“I did not have to serve in the army,” Iragola explained, “because we are Guipuzcoans, immigrants in France; so I could marry her earlier!” He, twenty-one years old; she eighteen; without lands and without a penny, Marcos and Pilar, but joyfully associated all the same, like two sparrows building their nest. And the very young husband added laughingly: “What would you? Father said: 'As long as you do not marry I warn you that I shall give you a little brother every year.' And he would have done it! There are already fourteen of us, all living--” Oh, how simple and natural they are! How wise and humbly happy!--Ramuntcho quitted him with some haste, with a heart more bruised for having spoken to him, but wishing very sincerely that he should be happy in his improvident, birdlike, little home. Here and there, folks were seated in front of their doors, in that sort of atrium of branches which precedes all the houses of this country. And their vaults of plane-trees, cut in the Basque fashion, which in the summer are so impenetrable all open worked in this season, let fall on them sheafs of light. The sun flamed, somewhat destructive and sad, above those yellow leaves which were drying up-- And Ramuntcho, in his slow promenade, felt more and more what intimate ties, singularly persistent, would attach him always to this region of the earth, harsh and enclosed, even if he were there alone, abandoned, without friends, without a wife and without a mother-- Now, the high mass rings! And the vibrations of that bell impress him with a strange emotion that he did not expect. Formerly, its familiar appeal was an appeal to joy and to pleasure-- He stops, he hesitates, in spite of his actual religious unbelief and in spite of his grudge against that church which has taken his betrothed away from him. The bell seems to invite him to-day in so special a manner, with so peaceful and caressing a voice: “Come, come; let yourself be rocked as your ancestors were; come, poor, desolate being, let yourself be caught by the lure which will make your tears fall without bitterness, and will help you to die--” Undecided, resisting still, he walks, however, toward the church--when Arrochkoa appears! Arrochkoa, whose catlike mustache has lengthened a great deal and whose feline expression is accentuated, runs to him with extended hands, with an effusion that he did not expect, in an enthusiasm, perhaps sincere, for that ex-sergeant who has such a grand air, who wears the ribbon of a medal and whose adventures have made a stir in the land: “Ah, my Ramuntcho, when did you arrive?--Oh, if I could have prevented--What do you think of my old, hardened mother and of all those church bigots?--Oh, I did not tell you: I have a son, since two months; a fine little fellow! We have so many things to say, my poor friend, so many things!--” The bell rings, rings, fills the air more and more with its soft appeal, very grave and somewhat imposing also.