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Updated: June 15, 2025
A woman, already old, casts at them, from under her black cloth mantilla, a sad and evil glance: "Ah," says Arrochkoa, "here is mother! And she looks at us crosswise. She may flatter herself for her work! She punished herself for she will end in solitude now. Catherine who is at Elsagarray's, you know works by the day for her; otherwise, she would have nobody to talk to in the evening "
Like Arrochkoa, he wishes to act with stunning abruptness, in the surprise of a first interview which will occur in the evening, as late as the rule of a convent will permit, at an uncertain and twilight hour, when the village shall have begun to sleep. "Above all," he says, "do not show yourself beforehand. She must not have seen you, she must not even know that you have returned home!
It was this return, much more than the game, that interested Gracieuse and Ramuntcho, for it was their hope that Pantchika and her mother would remain at Erribiague while they would go, pressed against each other, in the very small carriage of the Detcharry family, under the indulgent and slight watchfulness of Arrochkoa, five or six hours of travel, all three alone, on the spring roads, under the new foliage, with amusing halts in unknown villages
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.
From one turn to another, postponing every time the great separation, she asked to be driven still farther. "Mother, when we reach the top of the Issaritz slope you must go down!" he said tenderly. "You hear, Arrochkoa, you will stop where I say; I do not want mother to go further " At this Issaritz slope the horse had himself slackened his pace.
"With whom are you going?" "The same as usual: Arrochkoa, Florentino and the Iragola brothers. It is, as it was the other night, for Itchoua, with whom I have just made an engagement. Good-night, mother Oh, we shall not be out late and, sure, I will be back before mass."
They have become inseparable, Arrochkoa, Ramuntcho, and they talk freely of their projects about Gracieuse, Arrochkoa seduced especially by the attraction of some fine prowess, by the joy of taking a nun away from the church, of undoing the plans of his old, hardened mother, and Ramuntcho, in spite of his Christian scruples which affect him still, making of this dangerous project his only hope, his only reason for being and for acting.
"Yes," says Arrochkoa, putting his hand in his pocket, "but you must take us to the Olhagarray house." "The Olhagarray house," replies the old man. "I have come from it, my children, and you are near it." In truth, how had they failed to see, at a hundred steps further, that black gable among branches of chestnut trees?
Leaning heavily, benumbed in the pleasure of resting after the fatigues of the night and concentrated in the expectation of satiating their robust hunger, they are silent at first, hardly raising their heads to look through the window-panes at the passing girls. Two are very young, almost children like Ramuntcho: Arrochkoa and Florentino.
Then, they go down to the supper tables, where are seated two or three old men in old time costume: white belt, black blouse, very short, with a thousand pleats. And Arrochkoa, vain of his parentage, hastens to ask them if they have not known Detcharry, who was here a brigadier of the customs eighteen years ago. One of the old men scans his face: "Ah! you are his son, I would bet!
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