lver, one could see the profound blue
green of a sky almost African. All this country, the unstable climate of
which changes between a morning and an evening, became for several hours
strangely southern in aspect, in temperature and in light.

Ramuntcho breathed that dry and suave air, come from the South in order
to vivify the lungs. It was the true weather of his native land. It was
even the characteristic weather of that land of the Bay of Biscay, the
weather which he liked best formerly, and which to-day filled him with
physical comfort--as much as with disturbance of mind, for all that was
preparing, all that was amassing above, with airs of ferocious menace,
impressed him with the sentiment of a heaven deaf to prayers, without
thoughts as without master, a simple focus of storms, of blind forces
creating, recreating and destroying. And, during these minutes of
halting meditation, where men in Basque caps of a temperament other than
his, surrounded him to congratulate him, he made no reply, he did not
listen, he felt only the ephemeral plenitude of his own vigor, of his
youth, of his will, and he said to himself that he wished to use harshly
and desperately all things, to try anything, without the obstacle of
vain fears, of vain church scruples, in order to take back the young
girl whom his soul and his flesh desired, who was the unique one and the
betrothed--

When the game had ended gloriously for him, he returned alone, sad and
resolute,--proud of having won, of having known how to preserve his
agile skilfulness, and realizing that it was a means in life, a source
of money and of strength, to have remained one of the chief ball-players
of the Basque country.

Under the black sky, there were still the same tints exaggerated by
everything, the same sombre horizon. And still the same breaths from the
south, dry and warm, agitors of muscles and of thought.

However, the clouds had descended, descended, and soon this weather,
these appearances would change and finish. He knew it, as do all the
countrymen accustomed to look at the sky: it was only the announcement
of an autumn squall to close the series of lukewarm winds,--of a
decisive shake-up to finish despoiling the woods of their leaves.
Immediately after would come the long showers, chilling everything, the
mists making the mountains confused and distant. And it would be the
dull rain of winter, stopping the saps, making temporary projects
languid, extinguis