The houses in Saintes-Maries are low. The streets are narrow, and wind about to escape the sun. The shadows under the awnings of the little shops have a bluish cast. In front of the doors, which open on the street, hang transparent curtains of common linen, in some cases of very fine net-work, to stop the flies and admit the light after it has passed through the sieve, so to speak. And, behind them, the maidens of Saintes-Maries are confined like birdlings in a cage, or like very dangerous little wild beasts. Are not all maidens to be looked upon with more or less suspicion?
The maidens of Saintes-Maries wear the Arles head-dress and the neckerchief, with fold upon fold held in place by hundreds of pins, by as many pins as a rose-bush has thorns; and where the thick folds of the handkerchief open, in the depths of the chapelle, you can see the little golden cross gleaming upon the firm young flesh rising and falling with the maidenly sigh. The apron worn over the ample skirt seems like a skirt itself, it is so broad and full, and slender feet peep out from beneath it, as agile as the Camargue partridge’s red claws, that love to scamper swiftly over the fields to escape the hunter, knowing that Camargue is broad and space is plentiful.
Many are the pale faces at Saintes, for, whatever they may say, the marshes still breed fever, and this country, to which people come to be miraculously cured, is, generally speaking, a country of disease; but pallor goes well with the wavy black hair, worn in broad puffs on the temples and falling upon the neck in two heavy masses which are turned up to meet the chignon. To help them to forget what is depressing in their lives, they resort, here as elsewhere, to coquetry—and the rest!—And then they are accustomed to the fever, which gives birth to dreams and visions; they tame it, as it were; it is not cruel to the people it knows, and does not lead them to the cemetery until they are old and gray.
The cemetery is a few steps from the village, a few steps from the sea. It lies at the foot of the sand-dunes, surrounded by a low wall. The dead and gone villagers of Saintes-Maries lie sleeping there between the sea and the desert of Camargue: many fishermen who lived in their flat-bottomed boats; many herdsmen who lived on horseback in the plain.
All of them alike find there, in death, the things amid which their lives have been passed: the salt sand, filled with tiny shells, the enganes that grow in spite of everything, reddened by the salt-laden winds, and heavy with soda,—and the thin shadow of the pink-plumed tamarisk. There they hear the neighing of the wild mares, the shouts of the herdsmen contending on the race-course on fête-days, or stirring up the black bulls in the arena under the walls of the church. They hear the sails flapping, and the han of the bare-legged fishermen pushing their flat-bottomed boats or barges into the water; and night and day, the pounding of the sea in its efforts to push back the island of Camargue, while the Rhône, on the other hand, is constantly pushing it into the sea, and adding to its bulk with mud and stones brought down from its head-waters. The sea smites the island as if it would have none of it, but all in vain,—it, too, can but augment its size with the sand it casts up.
And the sand from the sea makes a broad hem of dunes along the shores of Camargue.
No one can fail to see that the dunes, those shifting, tomb-like hills of sand, must have served as models for the massive pyramids, the tombs of kings, in the Egyptian desert.
At the feet of the little pyramids of sand sleep the dead of Camargue.
But whither has the thought of death led us? Why do we tarry here, while Livette is timidly lifting the knocker at monsieur le curé’s door?
The blow echoed within the house, in the empty hall. Livette was much perturbed. What was she to say? Where should she begin? The beginning is always the most difficult part. She would like to run away now, but it is too late. She hears steps inside. Marion, the old servant, opens the door.