At the uncertain and somewhat icy dawn, he awoke in his little room in the inn, with a persistent impression of his joy on the day before, instead of the confused anguish which accompanied so often in him the progressive return of his thoughts. Outside, were sounds of bells of cattle starting for the pastures, of cows lowing to the rising sun, of church bells,—and already, against the wall of the large square, the sharp snap of the Basque pelota: all the noises of a Pyrenean village beginning again its customary life for another day. And all this seemed to Ramuntcho the early music of a day's festival.
At an early hour, they returned, Arrochkoa and he, to their little wagon, and, crushing their caps against the wind, started their horse at a gallop on the roads, powdered with white frost.
At Etchezar, where they arrived at noon, one would have thought it was summer,—so beautiful was the sun.
In the little garden in front of her house, Gracieuse sat on a stone bench:
“I have spoken to Arrochkoa!” said Ramuntcho to her, with a happy smile, as soon as they were alone—“And he is entirely with us, you know!”
“Oh! that,” replied the little girl, without losing the sadly pensive air which she had that morning, “oh, that!—my brother Arrochkoa, I suspected it, it was sure! A pelota player like you, you should know, was made to please him, in his mind there is nothing superior to that—”
“But your mother, Gatchutcha, for several days has acted much better to me, I think—For example, Sunday, you remember, when I asked you to dance—”
“Oh! don't trust to that, my Ramuntcho! you mean day before yesterday, after the high mass?—It was because she had just talked with the Mother Superior, have you not noticed?—And the Mother Superior had insisted that I should not dance with you on the square; then, only to be contrary, you understand—But, don't rely on that, no—”
“Oh!” replied Ramuntcho, whose joy had already gone, “it is true that they are not very friendly—”
“Friendly, mama and the Mother Superior?—Like a dog and a cat, yes!—Since there was talk of my going into the convent, do you not remember that story?”