And who knows, if he had dared formulate that great prayer of pure tenderness, who knows what he might have awakened of kindness also, and of tenderness and of humanity in the poor, black-veiled girl?—Perhaps this old Mother Superior herself, this old, dried-up girl with childish smile and grave, pure eyes, would have opened her arms to him, as to a son, understanding everything, forgiving everything, despite the rules and despite the vows? And perhaps Gracieuse might have been returned to him, without kidnapping, without deception, almost excused by her companions of the cloister. Or at last, if that was impossible, she would have bade him a long farewell, consoling, softened by a kiss of immaterial love—
But no, he stays there mute on his chair. Even that prayer he cannot make. And it is the hour to go, decidedly. Arrochkoa is up, agitated, calling him with an imperious sign of the head. Then he straightens up also his proud bust and takes his cap to follow Arrochkoa. They express their thanks for the little supper which was given to them and they say good-night, timidly. During their entire visit they were very respectful, almost timid, the two superb smugglers. And, as if hope had not just been undone, as if one of them was not leaving behind him his life, they descend quietly the neat stairway, between the white walls, while the good Sisters light the way with their little lamp.
“Come, Sister Mary Angelique,” gaily proposes the Mother Superior, in her frail, infantile voice, “we shall escort them to the end of our avenue, you know, near the village.”
Is she an old fairy, sure of her power, or a simple and unconscious woman, playing without knowing it, with a great, devouring fire?—It was all finished; the parting had been accomplished; the farewell accepted; the struggle stifled under white wadding,—and now the two who adored each other are walking side by side, outside, in the tepid night of spring!—in the amorous, enveloping night, under the cover of the new leaves and on the tall grass, among all the saps that ascend in the midst of the sovereign growth of universal life.
They walk with short steps, through this exquisite obscurity, as in silent accord, to make the shaded path last longer, both mute, in the ardent desire and the intense fear of contact of their clothes, of a touch of their hands. Arrochkoa and the Mother Superior follow them closely, on their heels; without talking, nuns with their sandals, smugglers with their rope soles, they go through these soft, dark spots without making more noise than phantoms, and their little cortege, slow and strange, descends toward the wagon in a funereal silence. Silence also around them, everywhere in the grand, ambient black, in the depth of the mountains and the woods. And, in the sky without stars, sleep the big clouds, heavy with all the water that the soil awaits and which will fall to-morrow to make the woods still more leafy, the grass still higher; the big clouds above their heads cover all the splendor of the southern summer which so often, in their childhood, charmed them together, disturbed them together, but which Ramuntcho will doubtless never see again and which in the future Gracieuse will have to look at with eyes of one dead, without understanding nor recognizing it—
There is no one around them, in the little obscure alley, and the village seems asleep already. The night has fallen quite; its grand mystery is scattered everywhere, on the mountains and the savage valleys.—And, how easy it would be to execute what these two young men have resolved, in that solitude, with that wagon which is ready and that fast horse—!
However, without having talked, without having touched each other, they come, the lovers, to that turn of the path where they must bid each other an eternal farewell. The wagon is there, held by a boy; the lantern is lighted and the horse impatient. The Mother Superior stops: it is, apparently, the last point of the last walk which they will take together in this world,—and she feels the power, that old nun, to decide that it will be thus, without appeal. With the same little, thin voice, almost gay, she says:
“Come, Sister, say good-bye.”
And she says that with the assurance of a Fate whose decrees of death are not disputable.
In truth, nobody attempts to resist her order, impassibly given. He is vanquished, the rebellious Ramuntcho, oh, quite vanquished by the tranquil, white powers; trembling still from the battle which has just come to an end in him, he lowers his head, without will now, and almost without thought, as under the influence of some sleeping potion—