they are this time in the cider mill of the hamlet of gastelugain, near the frontier, waiting for the moment to go out with boxes of jewelry and weapons.
and it is itchoua who is talking:
“if she hesitates—and she will not hesitate, be sure of it—but if she hesitates, well! we will kidnap her.—let me arrange this, my plan is all made. it will be in the evening, you understand?—we will bring her anywhere and imprison her in a room with you.—if it turns out badly—if i am forced to quit the country after having done this thing to please you; then, you will have to give me more money than the amount agreed upon, you understand?—enough, at least, to let me seek for my bread in spain—”
“in spain!—what? what are you going to do, itchoua? i hope you have not in your head the idea to do things that are too grave.”
“oh, do not be afraid, my friend. i have no desire to assassinate anybody.”
“well! you talk of running away—”
“i said this as i would have said anything else, you know. for some time, business has been bad. and then, suppose the thing turns out badly and the police make an inquiry. well, i would prefer to go, that is sure.—for whenever these men of justice put their noses into anything, they seek for things that happened long ago, and the inquiry never ends—”
in his eyes, suddenly expressive, appeared crime and fear. and ramuntcho looked with an increase of anxiety at this man, who was believed to be solidly established in the country with lands in the sunlight, and who accepted so easily the idea of running away. what sort of a bandit is he then, to be so much afraid of justice?—and what could be these things that happened long ago?—after a silence between them, ramuntcho said in a lower voice, with extreme distrust:
“imprison her—you say this seriously, itchoua?—and where imprison her, if you please? i have no castle to hide her in—”
then itchoua, with the smile of a faun which no one had seen before, tapped his shoulder:
“oh, imprison her—for one night only, my son!—it will be enough, you may believe me.—they are all alike, you see: the first step costs; but the second one, they make it all alone, and quicker than you may think. do you imagine that she would wish to return to the good sisters, afterward?—”
the desire to slap that dull face passed like an electric shock through the arm and the hand of ramuntcho. he constrained himself, however, through a long habit of respectfulness for the old singer of the liturgies, and remained silent, with a flush on his cheeks, and his look turned aside. it revolted him to hear one talk thus of her—and surprised him that the one who spoke thus was that itchoua whom he had always known as the quiet husband of an ugly and old woman. but the blow struck by the impertinent phrase followed nevertheless, in his imagination, a dangerous and unforeseen path.—gracieuse, “imprisoned a room with him!” the immediate possibility of such a thing, so clearly presented with a rough and coarse word, made his head swim like a very violent liquor.
he loved her with too elevated a tenderness, his betrothed, to find pleasure in brutal hopes. ordinarily, he expelled from his mind those images; but now that man had just placed them under his eye, with a diabolical crudity, and he felt shivers in his flesh, he trembled as if the weather were cold—
oh, whether the adventure fell or not under the blow of justice, well, so much the worse, after all! he had nothing to lose, all was indifferent to him! and from that evening, in the fever of a new desire, he felt more boldly decided to brave the rules, the laws, the obstacles of this world. saps ascended everywhere around him, on the sides of the brown pyrenees; there were longer and more tepid nights; the paths were bordered with violets and periwinkles.—but religious scruples held him still. they remained, inexplicably in the depth of his disordered mind: instinctive horror of profanation; belief, in spite of everything, in something supernatural enveloping, to defend them, churches and cloisters—
