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

[148]

my mother said that again to me when i came home that night from my fishing; and she said it to me often as the days went on. she saw the change that had come to me, and she knew what was in my soul. it is not wonderful, when you stop to think about it, that a man's mother should know what is in his soul: for the body in which that soul is, the living home of it, is a part of her own. and she grew sad and weary-looking when she found that her words had no hold on me, and there came into her eyes the sorrowful look that comes into the eyes of old people who are soon to die.

but magali's eyes were the only eyes that i cared for then, and they seemed to me to grow brighter and brighter every day. when she and i walked in the olive-orchards together in the starlight the glow of them outshone the star-glow. it seemed to light up my heart.

i do not think that we talked much in those walks. i do not seem to remember our talking. but we understood each other, and we were agreed about what we were to do. i was old enough to marry as i pleased, but magali was not—she could not marry without my mother's word. we meant to force that word. some day we would go off in my boat together—over to[149] les saintes maries, perhaps; or perhaps to marseille. it did not matter where we went. when we came back again, at the end of two or three days, my mother no longer could deny us—she would have to give in. and no one would think the worse of magali: for that is our common way of settling a tangled love-matter here in provence.

but i did not take account of jan in my plans, and that was where i made a mistake. jan had just as strong a will as i had, and every bit of his will was set upon keeping magali for himself. i wanted her to break with him entirely, but that she would not do. she was a true proven?ale—and i never yet knew one of our women who would rest satisfied with one lover when she could have two. if she can get more than two, that is better still. while i hung back from her, magali was more than ready to come to me; but when she found me eager after her, and knew that she had a grip on me, she danced away.

and so, before long, jan again had his walks with her in the olive-orchards by starlight just as i did, and likely enough her eyes glowed for him just as they did for me. when they were off that way together i would get into a[150] wild-beast rage over it. sometimes i would follow them, fingering my knife. i suppose that he felt like that when the turn was mine. anyhow, the love-making chances which she gave him—even though in my heart i still was sure of her—kept me always watching him; and i could see that he always was watching me. very likely he felt sure of her too, and that was his reason—just as it was my reason—for not bringing our matter to a fighting end. i was ready enough to kill him, god knows. unless his eyes lied when he looked at me, he was ready to kill me.

and in that way the summer slipped past and the autumn came, and neither of us gained anything. i was getting into a black rage over it all. down inside of me was a feeling like fire in my stomach that made me not want to eat, and that made what i did eat go wrong. my poor mother had given up trying to talk to me. she saw that she could not change my way—and, too, i suppose that she pretty well understood it all: for she had lived her life, and she knew the ways of our men and of our women when love stings them here in provence. only, her sadness grew upon her with her hopelessness. what i remember most clearly as i think of[151] her in those last days is her pale old face and the dying look in her sorrowful eyes.

but seeing her in that way grief-struck only made my black rage blacker and the fire in my stomach burn hotter. i had the feeling that there was a devil down there who all the time was getting bigger and stronger: and that before long he and i would take matters in hand together and settle them for good and all. as for keeping on with things as they were, it was not to be thought of. better than much more of such a hell-life would be ending everything by killing jan.

what made me hang back from that was the certainty that if i did kill him—even in a fair fight, with his chance as good as mine—i would lose magali beyond all hope: for the gendarmes would have me away in a whiff to jail—and then off would go my head, or, what would be just as bad, off i would go head and all to cayenne. it was no comfort to me to know that magali would almost cry her eyes out over losing me. of course she would do that, being a proven?ale. but before her eyes were quite out she would stop crying; and then in a moment she would be laughing again; and in another moment she would be freshly in love[152] once more—with some man who was not murdered and who was not gone for his lifetime over seas. and all that, also, would be because she was a proven?ale.