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"It looks like it's finally going to get cold," said Berta.
Chantal asked herself why people with nothing else to talk about always think the weather is so important. She nodded her agreement.
Then she went on her way, since she had said all she had to say to Berta in the many years she had lived in that village. There was a time when she had considered Berta an interesting, courageous woman, who had managed to continue her life even after the death of her husband in one of the many hunting accidents that happened each year. She had sold some of her few possessions and invested the money--together with the insurance money--in securities, and she now lived off the income.
Over time, however, the widow had ceased to be of interest to her, and had become instead an example of everything she feared she might become: ending her life sitting in a chair on her own doorstep, all muffled up in winter, staring at the only landscape she had ever known, watching over what didn't need watching over, since nothing serious, important or valuable ever happened there.
She walked on, unconcerned at the possibility of getting lost in the misty forest, because she knew every track, tree and stone by heart. She imagined how exciting things would be that night and tried out various ways of putting the stranger's proposal--in some versions she simply told them what she had seen and heard, in others she spun a tale that might or might not be true, imitating the style of the man who had not let her sleep now for three nights.
"A highly dangerous man, worse than any hunter I've ever met."
Walking through the woods, Chantal began to realize that she had discovered another person just as dangerous as the stranger: herself. Up until four days ago, she had been imperceptibly becoming used to who she was, to what she could realistically expect from life, to the fact that living in Viscos wasn't really so bad--after all, the whole area was swamped with tourists in the summer, every one of whom referred to the place as a "paradise."
Now the monsters were emerging from their tombs, darkening her nights, making her feel discontented, put upon, abandoned by God and by fate. Worse than that, they forced her to acknowledge the bitterness she carried around inside her day and night, into the forest and to work, into those rare love affairs and during her many moments of solitude.
"Damn the man. And damn myself too, since I was the one who made him cross my path."
As she made her way back to the village, she regretted every single minute of her life; she cursed her mother for dying so young, her grandmother for having taught her to be honest and kind, the friends who had abandoned her, and the fate that was still with her.
Berta was still at her post.
"You're in a great hurry," she said. "Why not sit down beside me and relax a bit?"
Chantal did as she suggested. She would do anything to make the time pass more quickly.
"The village seems to be changing," Berta said. "There's something different in the air, and last night I heard the rogue wolf howling."
The girl felt relieved. She didn't know whether it had been the rogue wolf or not, but she had definitely heard a wolf howling that night, and at least one other person apart from her had heard it too.
"This place never changes," she replied. "Only the seasons come and go, and now it's winter's turn."
"No, it's because the stranger has come."
Chantal checked herself. Could it be that he had talked to someone else as well?
"What has the arrival of the stranger got to do with Viscos?"
"I spend the whole day looking at nature. Some people think it's a waste of time, but it was the only way I could find to accept the loss of someone I loved very much. I see the seasons pass, see the trees lose their leaves and then grow new ones. But occasionally something unexpected in nature brings about enormous changes. I've been told, for example, that the mountains all around us are the result of an earthquake that happened thousands of years ago."
Chantal nodded; she had learned the same thing at school.
"After that, nothing is ever the same. I'm afraid that is precisely what is going to happen now."
Chantal was tempted to tell her the story of the gold, but, suspecting that the old woman might know something already, she said nothing.
"I keep thinking about Ahab, our great hero and reformer, the man who was blessed by St. Savin."
"Why Ahab?"
"Because he could see that even the most insignificant of actions, however well intentioned, can destroy everything. They say that after he had brought peace to the village, driven away the remaining outlaws, and modernized agriculture and trade in Viscos, he invited his friends to supper and cooked a succulent piece of meat for them. Suddenly he realized there was no salt.
"So Ahab called to his son: 'Go to the village and buy some salt, but pay a fair price for it: neither too much nor too little.'
"His son was surprised: 'I can understand why I shouldn't pay too much for it, Father, but if I can bargain them down, why not pay a bit less?'
"'That would be the sensible thing to do in a big city, but in a small village like ours it could spell the beginning of the end.'
"The boy left without asking any further questions. However, Ahab's guests, who had overheard their conversation, wanted to know why they should not buy the salt more cheaply if they could. Ahab replied:
