King of Camargue Part 36

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 _ja.s.ses_ 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 d.a.m.ned. 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 pa.s.s beneath their bridges.

"Avignon is the queen,--but pa.s.s 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 p.r.o.nounced very much like _vingt cent_, twenty hundred, or two thousand.

[4] "May this work of mine, begun in G.o.d'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 sh.o.r.e, 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 G.o.d, 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 sh.o.r.e 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] "G.o.d, 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 sh.o.r.e."

[12] "Kneeling before G.o.d's tabernacle, we, stained with sin from birth, do invoke your power, for whom G.o.d 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.