The mother and the son, their eyes burned with suppressed tears, held each other's hands, and they were going slowly, slowly, in absolute silence, as if it were a solemn ascent toward some Calvary.
At last, at the top of the slope, Arrochkoa, who seemed mute also, pulled the reins slightly, with a simple little: "Ho!--" discreet as a lugubrious signal which one hesitates to give--and the carriage was stopped.
Then, without a word, Ramuntcho jumped to the road, helped his mother to descend, gave a long kiss to her, then remounted briskly to his seat: "Go, Arrochkoa, quickly, race, let us go!" And in two seconds, in the rapid descent, he lost sight of the one whose face at last was covered with tears.
Now they were going away from one another, Franchita and her son.

In different directions, they were walking on that Etchezar road,--in the splendor of the setting sun, in a region of pink heather and of yellow fern.

She was going up slowly toward her home, meeting isolated groups of farmers, flocks led through the golden evening by little shepherds in Basque caps.

And he was going down quickly, through valleys soon darkened, toward the lowland where the railway train passes--.