that was seen in Camargue,
+so they say, is hanging to-day in the _Hopital des Antiquailles_ at
+Lyon, with an inscription stating the source from whence it came:
+"Gift of M. le Cure of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer."
+
+[8] _C'est le sort._--_Sort_ may mean _fate_, and it may also mean
+_spell_, being used in the latter sense almost synonymously with
+_sortilege_. It may also mean _chance_.
+
+[9] "When you were upon the great deep, without oars to row your boat,
+Saintes Maries! Naught but the sea and sky about you--with all your
+eyes you appealed to the verdant shore to be gentle."
+
+[10] "Beneath the sun, beneath the stars, with sails made of the gowns
+you wore--Sail on, O ship!--seven days and nights you sailed and
+sailed and saw no vessel, large or small--naught but the sea and the
+great deep!"
+
+[11] "God, who makes of a lightning-flash His scourge, wherewith to
+scourge the sky and sea, Saintes Maries! guided the bark to a safe
+harbor--an angel, who appeared on board, pointed out the way to the
+verdant shore."
+
+[12] "Kneeling before God's tabernacle, we, stained with sin from
+birth, do invoke your power, for whom God performed this miracle--Holy
+women, protect us!"
+
+[13] _Comment s'appelle ton chien?_--In common parlance--What is your
+dog's name? The joke is lost unless it is translated literally.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Minor punctuation errors have been repaired.
+
+Hyphenation and accent usage has been made consistent.
+
+A single closing quote was omitted on page 7. The transcriber has
+added one in what seemed the most appropriate place--"... 'Look! I am
+dark, but I am beautiful! ... So be it!'"
+
+The following typographic errors have been fixed:
+
+    Page 6--Carmargue amended to Camargue--"... this 'Chateau
+    d'Avignon,' the finest in all Camargue."
+
+    Facing page 64 (illustration caption)--Renard's amended to
+    Renaud's--"... and pulled back with all her strength the
+    double rein of Renaud's horse, ..."
+
+    Page 111--Moveover amended to Moreover--"Moreover, after the
+    harvest was gathered, ..."
+
+    Page 300--house amended to horse--"... "we will ride
+    together till night. My horse has wings.""
+
+The frontispiece illustration and introductory front matter has been
+moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved
+where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.
+
+The Table of contents has been added by the transcriber for the
+convenience of the reader.
+
+The List of Illustrations has been moved from its original location on
+page 349 to the beginning of the book.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of King of Camargue, by Jean Aicard
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