sombre nave where each, according to his naive faculties, had caught more
or less a glimpse of the great mystery and of the inevitable death.

Wearing all the uniform national cap, the men come down the exterior
stairway; the women, slower to be captivated by the lure of the blue sky,
retaining still under the mourning veil a little of the dream of the
church, come out of the lower porticoes in black troops; around a grave
freshly closed, some stop and weep.

The southern wind, which is the great magician of the Basque country,
blows softly. The autumn of yesterday has gone and it is forgotten.
Lukewarm breaths pass through the air, vivifying, healthier than those of
May, having the odor of hay and the odor of flowers. Two singers of the
highway are there, leaning on the graveyard wall, and they intone, with a
tambourine and a guitar, an old seguidilla of Spain, bringing here the
warm and somewhat Arabic gaieties of the lands beyond the frontiers.

And in the midst of all this intoxication of the southern November, more
delicious in this country than the intoxication of the spring, Ramuntcho,
having come down one of the first, watches the coming out of the sisters
in order to greet Gracieuse.

The sandal peddler has come also to this closing of the mass, and
displays among the roses of the tombs his linen foot coverings ornamented
with woolen flowers. Young men, attracted by the dazzling embroideries,
gather around him to select colors.

The bees and the flies buzz as in June; the country has become again, for
a few hours, for a few days, for as long as this wind will blow, luminous
and warm. In front of the mountains, which have assumed violent brown or