At a point where sluices rustle, it is bathed by a torrent, that Olhagarray house, antique and large, among antique chestnut trees. Around, the red soil is denuded and furrowed by the waters of the mountain; enormous roots are interlaced in it like monstrous gray serpents; and the entire place, overhung on all sides by the Pyrenean masses, is rude and tragic.
But two young girls are there, seated in the shade; with blonde hair and elegant little pink waists; astonishing little fairies, very modern in the midst of the ferocious and old scenes.—They rise, with cries of joy, to meet the visitors.
It would have been better, evidently, to enter the house and salute the old people. But the boys say to themselves that they have not been seen coming, and they prefer to sit near their sweethearts, by the side of the brook, on the gigantic roots. And, as if by chance, the two couples manage not to bother one another, to remain hidden from one another by rocks, by branches.
There then, they talk at length in a low voice, Arrochkoa with Pantchika, Ramuntcho with Gracieuse. What can they be saying, talking so much and so quickly?
Although their accent is less chanted than that of the highland, which astonished them yesterday, one would think they were speaking scanned stanzas, in a sort of music, infinitely soft, where the voices of the boys seem voices of children.
What are they saying to one another, talking so much and so quickly, beside this torrent, in this harsh ravine, under the heavy sun of noon? What they are saying has not much sense; it is a sort of murmur special to lovers, something like the special song of the swallows at nesting time. It is childish, a tissue of incoherences and repetitions. No, what they are saying has not much sense—unless it be what is most sublime in the world, the most profound and truest things which may be expressed by terrestrial words.—It means nothing, unless it be the eternal and marvellous hymn for which alone has been created the language of men and beasts, and in comparison with which all is empty, miserable and vain.
The heat is stifling in the depth of that gorge, so shut in from all sides; in spite of the shade of the chestnut trees, the rays, that the leaves sift, burn still. And this bare earth, of a reddish color, the extreme oldness of this nearby house, the antiquity of these trees, give to the surroundings, while the lovers talk, aspects somewhat harsh and hostile.
Ramuntcho has never seen his little friend made so pink by the sun: on her cheeks, there is the beautiful, red blood which flushes the skin, the fine and transparent skin; she is pink as the foxglove flowers.
Flies, mosquitoes buzz in their ears. Now Gracieuse has been bitten on the chin, almost on the mouth, and she tries to touch it with the end of her tongue, to bite the place with the upper teeth. And Ramuntcho, who looks at this too closely, feels suddenly a langour, to divert himself from which he stretches himself like one trying to awake.
She begins again, the little girl, her lip still itching—and he again stretches his arms, throwing his chest backward.