And then, those words of insult in the street, those words the more crushing because she was cruelly conscious of her sin with the stranger! Instead of passing by, as she should have done, how had she found the courage to stop before her enemy and, by a phrase murmured between her teeth, provoke this odious dispute? How could she have descended to such a thing, forgotten herself thus, she who, for fifteen years, had imposed herself, little by little, on the respect of all by her demeanor, so perfectly dignified. Oh, to have attracted and to have suffered the insult of that Dolores,—whose past was irreproachable and who had, in effect, the right to treat her with contempt! When she reflected, she became frightened more and more by that sort of defiance of the future which she had had the imprudence to hurl; it seemed to her that she had compromised the cherished hope of her son in exasperating thus the hatred of that woman.
Her son!—her Ramuntcho, whom a wagon was carrying away from her at this hour in the summer night, was carrying away from her to a long distance, to danger, to war!—She had assumed very heavy responsibilities in directing his life with ideas of her own, with stubbornness, with pride, with selfishness.—And now, this evening, she had, perhaps, attracted misfortune to him, while he was going away so confident in the joy of his return!—This would be doubtless for her the supreme chastisement; she seemed to hear, in the air of the empty house, something like a threat of this expiation, she felt its slow and sure approach.
Then, she said for him her prayers, from a heart harshly revolted, because religion, as she understood it, remained without sweetness, without consolation, without anything confidential and tender. Her distress and her remorse were, at this moment, of so sombre a nature that tears, benevolent tears, came no longer to her—
And he, at this same instant of the night, continued to descend, through darker valleys, toward the lowland where the trains pass—carrying away men to a long distance, changing and upsetting all things. For about an hour he would continue to be on Basque soil; then, it would end. Along his route, he met some oxcarts, of indolent demeanor, recalling the tranquillities of the olden time; or vague human silhouettes, hailing him with the traditional goodnight, the antique “Gaou-one,” which to-morrow he would cease to hear. And beyond, at his left, in the depth of a sort of black abyss, was the profile of Spain, Spain which, for a very long time doubtless, would trouble his nights no longer—
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Three years have passed, rapidly.
Franchita is alone at home, ill and in bed, at the end of a November day.—And it is the third autumn since her son's departure.