King of Camargue Part 13

As she entered the village, she noticed the gipsy camp at her right hand, but turned her head.

At that moment, she met two women on their way to the spring, walking steadily between the two bars, the ends of which they held in their hands, and from which, exactly in the middle, the water-jug was suspended by its two ears.

"It is just the time for the spring," said Livette to herself, and she followed them at a foot-pace.

"Good-day, mademoiselle," the women said as they pa.s.sed, for the pretty maiden of the Chateau d'Avignon was known to everybody.

There was as yet no one at the spring. The two women waited, and Livette with them.

"How do you happen to be riding about so early, mademoiselle? Are you looking for some one?"

"I am out for a ride," said Livette, "and as it's the time for drawing water, I thought I would stop here a moment. My friends will surely come sooner or later."

No more was said, and Livette, having nothing else to do, looked closely for the first time at the carved stone escutcheon in the centre of the high arched wall above the spring. It is the town crest, and it is needless to say that it includes a boat, a boat without mast or oars, in which the two Maries--Jacobe and Salome--are standing.

"I have often wondered," said Livette, "why they put only the figures of two holy women in the boat. For haven't our mothers always told us there were three of them? Were there three or not?"

"Certainly there were three, my pretty innocent," said the older of the two women, "but Sara was the servant, and no honor is due to her."

"If the third was Saint Sara, then there were not three Marys, eh? But I have always heard it said that the Magdalen was there, and that she went away from here and died at Sainte-Baume."

"Yes, so she was, and many others besides! Lazarus was in the boat, too, but when they were once on sh.o.r.e, every one went his own way: Magdalen went to Baume, and the two Maries and Sara remained with us.

That was when a spring came out of the sand, by the favor of our Lord.

When they built the church, they walled in the spring in the centre of it."

"Faith, they would have done well to leave the spring outside the church!"

"Why so? is the water spoiled by it?"

"It's only good on the fete-day."

"After so many years! And there's so little of it!"

"We ought to have asked the saints to make it pure and abundant. If we had all set about it with our prayers, they would have done it for us."

"One miracle more or less!"

"The miracles, my dear, are only for strangers."

"And that is just what we need, neighbor. If it wasn't so, you see, strangers wouldn't come any more--and without them what would the country live on? poor we! Where are our harvests? Where are our wheat and our grain, good people, tell me that? If it wasn't for the saints, this would be a cursed country! One fete-day a year, and the pilgrims--G.o.d bless them!--fill our purses for us."

"Miracle days are only too few and far between. We ought to have two fete-days a year!"

"What are you saying, you foolish woman? Two fete-days a year! Mother of G.o.d! That would mean death to pilgrimages. To keep the custom going, everything must be just as it is and nothing change at all. Our men know that well enough. Remember the visit the Archbishop of Aix and those great ladies paid us twenty years ago."

And once more the story was told of the visit of the Archbishop of Aix to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer twenty or thirty years before.

On a certain 24th of May the archbishop arrived at Saintes-Maries with several elderly ladies of the n.o.bility of Aix. But it so happened that that 24th of May was the evening of the 25th! Anybody may be mistaken!--So that, instead of being lowered at four o'clock, the reliquaries were raised again on that day, and when monseigneur entered the church with his fair companions, it was good-by, saints!

They had already been hoisted up at the end of their ropes to the lofty chapel, amid the singing of canticles.

"Oh! well!" said the archbishop to the cure, "they must come down again for us."

The cure was about to obey, but a rumor of what was going on had already spread through the village!--Ah! bless my soul, what a commotion!

"What!" said the old villagers. "They would lower the reliquaries on some other day than the 24th, would they? Why, if it is such a simple thing and can be done so often, why do you make the poor devils from every corner of Provence and all the rest of the world come hurrying to us on a special day? No, no, it would be the ruin of the country, that is certain!"

To make a long story short, the people of Saintes-Maries took their guns, and under arms, in the church itself, compelled the prince of the Church to respect the sovereign will of the people of the town.

And they did very well, for rarity is the quality by virtue of which miracles retain their value.

One of the women having told this anecdote, which was perfectly well known to them all, they began, as soon as she had finished, to make up for their long silence by loud talk, vying with one another in their approval of the villagers' revolt against the bishops, who would have abused the good-will of the two Maries.

"We are very lucky, all the same," said one of the old women, "to have a good well with good stone walls instead of the brackish spring the saints had to get their drinking-water from. I can remember the time when we got our water from the _pousaraque_ (artificial pond), as the people on our farms do to-day. The Rhone water that was brought into them through the ca.n.a.ls was always so thick and muddy you could cut it with a knife!"

"Bah! it had time enough to settle in our jars."

"It is funny, though, to be so hard up for water in such a wet country!" said a young woman who had just arrived. "This water is a nuisance! Saint Sara, the servant, ought to have known from experience that a woman has enough work to do at home without wasting her time waiting in front of closed spigots. Saint Sara, protect us, and make them turn on the water!"

The women began to laugh.

Almost all the housekeepers of Saintes-Maries had a.s.sembled by this time. A last group arrived upon the scene. Some carried jars, without handles, upon their heads, balancing them by a graceful swaying of the whole body. With their hands upon their hips, they themselves were not unlike living amphorae. Others, having one jug upon the head, carried another in each hand--the stout _dourgue_, with handle and mouth; others had wooden pails, others, gla.s.s jars, each having selected a larger or smaller vessel, according to the necessities of her household.

"What sort of a pot have you there, Felicite?"

Whereat there was a general laugh.

She to whom the question was directed, replied:

"I broke my jug, poor me! And, as I had to have some water, I took an old thing I found that has always been standing behind the door at our house since I can remember. If it will hold water, it will do for me to-day, my dear!"

"Take it to monsieur le cure for his library; it's an antique, and is worth money!"

Felicite had, in fact, come to the spring with a genuine Roman amphora, found in the sandy bed of the Rhone--a jar two thousand years old and hardly chipped!

Each family at Saintes-Maries is ent.i.tled to one or two jars of water each day, according to the number of its members.--The water had not begun to flow.

Livette, sitting upon her horse, thoughtful and sad amid the chatter, was still awaiting her friends.

"What were you saying just now?" asked some late comers.

And having been informed, each one of them proceeded to expound her ideas upon the subject of the saints and Sara the bondwoman, paying no heed to what the others were saying--so that the jabbering of the women and girls seemed like a _Ramadan_ of magpies and jays a.s.sembled in one of the isolated clumps of pines so often seen in Camargue.

"I would like to know if it's fair," cried one of the women, "not to put in Saint Sara's portrait, too! A saint's a saint, and where there's a saint there isn't any servant!"

"The saints aren't proud! and Saint Sara cares mighty little whether her picture's there or not!"

"She may not care, but it was an insult to her!"

"Oh!" said another, "good King Rene and the Pope knew what they were doing when they arranged things so. Sara was Pontius Pilate's wife, and she was the one who advised her husband to wash his hands of the heathens' crime!"