"god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!"

that is one of our old sayings here in provence. i used to laugh at it when i was young. i do not laugh at it now. when those words come into my heart, and they come often, i go by the rough hard way that leads upward to notre dame de la garde until i come to the crime cross—it is a wearying toil for me to get up that steep hill-side, i am so stiff and old now—and there i cast fresh stones upon the heap at the foot of the cross. each stone cast there, you know, is a prayer for forgiveness for some hidden crime: not a light fault, but a crime. the stones must be little stones, yet[136] the heap is very wide and high—though every winter, when the great mistrals are blowing across the étang de berre, the little stones are whirled away down the hill-side. i do not know how this custom began, nor when; but it is a very old custom with us here in les martigues.

once in every year i go up to the crime cross by night. this is on all souls eve. first i light the lamp over magali's breast where she lies sleeping in the graveyard: going to the graveyard at dusk, as the others do, in the long procession that creeps up thither from the three parts of our town—from jonquières, and the isle, and ferrières—to light the death-fires over the dear dead ones' graves. i go with the very first, as soon as the sun is down. i like to be alone with magali while i light the little lamp that will be a guide for her soul through that night when souls are free; that will keep it safe from the devils who are free that night too. i do not like the low buzzing of voices which comes later, when the crowd is there, nor the broken cries and sobs. and when her lamp is lit, and i have lit my mother's lamp, i hurry away from the graveyard and the moaning people—threading my steps among the graves on[137] which the lights are beginning to glimmer, and through the oncoming crowd, and then by the lonely path through the olive-orchards, and so up the stony height until i come at last to the crime cross—panting, aching—and my watch begins.

marius

up on that high hill-side, open to the west, a little of the dying daylight lingers. eastward, like a big black mirror, lies the great étang; and far away across its still waters the mountain chain above berre and rognac rises purple-grey against the darker sky. in the west still are faint crimson blotches, or dashes of dull blood-red—reflected again, and made brighter, in the étang de caronte: that stretches away between the long downward slopes of the hills, on which stone-pines stand out in black patches, until its gleaming waters merge into the faint glow upon the waters of the mediterranean. above me is the sanctuary of notre dame de la garde, a dark mass on the height above the olive-trees: of old a refuge for sinful bodies, and still a refuge where sinful souls may seek grace in prayer from their agony. and below me, on the slope far downward, is the graveyard: where the death-fires multiply each moment, as more and more lamps are lighted,[138] until at last it is like a little fallen heaven of tiny stars. only in its midst is an island of darkness where no lamps are. that is where the children lie together: the blessed innocents who have died sinless, and who wander not on all souls eve because when sweet death came to them their pure spirits went straight home to god. and beyond the graveyard, below it, is the black outspread of the town: its blackness deepened by a bright window here and there, and by the few street lamps, and by the bright reflections which shine up from the waters of its canals.

seeing all this—yet only half seeing it, for my heart is full of other things—i sit there at the foot of the crime cross in the darkness, prayerful, sorrowful, while the night wears on. sometimes i hear footsteps coming up the rocky path, and then the shadowy figure of a man or of a woman breaks out from the gloom and suddenly is close beside me—and i hear the rattle of little stones cast upon the heap behind me, on the other side of the cross. presently, the rite ended, whoever it is fades back into the gloom again and passes away. and i know that another sinful soul has been close beside my sinful soul for a moment: seeking in[139] penitent supplication, as i am seeking, rest in forgiveness for an undiscovered crime. but i am sure that none of them sees—as i see in the gloom there always—a man's white face on which the moonlight is shining, and beyond that white face the glint of moonlight on a raging sea; and i am sure that on none of their blackened souls rests a burden as heavy as that which rests on mine.

i am very weary of my burden, and old and broken too. it is my comfort to know that i shall die soon. but, also, the thought of that comfort troubles me. for i am a lone man, and childless. when i go, none of magali's race, none of my race, will be left alive here in les martigues. our death-fires will not be lighted. we shall wander in darkness on all souls eve.