Already the fires of St. John have flamed, joyful¹ and red in a clear, blue night, and the Spanish mountain seemed to burn, that night, like a sheaf of straw, so many were the bonfires lighted on its sides. It has begun, the season of light, of heat and of storms, at the end of which Ramuntcho must depart.
 
And the saps, which in the spring went up so quickly, become languid already in the complete development of the verdure, in the wide bloom of the flowers. And the sun, more and more burning, overheats all the heads covered with Basque caps, excites ardor² and passion, causes to rise everywhere, in those Basque villages, ferments³ of noisy agitation⁴ and of pleasure. While, in Spain, begin the grand bull-fights, this is here the epoch⁵ of so many ball-games, of so many fandangoes danced in the evening, of so much pining of lovers in the tepid⁶ voluptuousness⁷ of nights—!
 
Soon will come the warm splendor⁸ of the southern July. The Bay of Biscay has become very blue and the Cantabric coast has for a time put on its fallow colors of Morocco or of Algeria.
 
With the heavy rains alternates the marvellously beautiful weather which gives to the air absolute limpidities. And there are days also when somewhat distant things are as if eaten by light, powdered with sun dust; then, above the woods and the village of Etchezar, the Gizune, very pointed⁹, becomes more vaporous and more high, and, on the sky, float, to make it appear bluer, very smal............