Renaud was about to leave the village,—or, if you please, the town,—with his mind firmly made up to renounce the gitana. Yes, he would sacrifice her to Livette, to his earnest desire to have a peaceful, happy home and a family, he, the wandering cowherd, the orphan, the foundling of the desert. That was happiness;—a roof to shelter one, a roof whose smoke one can see from afar on the horizon, thinking: the wife and little ones are there.
He would renounce the gitana; yes, but he proposed to make known his resolution to her himself. At the thought of leaving Saintes-Maries without seeing her again, for the purpose of telling her that he would not see her again, a weary feeling came over him; it seemed to him that he was suddenly shut up in a narrow space, and left there without air, without horizon.—But he would see her again—he must. It would be better so. Must he not soothe her anger first of all? She would be angry enough in any event. Why exasperate her?—In very truth, if he did see her again, it was—he reached this conclusion after much thought—it was principally in order to protect poor Livette against her! Yes, yes, it was for her sake that he would see her again. See her again! At those words, which he repeated softly to himself, a joy in living, in moving, in breathing, took possession of him.
Meanwhile, Zinzara, for her part, was vowing inwardly that she would enjoy a hearty laugh at the drover when he should presently seek her out!
Why, in that case, had she answered yes to his amorous questions? Oh! because at the moment when he whispered them in her ear, if she had been able, upon the spot, to give herself to this savage, all aglow from his conflict with bulls and heifers, doubtless she would have done it. He had awakened desire in her, as heat awakens thirst, as a summer evening awakens longing for a bath.—And then it had given her pleasure to say to herself that, over at the other end of the arena, the woman to whom he had paid queenly honor by giving her the smoking, red-hot iron, like the sceptre of a magician or a wicked zingaro king,—that that woman was suffering torments.
But he came too late. The desire had passed away. And the acme of delight to her now lay in the thought of refusing the promised favor to the Christian she detested, while giving Livette to believe that he had been false to her.
Sitting upon a stone, alone, at some distance from her wagon, she awaited the drover. Her resolution to take vengeance by refusing was written upon her compressed lips, whose smile became more malicious than ever when she saw him riding toward her.
A few steps away he stopped. As he looked at her, he felt a sudden rushing of the blood in all his veins, a strange, delicious pressure at the pit of the stomach. He recognized the characteristic agitation of love; but he made an effort, and said, in a voice which he felt to be unsteady: “I expected to be free to-night, but I am not. The master has sent for me, and I must be far away from here by night-fall. So I must go at once. Adieu, gipsy!”
Zinzara understood instantly that he was running away from her, and why!—— She rose, like the serpent that rises on its tail and hisses with anger. All her harsh resolutions vanished in a twinkling; and, in a short, sharp, jerky voice, entirely different from her natural voice, she said: “I want you, do you hear? No one else shall give you orders when I have orders for you. What I want done is done. Are you going to act like a coward, pray—you, who have taken my fancy because, when you are on your horse, you resemble a zingaro who knows neither master nor God? Come, go on!”
Thus, the same motive of passionate hatred,—as pleasant to her taste as love,—that a moment before induced her determination not to go with Renaud, now threw her into his arms. And to him the love or hatred of such a woman, at the moment when she gave herself to him, was one and the same thing; were there not still her passion, her animated features, her gleaming eyes, her lips that, as they moved, disclosed two rows of pearly, sparkling teeth? Was there not her flexible, ballet-dancer’s body, significantly held out toward him to whom she laid claim?
A thrill of savage joy shook Renaud from head to foot; and, as his rider shuddered, as if he had been touched by a cramp-fish, the horse seemed to experience a similar sensation, and pawed the ground an instant, between the knees that involuntarily pressed closer to his sides.