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Updated: June 13, 2025
He had no doubt about the hand which had written them, those letters, and he held them tremblingly, not daring to read them, nor even to look at the name with which they were signed. One only had retained its envelope; then he read the address: "To Madame Franchita Duval."
The large one, that of the Virgin, in white silk embroidered with pale gold, was borne by Gracieuse, who walked in white dress, her eyes lost in a mystic dream. Behind the young girls, came the women, all the women of the village, wearing black veils, including Dolores and Franchita, the two enemies.
The night having come, inexorably, Franchita wished to accompany her son to the square, where the Detcharry wagon was waiting for him, and here her face, despite her will, was drawn by sorrow, while he straightened himself, in order to preserve the swagger which becomes recruits going to their regiment: "Make a little place for me, Arrochkoa," she said abruptly.
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 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.
Certainly, the father's intervention in the future of Ramuntcho would have a decisive influence in obtaining the hand of that girl and would permit even of asking it of Dolores with haughtiness, after the ancient quarrel. But Franchita felt a great uneasiness in her, increasing as the thought of addressing herself to that man became more precise.
And, while Franchita, naturally much more dignified, remained mute, terrified now by this unexpected dispute on the street, Dolores continued: "No. My daughter marrying that penniless bastard, think of it! "Well, I have the idea that she will marry him, in spite of everything! Try to propose to her a man of your choice and see "
Then, Franchita leaned her head on the solid shoulder of her son, in a coaxing humor almost infantile, different suddenly from her habitual manner, and, her cheek against his, she remained tenderly leaning, as if to say in a confident abandonment of her will: "I am still troubled a little by those night undertakings; but, when I reflect, what you wish is always well; I am dependent on you, and you are everything "
Franchita, at her return to her country, had bought back this house, which was that of her deceased parents, with a part of the sum given to her by the stranger at the birth of her son.
Franchita had been almost afraid that he would never return, her son. But at last, he was coming back. Between her fingers, thin and warm, she held the letter which said: "I start day after to-morrow and I will be with you Saturday night." But what would he do, at his return, what would he make of his life, so sadly changed? In his letters, he had obstinately refrained from writing of this.
He would remain the Ramuntcho of other times, the "son of Franchita," player of pelota and smuggler, free, freed from everything, owing nothing to and asking nothing from anybody. And he felt serene, without remorse, without fright, either, in this mortuary house, from which the shades had just disappeared, peaceful now and friendly At the frontier, in a mountain hamlet.
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