Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 8

For six days they were husband and wife. In this time of leave-takingthe preparations for the Iceland season occupied everybody. The womenheaped up the salt for the pickle in the holds of the vessels; the mensaw to the masts and rigging. Yann's mother and sisters worked frommorning till night at the making of the sou'westers and oilskinwaterproofs.

　　The weather was dull, and the sea, forefeeling the approach of theequinoctial gales, was restless and heaving.

　　Gaud went through these inexorable preparations with agony; countingthe fleeting hours of the day, and looking forward to the night, whenthe work was over, and she would have her Yann to herself.

　　Would he leave her every year in this way?

　　She hoped to be able to keep him back, but she did not dare to speakto him about this wish as yet. He loved her passionately, too; henever had known anything like this affection before; it was such afresh, trusting tenderness that the same caresses and fondlings alwaysseemed as if novel and unknown heretofore; and their intoxication oflove continued to increase, and never seemed--never was satiated.

　　What charmed and surprised her in her mate was his tenderness andboyishness. This the Yann in love, whom she had sometimes seen atPaimpol most contemptuous towards the girls. On the contrary, to herhe always maintained that kindly courtesy that seemed natural to him,and she adored that beautiful smile that came to him whenever theireyes met. Among these simple folk there exists the feeling of absoluterespect for the dignity of the wife; there is an ocean between her andthe sweetheart. Gaud was essentially the wife. She was sorely troubledin her happiness, however, for it seemed something too unhoped for, asunstable as a joyful dream. Besides, would this love be lasting inYann? She remembered sometimes his former flames, his fancies anddifferent love adventures, and then she grew fearful. Would he alwayscherish that infinite tenderness and sweet respect for her?

　　Six days of a wedded life, for such a love as theirs, was nothing;only a fevered instalment taken from the married life term, whichmight be so long before them yet! They had scarcely had leisure to betogether at all and understand that they really belonged to oneanother. All their plans of life together, of peaceful joy, andsettling down, was forcedly put off till the fisherman's return.

　　No! at any price she would stop him from going to this dreadfulIceland another year! But how should she manage? And what could theydo for a livelihood, being both so poor? Then again he so dearly lovedthe sea. But in spite of all, she would try and keep him home anotherseason; she would use all her power, intelligence, and heart to do so.

　　Was she to be the wife of an Icelander, to watch each spring-tideapproach with sadness, and pass the whole summer in painful anxiety?

　　no, now that she loved him, above everything that she could imagine,she felt seized with an immense terror at the thought of years to comethus robbed of the better part.

　　They had one spring day together--only one. It was the day before thesailing; all the stores had been shipped, and Yann remained the wholeday with her. They strolled along, arm-in-arm, through the lanes, likesweethearts again, very close to one another, murmuring a thousandtender things. The good folk smiled, as they saw them pass, saying:

　　"It's Gaud, with long Yann from Pors-Even. They were married onlyt'other day!"This last day was really spring. It was strange and wonderful tobehold this universal serenity. Not a single cloud marred the latelyflecked sky. The wind did not blow anywhere. The sea had become quitetranquil, and was of a pale, even blue tint. The sun shone withglaring white brilliancy, and the rough Breton land seemed bathed inits light, as in a rare, delicate ether; it seemed to brighten andrevive even in the utmost distance. The air had a delicious, balmyscent, as of summer itself, and seemed as if it were always going toremain so, and never know any more gloomy, thunderous days. The capesand bays over which the changeful shadows of the clouds no longerpassed, were outlined in strong steady lines in the sunlight, andappeared to rest also in the long-during calm. All this made theirloving festival sweeter and longer drawn out. The early flowersalready appeared: primroses, and frail, scentless violets grew alongthe hedgerows.

　　When Gaud asked: "How long then are you going to love me, Yann?"He answered, surprisedly, looking at her full in the face with hisfrank eyes: "Why, for ever, Gaud."That word, spoken so simply by his fierce lips, seemed to have itstrue sense of eternity.

　　She leaned on his arm. In the enchantment of her realized dream, shepressed close to him, always anxious, feeling that he was as flightyas a wild sea-bird. To-morrow he would take his soaring on the opensea. And it was too late now, she could do nothing to stop him.

　　From the cliff-paths where they wandered, they could see the whole ofthis sea-bound country; which seems almost treeless, strewn with low,stunted bush and boulders. Here and there fishers' huts were scatteredover the rocks, their high battered thatches made green by thecropping up of new mosses; and in the extreme distance, the sea, likea boundless transparency, stretched out in a never-ending horizon,which seemed to encircle everything.

　　She enjoyed telling him about all the wonderful things she had seen inParis, but he was very contemptuous, and was not interested.

　　"It's so far from the coast," said he, "and there is so much landbetween, that it must be unhealthy. So many houses and so many people,too, about! There must be lots of ills and ails in those big towns;no, I shouldn't like to live there, certain sure!"She smiled, surprised to see this giant so simple a fellow.

　　Sometimes they came across hollows where trees grew and seemed to defythe winds. There was no view here, only dead leaves scattered beneaththeir feet and chilly dampness; the narrow way, bordered on both sidesby green reeds, seemed very dismal under the shadow of the branches;hemmed in by the walls of some dark, lonely hamlet, rotting with oldage, and slumbering in this hollow.

　　A crucifix arose inevitably before them, among the dead branches, withits colossal image of Our Saviour in weather-worn wood, its featureswrung with His endless agony.

　　Then the pathway rose again, and they found themselves commanding theview of immense horizons--and breathed the bracing air of sea-heightsonce more.

　　He, to match her, spoke of Iceland, its pale, nightless summers andsun that never set. Gaud did not understand and asked him to explain.

　　"The sun goes all round," said he, waving his arm in the direction ofthe distant circle of the blue waters. "It always remains very low,because it has no strength to rise; at midnight, it drags a bitthrough the water, but soon gets up and begins its journey roundagain. Sometimes the moon appears too, at the other side of the sky;then they move together, and you can't very well tell one fromt'other, for they are much alike in that queer country."To see the sun at midnight! How very far off Iceland must be for suchmarvels to happen! And the fjords? Gaud had read that word severaltimes written among the names of the dead in the chapel of theshipwrecked, and it seemed to portend some grisly thing.

　　"The fjords," said Yann, "they are not broad bays, like Paimpol, forinstance; only they are surrounded by high mountains--so high thatthey seem endless, because of the clouds upon their tops. It's a sorrycountry, I can tell you, darling. Nothing but stones. The people ofIceland know of no such things as trees. In the middle of August, whenour fishery is over, it's quite time to return, for the nights beginagain then, and they lengthen out very quickly; the sun falls belowthe earth without being able to get up, and that night lasts all thewinter through. Talking of night," he continued, "there's a littleburying-ground on the coast in one of the fjords, for Paimpol men whohave died during the season or went down at sea; it's consecratedearth, just like at Pors-Even, and the dead have wooden crosses justlike ours here, with their names painted on them. The two Goazdiousfrom Ploubazlanec lie there, and Guillaume Moan, Sylvestre'sgrandfather."She could almost see the little churchyard at the foot of the solitarycapes, under the pale rose-coloured light of those never-ending days,and she thought of those distant dead, under the ice and dark windingsheets of the long night-like winters.

　　"Do you fish the whole time?" she asked, "without ever stopping?""The whole time, though we somehow get on with work on deck, for thesea isn't always fine out there. Well! of course we're dead beat whenthe night comes, but it gives a man an appetite--bless you, dearest,we regularly gobble down our meals.""Do you never feel sick of it?""Never," returned he, with an air of unshaken faith which pained her;"on deck, on the open sea, the time never seems long to a man--never!"She hung her head, feeling sadder than ever, and more and morevanquished by her only enemy, the sea.