King of Camargue

by Jean Aicard

He thought and thought, feverish with passion, excited by his excessive exertions for several days past, and he rode through the fields and swamps, amid the grass and stones of Crau, surrounded by buzzing insects maddened by the heat, which was terrible.

Great God! only the night before, he had believed that she had a veritable woman’s passion for him, a passion like those he had often aroused in women, with his strength, his courage, and his prowess as horse-breaker and cavalier. And as she was the daughter of a free race, and queen of her tribe, he had been proud of his conquest. He had straightened himself up in his saddle, like a crowned king, conqueror in many battles. He had handled his spear with a firmer hand. He had glanced proudly at the other drovers, his comrades, with a distinct feeling that he was “better than they,” since this savage queen, who, in her travels, had doubtless seen so many brave and comely men, had chosen him—even though he were not the first!—that she, whom the laws of her people forbade to love a European dog, the slave of cities, had chosen him, the drover of Camargue!

Now that that happiness was gone from him, he suddenly realized its value. An immense void lay before him. For the first time, the desert seemed a melancholy place to him, too vast, too bare. He realized that henceforth his whole life would lie in the past. He was no longer the king! He would never be the king again! She had never loved him! And she had pretended that she did!

But when she had cried out and turned pale in his arms, had she not forgotten that she was acting a lie? If that were so, she must be very sure of finding elsewhere such ardent caresses as his, from another. Otherwise she would not have fled, for he scouted the idea that she was afraid. Such a one as she could have no fear! And if, as he thought the night before, he had really taken her fancy, would she not have remained, guilty or not, to enjoy his caresses anew, even though she were to die of them?

But she would not have died of them! She, sorceress as she was, must have known that he would have forgiven everything. Therefore she had wanted to go. She cared nothing for him. If, on the other hand, it had pleased her to keep him with her, to continue their liaison, she would have found a way to do it, in spite of everything. She had only to desire to do it. She did not desire!—Even so, he desired her!

He rode away at headlong speed. He must find her again. Then they would see! And he circled round the cabin in the swamp like a hawk, examining all the clumps of thorn-broom, all the tamarisks and reeds. Oh! he would find her!

He had been riding for several hours, and he began to feel that his quest was useless. If she were outside the limits of the last greater circle that he had described in his search for her, it was all over! he was too late.

At last, convinced of his discomfiture, he leaped from his horse and seated himself on the sloping bank of a ditch. It was near midday. He was neither hungry nor thirsty, but the sun told him that it was midday.

The gnats were humming about his ears, devouring him, riddling the hide of his horse, who hung his head and sniffed at a tuft of salt grass without eating it, pulling a little upon the rein which Renaud, still seated, held loosely in his hand.

Renaud was looking straight before him, and now that he was assured of his misfortune, now that he had neither betrothed nor mistress, neither present nor future, he felt that he was becoming cold and hard, and was astonished to find it so. It seemed to him as if his misfortune had happened to a piece of wood or stone. The wood and the stone were himself. How could he have had such dread of the certainty that had come to him at last? While he had that dread, he still hoped and suffered. Now that all was said, he found that he was insensible to it all—dead, in a measure. And that gratified him.