he bore no other name than that of his mother. So, he did not feel that
he was quite similar to his companions in games and healthy fatigues.

Silent for a moment, he walked less quickly toward his house, on the
deserted paths winding on the heights. In him, the chaos of other things,
of the luminous "other places", of the splendors or of the terrors
foreign to his own life, agitated itself confusedly, trying to
disentangle itself--But no, all this, being indistinct and
incomprehensible, remained formless in the darkness

At last, thinking no more of it, he began to sing his song again. The
song told, in monotonous couplets, the complaint of a linen weaver whose
lover in a distant war prolonged his absence. It was written in that
mysterious Euskarian language, the age of which seems incalculable and
the origin of which remains unknown. And little by little, under the
influence of the ancient melody, of the wind and of the solitude,
Ramuntcho found himself as he was at the beginning of his walk, a simple
Basque mountaineer, sixteen or seventeen years old, formed like a man,
but retaining the ignorance and the candor of a little boy.

Soon he perceived Etchezar, his parish, its belfry massive as the dungeon
of a fortress; near the church, some houses were grouped; others, more
numerous, had preferred to be disseminated in the surroundings, among
trees, in ravines or on bluffs. The night fell entirely, hastily that
evening, because of the sombre veils hooked to the great summits.

Around this village, above or in the valleys, the Basque country
appeared, at that moment, like a confusion of gigantic, obscure masses.
Long mists disarranged the perspectives; all the distances, all the
depths had become inappreciable, the changing mountains seemed to have