“Since my husband died, no man has ever kissed me,” she said, “not even my son there! Let young people kiss. Life is before them. I,” she added, “am already with the dead.”
And with that, the old peasant-woman, straight and stiff and withered,—the image of a by-gone time, when it was deemed a praiseworthy thing to remain true to a single sentiment,—sought the bed of her old age, which was soon to see her lying dead, with the tranquillity of a simple, loving, faithful heart upon her parchment-like face.
XVIII
THE BLESSED RELICS
The great day has arrived. From all parts of Languedoc and Provence, pilgrims, rich and poor, have come to Saintes-Maries. There are fully ten thousand strangers in the town.
For three days past they have been arriving in vehicles of all shapes and of all ages.
Many of these pilgrims lodge with the villagers at extraordinary, princely rates. A bunch of straw on the floor brings twenty francs. The villager himself sleeps on a chair, or passes the night in the open air on the warm sand of the dunes. If the bulls arrive during the night for the sports of the following day, he assists the drovers to drive them into the compound, in the wake of the dondaïre, the enormous ox with a bell.
The houses are soon filled to overflowing. New-comers are obliged to camp. Tents are pitched. People live in carts and wagons, in breaks, tilburys, calèches, omnibuses, as far away as possible, be it understood, from the gipsy encampment.
Around the little town, the hundreds of vehicles constitute a roving town of their own, resting there like a flock of birds of passage around a swamp.