King of Camargue

by Jean Aicard

For the moment, some of the women here and there through the camp were intent upon the same occupation: searching, in the bright morning light, for vermin among the matted hair of their children, whom they held tightly between their knees as in a vise.

From time to time, one of the little fellows would howl with pain, when his mother inadvertently pulled or tore out one of his wiry, coal-black hairs. Then he would wriggle and squirm to get away, but the vise formed by the knees would nip him again and hold him tight, and there would be a squealing as of sucking pigs loth to be bled. Then blows would rain down and the shrieks redouble. Suddenly the urchin that was howling most lustily would cease, and follow, with a lively interest, the movements of a chicken from some neighboring coop, or the antics of a hunting-dog that had wandered that way and was well worth stealing.

The mothers went through with their matutinal task in an automatic way that said as clearly as possible: “It is of no use to try to do this, for the vermin breed and always will breed; but we must do something. It is always a good thing to be busy; and then it makes an excellent impression, here under the eye of civilized people. They see that we are clean and neat.”

“Buy my dog,” said one of them with a leer to an open-mouthed villager. “You will be well satisfied with his fidelity. He is faithful, I tell you! so faithful that I have been able to sell him four times.—He always comes back!”

All these women had a coppery, sun-burned, almost black skin, and hair of a peculiar, dull charcoal-like black.—Some wore it twisted in a heavy coil on top of the head. Several of the younger women let it hang in long, snake-like locks over their breasts and backs. Their eyes also were a curious shade of black, very bright, like black velvet seen through glass. Life shone but dully in them, without definite expression. Some mothers were attending to their duties with a child on their back, wrapped in a sheet which they wore bandoleer-fashion, with the ends knotted at the shoulder. The little one slept with his head hanging, tossed and shaken by every movement.

Red, orange, and blue were the prevailing colors of their tattered garments, but they were tarnished and faded and almost blotted out by layers of dust and filth;—a smoke-begrimed Orient.

Many of the women had short pipes between their teeth. The men who lay about here and there, with their elbows on the ground, were almost all smoking placidly, their Sylvanus-like eyes fixed on vacancy. They made a great show of pride under their rags. Some were asleep under the rolling cabins.

The line of wagons along the outskirts of the village was still in shadow, but at the head of the line, the first of the wagons, standing a little apart, beyond the line of the houses, was in the sunlight. This wagon, which was painted and kept up better than the others, was Zinzara’s, and a few of the villagers had collected in the sunshine in front of it, attracted by the notes of the flute and tambourine.

Livette, as she approached the group, had no suspicion that, in the wine-shop facing the wagon, behind the curtains of a window on the first floor, Renaud had stationed himself, there, at his ease, to watch the gipsy, who was playing the flute and dancing at the same time, her feet and arms bare.

Zinzara held the flute—a double flute with two reeds diverging slightly—with much grace, and blew upon it with full cheeks, raising and lowering her fingers to suit the requirements of a weird air, sometimes slow, sometimes furiously fast and jerky. Her head was thrown back, so that she appeared more haughty and aggressive than ever.