quit forever. Those revelations which
things made, his uncultured mind heard them for the first time and he
lent to them a frightened attention. An entire new labor of unbelief
was going on suddenly in his mind, prepared by heredity to doubts and to
worry. An entire vision came to him, sudden and seemingly definitive, of
the nothingness of religions, of the nonexistence of the divinities whom
men supplicate.

And then--since there was nothing, how simple it was to tremble still
before the white Virgin, chimerical protector of those convents where
girls are imprisoned--!

The poor agony bell, which exhausted itself in ringing over there so
puerilely to call for useless prayers, stopped at last, and, under the
closed sky, the respiration of the grand waters alone was heard in the
distance, in the universal silence. But the things continued, in the
uncertain dawn, their dialogue without words: nothing anywhere; nothing
in the old churches venerated for so long a time; nothing in the sky
where clouds and mists amass; but always, in the flight of times, the
eternal and exhausting renewal of beings; and always and at once, old
age, death, ashes--

That is what they were saying, in the pale half light, the things so
dull and so tired. And Ramuntcho, who had heard, pitied himself for
having hesitated so long for imaginary reasons. To himself he swore,
with a harsher despair, that this morning he was decided; that he would
do it, at the risk of everything; that nothing would make him hesitate
longer.

CHAPTER XIII.

Weeks have elapsed, in preparations, in anxious uncertainties on the
manner of acting, in abrupt changes of plans and ideas.

Between times, the reply of Uncle Ignacio has reached Etchezar. If his
nephew had spoken sooner, Ignacio has written, he would have been glad
to receive him at his house; but, seeing how he hesitated, Ignacio had
decided to take a wife, although he is already an old man, and now he
has a child two months old. Therefore, there is no protection to be
expected from that side; the exile, when he arrives there, may not find
even a home--

The family house has been sold, at the notary's money questions have
been settled; all the goods of Ramuntcho have been transformed into gold
pieces which are in his hand--

And now is the day of the supreme attempt, the great day,--and already
the thick foliage has returned to the trees, the clothing of the tall
grass covers anew the prairies; it