Chapter VII: Part 7

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!