Pierre Loti
The first appearance of Pierre Loti's works, twenty years ago, causeda sensation throughout those circles wherein the creations ofintellect and imagination are felt, studied, and discussed. The authorwas one who, with a power which no one had wielded before him, carriedoff his readers into exotic lands, and whose art, in appearance mostsimple, proved a genuine enchantment for the imagination. It was thetime when M. Zola and his school stood at the head of the literarymovement. There breathed forth from Loti's writings an all-penetratingfragrance of poesy, which liberated French literary ideals from theheavy and oppressive yoke of the Naturalistic school. Truth now soaredon unhampered pinions, and the reading world was completely won by theunsurpassed intensity and faithful accuracy with which he depicted thealluring charms of far-off scenes, and painted the naive soul of theraces that seem to endure in the isles of the Pacific as survivingrepresentatives of the world's infancy.
　　It was then learned that this independent writer was named in reallife Louis Marie Julien Viaud, and that he was a naval officer. Thisvery fact, that he was not a writer by profession, added indeed to hissuccess. He actually had seen that which he was describing, he hadlived that which he was relating. What in any other man would haveseemed but research and oddity, remained natural in the case of asailor who returned each year with a manuscript in his hand. Africa,Asia, the isles of the Pacific, were the usual scenes of his dramas.
　　Finally from France itself, and from the oldest provinces of France,he drew subject-matter for two of his novels, /An Iceland Fisherman/and /Ramuntcho/. This proved a surprise. Our Breton sailors and ourBasque mountaineers were not less foreign to the Parisian drawing-roomthan was Aziyade or the little Rahahu. One claimed to have a knowledgeof Brittany, or of the Pyrenees, because one had visited Dinard orBiarritz; while in reality neither Tahiti nor the Isle of Paques couldhave remained more completely unknown to us.
　　The developments of human industry have brought the extremities of theworld nearer together; but the soul of each race continues to cloakitself in its own individuality and to remain a mystery to the rest ofthe world. One trait alone is common to all: the infinite sadness ofhuman destiny. This it was that Loti impressed so vividly on thereading world.
　　His success was great. Though a young man as yet, Loti saw his workcrowned with what in France may be considered the supreme sanction: hewas elected to membership in the French Academy. His name becamecoupled with those of Bernardin de St. Pierre and of Chateaubriand.
　　With the sole exception of the author of /Paul and Virginia/ and ofthe writer of /Atala/, he seemed to be one without predecessor andwithout a master. It may be well here to inquire how much reason thereis for this assertion, and what novel features are presented in hiswork.
　　It has become a trite saying that French genius lacks the sense ofNature, that the French tongue is colourless, and therefore wants themost striking feature of poetry. If we abandoned for one moment thedomain of letters and took a comprehensive view of the field of art,we might be permitted to express astonishment at the passing of sosummary a judgment on the genius of a nation which has, in the realsense of the term, produced two such painters of Nature as ClaudeLorrain and Corot. But even in the realm of letters it is easily seenthat this mode of thinking is due largely to insufficient knowledge ofthe language's resources, and to a study of French literature whichdoes not extend beyond the seventeenth century. Without going back tothe Duke of Orleans and to Villon, one need only read a few of thepoets of the sixteenth century to be struck by the prominence given toNature in their writings. Nothing is more delightful than Ronsard'sword-paintings of his sweet country of Vendome. Until the day ofMalherbe, the didactic Regnier and the Calvinistic Marot are the onlytwo who could be said to give colour to the preconceived and prevalentnotion as to the dryness of French poetry. And even after Malherbe, inthe seventeenth century, we find that La Fontaine, the most trulyFrench of French writers, was a passionate lover of Nature. He who cansee nothing in the latter's fables beyond the little dramas which theyunfold and the ordinary moral which the poet draws therefrom, mustconfess that he fails to understand him. His landscapes possessprecision, accuracy, and life, while such is the fragrance of hisspeech that it seems laden with the fresh perfume of the fields andfurrows.
　　Racine himself, the most penetrating and the most psychological ofpoets, is too well versed in the human soul not to have felt itsintimate union with Nature. His magnificent verse in Phedre,"Ah, que ne suis-je assise a l'ombre des forets!"is but the cry of despair, the appeal, filled with anguish, of a heartthat is troubled and which oft has sought peace and alleviation amidthe cold indifference of inanimate things. The small place given toNature in the French literature of the seventeenth century is not tobe ascribed to the language nor explained by a lack of sensibility onthe part of the race. The true cause is to be found in the spirit ofthat period; for investigation will disclose that the very samecondition then characterized the literatures of England, of Spain, andof Italy.
　　We must bear in mind that, owing to an almost unique combination ofcircumstances, there never has been a period when man was moreconvinced of the nobility and, I dare say it, of the sovereignty ofman, or was more inclined to look upon the latter as a beingindependent of the external world. He did not suspect the intimatelyclose bonds which unite the creature to the medium in which it lives.
　　A man of the world in the seventeenth century was utterly without anotion of those truths which in their ensemble constitute the naturalsciences. He crossed the threshold of life possessed of a deepclassical instruction, and all-imbued with stoical ideas of virtue. Atthe same time, he had received the mould of a strong but narrowChristian education, in which nothing figured save his relations withGod. This twofold training elevated his soul and fortified his will,but wrenched him violently from all communion with Nature. This is thestandpoint from which we must view the heroes of Corneille, if wewould understand those extraordinary souls which, always at thehighest degree of tension, deny themselves, as a weakness, everythingthat resembles tenderness or pity. Again, thus and thus alone can weexplain how Descartes, and with him all the philosophers of hiscentury, ran counter to all common sense, and refused to recognisethat animals might possess a soul-like principle which, howeverremotely, might link them to the human being.
　　When, in the eighteenth century, minds became emancipated from thenarrow restrictions of religious discipline, and when method wasintroduced into the study of scientific problems, Nature took herrevenge as well in literature as in all other fields of human thought.
　　Rousseau it was who inaugurated the movement in France, and the wholeof Europe followed in the wake of France. It may even be declared thatthe reaction against the seventeenth century was in many respectsexcessive, for the eighteenth century gave itself up to a species ofsentimental debauch. It is none the less a fact that the author of /LaNouvelle Heloise/ was the first to blend the moral life of man withhis exterior surroundings. He felt the savage beauty and grandeur ofthe mountains of Switzerland, the grace of the Savoy horizons, and themore familiar elegance of the Parisian suburbs. We may say that heopened the eye of humanity to the spectacle which the world offeredit. In Germany, Lessing, Goethe, Hegel, Schelling have proclaimed himtheir master; while even in England, Byron, and George Eliot herself,have recognised all that they owed to him.
　　The first of Rosseau's disciples in France was Bernardin de St.
　　Pierre, whose name has frequently been recalled in connection withLoti. Indeed, the charming masterpiece of /Paul and Virginia/ was thefirst example of exoticism in literature; and thereby it excited thecuriosity of our fathers at the same time that it dazzled them by thewealth and brilliancy of its descriptions.
　　Then came Chateaubriand; but Nature with him was not a merebackground. He sought from it an accompaniment, in the musical senseof the term, to the movements of his soul; and being somewhat prone tomelancholy, his taste seems to have favoured sombre landscapes, stormyand tragical. The entire romantic school was born from him, VictorHugo and George Sand, Theophile Gautier who draws from the Frenchtongue resources unequalled in wealth and colour, and even M. Zolahimself, whose naturalism, after all, is but the last form and, as itwere, the end of romanticism, since it would be difficult to discoverin him any characteristic that did not exist, as a germ at least, inBalzac.
　　I have just said that Chateaubriand sought in Nature an accompanimentto the movements of his soul: this was the case with all theromanticists. We do not find Rene, Manfred, Indiana, living in themidst of a tranquil and monotonous Nature. The storms of heaven mustrespond to the storms of their soul; and it is a fact that all thesegreat writers, Byron as well as Victor Hugo, have not so muchcontemplated and seen Nature as they have interpreted it through themedium of their own passions; and it is in this sense that the keenAmiel could justly remark that a landscape is a condition or a stateof the soul.
　　M. Loti does not merely interpret a landscape; though perhaps, tobegin with, he is unconscious of doing more. With him, the human beingis a part of Nature, one of its very expressions, like animals andplants, mountain forms and sky tints. His characters are what they areonly because they issue forth from the medium in which they live. Theyare truly creatures, and not gods inhabiting the earth. Hence theirprofound and striking reality.
　　Hence also one of the peculiar characteristics of Loti's workers. Heloves to paint simple souls, hearts close to Nature, whose primitivepassions are singularly similar to those of animals. He is happy inthe isles of the Pacific or on the borders of Senegal; and when heshifts his scenes into old Europe it is never with men and women ofthe world that he entertains us.
　　What we call a man of the world is the same everywhere; he is mouldedby the society of men, but Nature and the universe have no place inhis life and thought. M. Paul Bourget's heroes might live withoutdistinction in Newport or in Monte Carlo; they take root nowhere, butlive in the large cities, in winter resorts and in drawing-rooms astransient visitors in temporary abiding-places.
　　Loti seeks his heroes and his heroines among those antique races ofEurope which have survived all conquests, and which have preserved,with their native tongue, the individuality of their character. He metRamuntcho in the Basque country, but dearer than all to him isBrittany: here it was that he met his Iceland fishermen.
　　The Breton soul bears an imprint of Armorica's primitive soil: it ismelancholy and noble. There is an undefinable charm about those aridlands and those sod-flanked hills of granite, whose sole horizon isthe far-stretching sea. Europe ends here, and beyond remains only thebroad expanse of the ocean. The poor people who dwell here are silentand tenacious: their heart is full of tenderness and of dreams. Yann,the Iceland fisherman, and his sweetheart, Gaud of Paimpol, can onlylive here, in the small houses of Brittany, where people huddletogether in a stand against the storms which come howling from thedepths of the Atlantic.
　　Loti's novels are never complicated with a mass of incidents. Thecharacters are of humble station and their life is as simple as theirsoul. /Aziyade/, /The Romance of a Spahi/, /An Iceland Fisherman/,/Ramuntcho/, all present the story of a love and a separation. Adeparture, or death itself, intervenes to put an end to the romance.
　　But the cause matters little; the separation is the same; the heartsare broken; Nature survives; it covers over and absorbs the miserableruins which we leave behind us. No one better than Loti has everbrought out the frailty of all things pertaining to us, for no onebetter than he has made us realize the persistency of life and theindifference of Nature.
　　This circumstance imparts to the reading of M. Loti's works acharacter of peculiar sadness. The trend of his novels is not one thatincites curiosity; his heroes are simple, and the atmosphere in whichthey live is foreign to us. What saddens us is not their history, butthe undefinable impression that our pleasures are nothing and that weare but an accident. This is a thought common to the degree oftriteness among moralists and theologians; but as they present it, itfails to move us. It troubles us as presented by M. Loti, because hehas known how to give it all the force of a sensation.
　　How has he accomplished this?
　　He writes with extreme simplicity, and is not averse to the use ofvague and indefinite expressions. And yet the wealth and precision ofGautier's and Hugo's language fail to endow their landscapes with thestriking charm and intense life which are to be found in those ofLoti. I can find no other reason for this than that which I havesuggested above: the landscape, in Hugo's and in Gautier's scenes, isa background and nothing more; while Loti makes it the predominatingfigure of his drama. Our sensibilities are necessarily aroused beforethis apparition of Nature, blind, inaccessible, and all-powerful asthe Fates of old.
　　It may prove interesting to inquire how Loti contrived to sound such anew note in art.
　　He boasted, on the day of his reception into the French Academy, thathe had never read. Many protested, some smiled, and a large number ofpersons refused to believe the assertion. Yet the statement wasactually quite credible, for the foundation and basis of M. Loti reston a naive simplicity which makes him very sensitive to the things ofthe outside world, and gives him a perfect comprehension of simplesouls. He is not a reader, for he is not imbued with book notions ofthings; his ideas of them are direct, and everything with him is notmemory, but reflected sensation.
　　On the other hand, that sailor-life which had enabled him to see theworld, must have confirmed in him this mental attitude. The deckofficer who watches the vessel's course may do nothing which coulddistract his attention; but while ever ready to act and alwaysunoccupied, he thinks, he dreams, he listens to the voices of the sea;and everything about him is of interest to him, the shape of theclouds, the aspect of skies and waters. He knows that a mere board'sthickness is all that separates him and defends him from death. Suchis the habitual state of mind which M. Loti has brought to thecolouring of his books.
　　He has related to us how, when still a little child, he first beheldthe sea. He had escaped from the parental home, allured by the briskand pungent air and by the "peculiar noise, at once feeble and great,"which could be heard beyond little hills of sand to which led acertain path. He recognised the sea; "before me something appeared,something sombre and noisy, which had loomed up from all sides atonce, and which seemed to have no end; a moving expanse which struckme with mortal vertigo; . . . above was stretched out full a sky allof one piece, of a dark gray colour like a heavy mantle; very, veryfar away, in unmeasurable depths of horizon, could be seen a break, anopening between sea and sky, a long empty crack, of a light paleyellow." He felt a sadness unspeakable, a sense of desolate solitude,of abandonment, of exile. He ran back in haste to unburden his soulupon his mother's bosom, and, as he says, "to seek consolation withher for a thousand anticipated, indescribable pangs, which had wrungmy heart at the sight of that vast green, deep expanse."A poet of the sea had been born, and his genius still bears a trace ofthe shudder of fear experienced that evening by Pierre Loti the littlechild.
　　Loti was born not far from the ocean, in Saintonge, of an old Huguenotfamily which had numbered many sailors among its members. While yet amere child he thumbed the old Bible which formerly, in the days ofpersecution, had been read only with cautious secrecy; and he perusedthe vessel's ancient records wherein mariners long since gone hadnoted, almost a century before, that "the weather was good," that "thewind was favourable," and that "doradoes or gilt-heads were passingnear the ship."He was passionately fond of music. He had few comrades, and hisimagination was of the exalted kind. His first ambition was to be aminister, then a missionary; and finally he decided to become asailor. He wanted to see the world, he had the curiosity of things; hewas inclined to search for the strange and the unknown; he must seekthat sensation, delightful and fascinating to complex souls, ofbetaking himself off, of withdrawing from his own world, of breakingwith his own mode of life, and of creating for himself voluntaryregrets.
　　He felt in the presence of Nature a species of disquietude, andexperienced therefrom sensations which might almost be expressed incolours: his head, he himself states, "might be compared to a camera,filled with sensitive plates." This power of vision permitted him toapprehend only the appearance of things, not their reality; he wasconscious of the nothingness of nothing, of the dust of dust. Theremnants of his religious education intensified still more thisdistaste for the external world.
　　He was wont to spend his summer vacation in the south of France, andhe preserved its warm sunny impressions. It was only later that hebecame acquainted with Brittany. She inspired him at first with afeeling of oppression and of sadness, and it was long before helearned to love her.
　　Thus was formed and developed, far from literary circles and fromParisian coteries, one of the most original writers that had appearedfor a long time. He noted his impressions while touring the world; onefine morning he published them, and from the very first the readingpublic was won. He related his adventures and his own romance. Thequestion could then be raised whether his skill and art would prove asconsummate if he should deviate from his own personality to write whatmight be termed impersonal poems; and it is precisely in this lastdirection that he subsequently produced what are now considered hismasterpieces.
　　A strange writer assuredly is this, at once logical and illusive, whomakes us feel at the same time the sensation of things and that oftheir nothingness. Amid so many works wherein the luxuries of theOrient, the quasi animal life of the Pacific, the burning passions ofAfrica, are painted with a vigour of imagination never witnessedbefore his advent, /An Iceland Fisherman/ shines forth withincomparable brilliancy. Something of the pure soul of Brittany is tobe found in these melancholy pages, which, so long as the Frenchtongue endures, must evoke the admiration of artists, and must arousethe pity and stir the emotions of men.
　　JULES CAMBON.
Biographical Note
The real name of PIERRE LOTI is LOUIS MARIE JULIEN VIAUD. He was bornof Protestant parents, in the old city of Rochefort, on the 14th ofJanuary, 1850. In one of his pleasant volumes of autobiography, "LeRoman d'un Enfant," he has given a very pleasing account of hischildhood, which was most tenderly cared for and surrounded withindulgences. At a very early age he began to develop that extremesensitiveness to external influences which has distinguished him eversince. He was first taught at a school in Rochefort, but at the age ofseventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the great Frenchnaval school, Le Borda, and has gradually risen in his profession. Hispseudonym is said to have had reference to his extreme shyness andreserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after "leLoti," an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. He was nevergiven to books or study (when he was received at the French Academy,he had the courage to say, "Loti ne sait pas lire"), and it was notuntil his thirtieth year that he was persuaded to write down andpublish certain curious experiences at Constantinople, in "Aziyade," abook which, like so many of Loti's, seems half a romance, half anautobiography. He proceeded to the South Seas, and, on leaving Tahiti,published the Polynesian idyl, originally called "Raharu," which wasreprinted as "Le Mariage de Loti" (1880), and which first introducedto the wider public an author of remarkable originality and charm.
　　Loti now became extremely prolific, and in a succession of volumeschronicled old exotic memories or manipulated the journal of newtravels. "Le Roman d'un Spahi," a record of the melancholy adventuresof a soldier in Senegambia, belongs to 1881. In 1882 Loti issued acollection of short studies under the general title of "Fleursd'Ennui." In 1883 he achieved the widest celebrity, for not only didhe publish "Mon Frere Yves," a novel describing the life of a Frenchbluejacket in all parts of the world--perhaps, on the whole, to thisday his most characteristic production--but he was involved in apublic discussion in a manner which did him great credit. While takingpart as a naval officer in the Tonquin war, Loti had exposed in aParisian newspaper a series of scandals which succeeded on the captureof Hue, and, being recalled, he was now suspended from the service formore than a year. He continued for some time nearly silent, but in1886, he published a novel of life among the Breton fisher-folk,entitled "Pecheurs d'Islande"; this has been the most popular of allhis writings. In 1887 he brought out a volume of extraordinary merit,which has never received the attention it deserves; this is "Proposd'Exil," a series of short studies of exotic places, in Loti'speculiar semi-autobiographic style. The fantastic romance of Japanesemanners, "Madame Chrysantheme," belongs to the same year. Passing overone or two slighter productions, we come to 1890, to "Au Maroc," therecord of a journey to Fez in company with a French embassy. Acollection of strangely confidential and sentimental reminiscences,called "Le Livre de la Pitie et de la Mort," belongs to 1891. Loti wason board his ship at the port of Algiers when news was brought to himof his election, on the 21st of May, 1891, to the French Academy.
　　Since he has become an Immortal the literary activity of Pierre Lotihas somewhat declined. In 1892 he published "Fantome d'Orient,"another dreamy study of life in Constantinople, a sort of continuationof "Aziyade." He has described a visit to the Holy Land in threevolumes, "Le Desert," "Jerusalem," "La Galilee" (1895-96), and he haswritten one novel, "Ramentcho" (1897), a story of manners in theBasque province, which is quite on a level with his best work. In 1898he collected his later essays as "Figures et Choses qui passaient." In1899-1900 Loti visited British India, and in the autumn of the latteryear China; and he has described what he saw there, after the seige,in a charming volume, "Derniers Jours de Pekin," 1902.
　　E. G.
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 1
THE FISHERMENThere they were, five huge, square-built seamen, drinking awaytogether in the dismal cabin, which reeked of fish-pickle and bilge-water. The overhead beams came down too low for their tall statures,and rounded off at one end so as to resemble a gull's breast, seenfrom within. The whole rolled gently with a monotonous wail, incliningone slowly to drowsiness.
　　Outside, beyond doubt, lay the sea and the night; but one could not bequite sure of that, for a single opening in the deck was closed by itsweather-hatch, and the only light came from an old hanging-lamp,swinging to and fro. A fire shone in the stove, at which theirsaturated clothes were drying, and giving out steam that mingled withthe smoke from their clay pipes.
　　Their massive table, fitted exactly to its shape, occupied the wholespace; and there was just enough room for moving around and sittingupon the narrow lockers fastened to the sides. Thick beams ran abovethem, very nearly touching their heads, and behind them yawned theberths, apparently hollowed out of the solid timbers, like recesses ofa vault wherein to place the dead. All the wainscoting was rough andworn, impregnated with damp and salt, defaced and polished by thecontinual rubbings of their hands.
　　They had been drinking wine and cider in their pannikins, and thesheer enjoyment of life lit up their frank, honest faces. Now, theylingered at table chatting, in Breton tongue, on women and marriage. Achina statuette of the Virgin Mary was fastened on a bracket againstthe midship partition, in the place of honour. This patron saint ofour sailors was rather antiquated, and painted with very simple art;yet these porcelain images live much longer than real men, and her redand blue robe still seemed very fresh in the midst of the sombre greysof the poor wooden box. She must have listened to many an ardentprayer in deadly hours; at her feet were nailed two nosegays ofartificial flowers and a rosary.
　　These half-dozen men were dressed alike; a thick blue woollen jerseyclung to the body, drawn in by the waist-belt; on the head was wornthe waterproof helmet, known as the sou'-wester. These men were ofdifferent ages. The skipper might have been about forty; the threeothers between twenty-five and thirty. The youngest, whom they calledSylvestre or "Lurlu," was only seventeen, yet already a man for heightand strength; a fine curly black beard covered his cheeks; still hehad childlike eyes, bluish-grey in hue, and sweet and tender inexpression.
　　Huddled against one another, for want of space, they seemed to feeldownright comfort, snugly packed in their dark home.
　　Outside spread the ocean and night--the infinite solitude of darkfathomless waters. A brass watch, hung on the wall, pointed to eleveno'clock--doubtless eleven at night--and upon the deck pattered thedrizzling rain.
　　Among themselves, they treated these questions of marriage verymerrily; but without saying anything indecent. No, indeed, they onlysketched plans for those who were still bachelors, or related funnystories happening at home at wedding-feasts. Sometimes with a happylaugh they made some rather too free remarks about the fun in love-making. But love-making, as these men understand it, is always ahealthy sensation, and for all its coarseness remains tolerablychaste.
　　But Sylvestre was worried, because a mate called Jean (which Bretonspronounce "Yann") did not come down below. Where could Yann be, by theway? was he lashed to his work on deck? Why did he not come below totake his share in their feast?
　　"It's close on midnight, hows'ever," observed the captain; and drawinghimself up he raised the scuttle with his head, so as to call Yannthat way.
　　Then a weird glimmer fell from above.
　　"Yann! Yann! Look alive, matey!""Matey" answered roughly from outside while through the half-openedhatchway the faint light kept entering like that of dawn. Nearlymidnight, yet it looked like a peep of day, or the light of the starrygloaming, sent from afar through mystic lenses of magicians.
　　When the aperture closed, night reigned again, save for the smalllamp, "sended" now and again aside, which shed its yellow light. A manin clogs was heard coming down the wooden steps.
　　He entered bent in two like a big bear, for he was a giant. At firsthe made a wry face, holding his nose, because of the acrid smell ofthe souse.
　　He exceeded a little too much the ordinary proportions of man,especially in breadth, though he was straight as a poplar. When hefaced you the muscles of his shoulders, moulded under his blue jersey,stood out like great globes at the tops of his arms. His large browneyes were very mobile, with a grand, wild expression.
　　Sylvestre threw his arms round Yann, and drew him towards himtenderly, after the fashion of children. Sylvestre was betrothed toYann's sister, and he treated him as an elder brother, of course. AndYann allowed himself to be pulled about like a young lion, answeringby a kind smile that showed his white teeth. These were somewhat farapart, and appeared quite small. His fair moustache was rather short,although never cut. It was tightly curled in small rolls above hislips, which were most exquisitely and delicately modelled, and thenfrizzed off at the ends on either side of the deep corners of hismouth. The remainder of his beard was shaven, and his highly colouredcheeks retained a fresh bloom like that of fruit never yet handled.
　　When Yann was seated, the mugs were filled up anew.
　　The lighting of all the pipes was an excuse for the cabin boy to smokea few wiffs himself. He was a robust little fellow, with round cheeks--a kind of little brother to them all, more or less related to oneanother as they were; otherwise his work had been hard enough for thedarling of the crew. Yann let him drink out of his own glass before hewas sent to bed. Thereupon the important topic of marriage wasrevived.
　　"But I say, Yann," asked Sylvestre, "when are we going to celebrateyour wedding?""You ought to be ashamed," said the master; "a hulking chap like you,twenty-seven years old and not yet spliced; ho, ho! What must thelasses think of you when they see you roll by?"Yann answered by snapping his thick fingers with a contemptuous lookfor the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' governmentnaval service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he hadlearned to speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmedand hawed and then rattled off his latest love adventure, which hadlasted a fortnight.
　　It happened in Nantes, a Free-and-Easy singer for the heroine. Oneevening, returning from the waterside, being slightly tipsy, he hadentered the music hall. At the door stood a woman selling big bouquetsat twenty francs apiece. He had bought one without quite knowing whathe should do with it, and before he was much more than in had thrownit with great force at the vocalist upon the stage, striking her fullin the face, partly as a rough declaration of love, partly throughdisgust for the painted doll that was too pink for his taste. The blowhad felled the woman to the boards, and--she worshipped him during thethree following weeks.
　　"Why, bless ye, lads, when I left she made me this here present of areal gold watch."The better to show it them he threw it upon the table like a worthlesstoy.
　　This was told with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own.
　　Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such simplemen, with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them; in theglimmering of midnight, falling from above, was an impression of thefleeting summers of the far north country.
　　These ways of Yann greatly pained and surprised Sylvestre. He was agirlish boy, brought up in respect for holy things, by an oldgrandmother, the widow of a fisherman in the village of Ploubazlanec.
　　As a tiny child he used to go every day with her to kneel and tell hisbeads over his mother's grave. From the churchyard on the cliff thegrey waters of the Channel, wherein his father had disappeared in ashipwreck, could be seen in the far distance.
　　As his grandmother and himself were poor he had to take to fishing inhis early youth, and his childhood had been spent out on the openwater. Every night he said his prayers, and his eyes still wore theirreligious purity. He was captivating though, and next to Yann thefinest-built lad of the crew. His voice was very soft, and its boyishtones contrasted markedly with his tall height and black beard; as hehad shot up very rapidly he was almost puzzled to find himself grownsuddenly so tall and big. He expected to marry Yann's sister soon, butnever yet had answered any girl's love advances.
　　There were only three sleeping bunks aboard, one being double-berthed,so they "turned in" alternately.
　　When they had finished their feast, celebrating the Assumption oftheir patron saint, it was a little past midnight. Three of them creptaway to bed in the small dark recesses that resembled coffin-shelves;and the three others went up on deck to get on with their ofteninterrupted, heavy labour of fish-catching; the latter were Yann,Sylvestre, and one of their fellow-villagers known as Guillaume.
　　It was daylight, the everlasting day of those regions--a pale, dimlight, resembling no other--bathing all things, like the gleams of asetting sun. Around them stretched an immense colourless waste, andexcepting the planks of their ship, all seemed transparent, ethereal,and fairy-like. The eye could not distinguish what the scene might be:
　　first it appeared as a quivering mirror that had no objects toreflect; and in the distance it became a desert of vapour; and beyondthat a void, having neither horizon nor limits.
　　The damp freshness of the air was more intensely penetrating than dryfrost; and when breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine. All wascalm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form orcolour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not beexplained; the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious ofthe night; this dimness was all of an indefinable hue.
　　The three men on deck had lived since their childhood upon the frigidseas, in the very midst of their mists, which are vague and troubledas the background of dreams. They were accustomed to see this varyinginfinitude play about their paltry ark of planks, and their eyes wereas used to it as those of the great free ocean-birds.
　　The boat rolled gently with its everlasting wail, as monotonous as aBreton song moaned by a sleeper. Yann and Sylvestre had got their baitand lines ready, while their mate opened a barrel of salt, andwhetting his long knife went and sat behind them, waiting.
　　He did not have long to wait, or they either. They scarcely had throwntheir lines into the calm, cold water in fact, before they drew inhuge heavy fish, of a steel-grey sheen. And time after time thecodfish let themselves be hooked in a rapid and unceasing silentseries. The third man ripped them open with his long knife, spreadthem flat, salted and counted them, and piled up the lot--which upontheir return would constitute their fortune--behind them, all stillredly streaming and still sweet and fresh.
　　The hours passed monotonously, while in the immeasurably empty regionsbeyond the light slowly changed till it grew less unreal. What atfirst had appeared a livid gloaming, like a northern summer's eve,became now, without any intervening "dark hour before dawn," somethinglike a smiling morn, reflected by all the facets of the oceans infading, roseate-edged streaks.
　　"You really ought to marry, Yann," said Sylvestre, suddenly and veryseriously this time, still looking into the water. (He seemed to knowsomebody in Brittany, who had allowed herself to be captivated by thebrown eyes of his "big brother," but he felt shy upon so solemn asubject.)"Me! Lor', yes, some day I will marry." He smiled, did the alwayscontemptuous Yann, rolling his passionate eyes. "But I'll have none ofthe lasses at home; no, I'll wed the sea, and I invite ye all in thebarkey now, to the ball I'll give at my wedding."They kept on hauling in, for their time could not be lost in chatting;they had an immense quantity of fish in a traveling shoal, which hadnot ceased passing for the last two days.
　　They had been up all night, and in thirty hours had caught more than athousand prime cods; so that even their strong arms were tired andthey were half asleep. But their bodies remained active and theycontinued their toil, though occasionally their minds floated off intoregions of profound sleep. But the free air they breathed was as pureas that of the first young days of the world, and so bracing, thatnotwithstanding their weariness they felt their chests expand andtheir cheeks glow as at arising.
　　Morning, the true morning light, at length came; as in the days ofGenesis, it had "divided from the darkness," which had settled uponthe horizon and rested there in great heavy masses; and by theclearness of vision now, it was seen night had passed, and that thatfirst vague strange glimmer was only a forerunner. In the thickly-veiled heavens, broke out rents here and there, like side skylights ina dome, through which pierced glorious rays of light, silver and rosy.
　　The lower-lying clouds were grouped round in a belt of intense shadow,encircling the waters and screening the far-off distance in darkness.
　　They hinted as of a space in a boundary; they were as curtains veilingthe infinite, or as draperies drawn to hide the too majesticmysteries, which would have perturbed the imagination of mortals.
　　On this special morning, around the small plank platform occupied byYann and Sylvestre, the shifting outer world had an appearance of deepmeditation, as though this were an altar recently raised; and thesheaves of sun-rays, which darted like arrows under the sacred arch,spread in a long glimmering stream over the motionless waves, as overa marble floor. Then, slowly and more slowly yet loomed still anotherwonder; a high, majestic, pink profile--it was a promontory of gloomyIceland.
　　Yann's wedding with the sea? Sylvestre was still thinking of it--afterresuming his fishing without daring to say anything more. He had feltquite sad when his big brother had so turned the holy sacrament ofmarriage into ridicule; and it particularly had frightened him, as hewas superstitious.
　　For so long, too, he had mused on Yann's marriage! He had thought thatit might take place with Gaud Mevel, a blonde lass from Paimpol; andthat he would have the happiness of being present at the marriage-feast before starting for the navy, that long five years' exile, withits dubious return, the thought of which already plucked at his heart-strings.
　　Four o'clock in the morning now. The watch below came up, all three,to relieve the others. Still rather sleepy, drinking in chestfuls ofthe fresh, chill air, they stepped up, drawing their long sea-bootshigher, and having to shut their eyes, dazzled at first by a light sopale, yet in such abundance.
　　Yann and Sylvestre took their breakfast of biscuits, which they had tobreak with a mallet, and began to munch noisily, laughing at theirbeing so very hard. They had become quite merry again at the idea ofgoing down to sleep, snugly and warmly in their berths; and claspingeach other round the waist they danced up to the hatchway to an oldsong-tune.
　　Before disappearing through the aperture they stopped to play withTurc, the ship's dog, a young Newfoundland with great clumsy paws.
　　They sparred at him, and he pretended to bite them like a young wolf,until he bit too hard and hurt them, whereupon Yann, with a frown andanger in his quick-changing eyes, pushed him aside with an impatientblow that sent him flying and made him howl. Yann had a kind heartenough, but his nature remained rather untamed, and when his physicalbeing was touched, a tender caress was often more like a manifestationof brutal violence.
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 2
Their smack was named /La Marie/, and her master was Captain Guermeur.
　　Every year she set sail for the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigidregions where the summers have no night. She was a very old ship, asold as the statuette of her patron saint itself. Her heavy, oakenplanks were rough and worn, impregnated with ooze and brine, but stillstrong and stout, and smelling strongly of tar. At anchor she lookedan old unwieldy tub from her so massive build, but when blew themighty western gales, her lightness returned, like a sea-gull awakenedby the wind. Then she had her own style of tumbling over the rollers,and rebounding more lightly than many newer ones, launched with allyour new fangles.
　　As for the crew of six men and the boy, they were "Icelanders," thevaliant race of seafarers whose homes are at Paimpol and Treguier, andwho from father to son are destined for the cod fisheries.
　　They hardly ever had seen a summer in France. At the end of eachwinter they, with other fishers, received the parting blessing in theharbour of Paimpol. And for that fete-day an altar, always the same,and imitating a rocky grotto, was erected on the quay; and over it, inthe midst of anchors, oars and nets, was enthroned the Virgin Mary,calm, and beaming with affection, the patroness of sailors; she wouldbe brought from her chapel for the occasion, and had looked upongeneration after generation with her same lifeless eyes, blessing thehappy for whom the season would be lucky, and the others who nevermore would return.
　　The Host, followed by a slow procession of wives, mothers,sweethearts, and sisters, was borne round the harbour, where the boatsbound for Iceland, bedecked in all colours, saluted it on its way. Thepriest halted before each, giving them his holy blessing; and then thefleet started, leaving the country desolate of husbands, lovers, andsons; and as the shores faded from their view, the crews sang togetherin low, full voices, the hymns sacred to "the Star of the Ocean." Andevery year saw the same ceremonies, and heard the same good-byes.
　　Then began the life out upon the open sea, in the solitude of three orfour rough companions, on the moving thin planks in the midst of theseething waters of the northern seas.
　　Until now /La Marie/ followed the custom of many Icelanders, which ismerely to touch at Paimpol, and then to sail down to the Gulf ofGascony, where fish fetches high prices, or farther on to the SandyIsles, with their salty swamps, where they buy the salt for the nextexpedition. The crews of lusty fellows stay a few days in thesouthern, sun-kissed harbour-towns, intoxicated by the last rays ofsummer, by the sweetness of the balmy air, and by the downrightjollity of youth.
　　With the mists of autumn they return home to Paimpol, or to thescattered huts of the land of Goelo, to remain some time in theirfamilies, in the midst of love, marriages, and births. Very often theyfind unseen babies upon their return, waiting for godfathers ere theycan be baptized, for many children are needed to keep up this race offishermen, which the Icelandic Moloch devours.
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 3
At Paimpol, one fine evening of this same year, upon a Sunday in June,two women were deeply busy in writing a letter. This took place beforea large open window, with a row of flowerpots on its heavy old granitesill.
　　As well as could be seen from their bending over the table, both wereyoung. Once wore a very large old-fashioned cap; the other quite asmall one, in the new style adopted by the women of Paimpol. Theymight have been taken for two loving lasses writing a tender missiveto some handsome Icelander.
　　The one who dictated--the one with the large head-dress--drew up herhead, wool-gathering. Oh, she was old, very old, notwithstanding herlook from behind, in her small brown shawl--we mean downright old. Asweet old granny, seventy at least. Very pretty, though, and stillfresh-coloured, with the rosy cheeks some old people have. Her/coiffe/ was drawn low upon the forehead and upon the top of the head,was composed of two or three large rolls of muslin that seemed totelescope out of one another, and fell on to the nape. Her venerableface, framed in the pure white pleats, had almost a man's look, whileher soft, tender eyes wore a kindly expression. She had not thevestige of a tooth left, and when she laughed she showed her roundgums, which had still the freshness of youth.
　　Although her chin had become as pointed "as the toe of a /sabot/" (asshe was in the habit of saying), her profile was not spoiled by time;and it was easily imagined that in her youth it had been regular andpure, like the saints' adorning a church.
　　She looked through the window, trying to think of news that mightamuse her grandson at sea. There existed not in the whole country ofPaimpol another dear old body like her, to invent such funny storiesupon everybody, and even upon nothing. Already in this letter therewere three or four merry tales, but without the slightest mischief,for she had nothing ill-natured about her.
　　The other woman, finding that the ideas were getting scarce, began towrite the address carefully:
　　"TO MONSIEUR MOAN, SYLVESTRE,ABOARD THE /MARIE/,c/o CAPTAIN GUERMEUR,IN THE SEA OF ICELAND, NEAR RYKAWYK."Here she lifted her head to ask: "Is that all, Granny Moan?"The querist was young, adorably young, a girl of twenty in fact; veryfair--a rare complexion in this corner of Brittany, where the raceruns swarthy--very fair, we say, with great grey eyes between almostblack lashes; her brows, as fair as the hair, seemed as if they had adarker streak in their midst, which gave a wonderful expression ofstrength and will to the beautiful face. The rather short profile wasvery dignified, the nose continuing the line of the brow with absoluterectitude, as in a Greek statue. A deep dimple under the lower lipfoiled it up delightfully; and from time to time, when she wasabsorbed by a particular idea, she bit this lower lip with her whiteupper teeth, making the blood run in tiny red veins under the delicateskin. In her supple form there was no little pride, with gravity also,which she inherited from the bold Icelandic sailors, her ancestors.
　　The expression of her eyes was both steady and gentle.
　　Her cap was in the shape of a cockle-shell, worn low on the brow, anddrawn back on either side, showing thick tresses of hair about theears, a head-dress that has remained from remote times and gives quitean olden look to the women of Paimpol.
　　One felt instinctively that she had been reared differently than thepoor old woman to whom she gave the name of grandmother, but who isreality was but a distant great-aunt.
　　She was the daughter of M. Mevel, a former Icelander, a bit of afreebooter, who had made a fortune by bold undertakings out at sea.
　　The fine room where the letter had been just written was hers; a newbed, such as townspeople have, with muslin lace-edged curtains, and onthe stone walls a light-coloured paper, toning down the irregularitiesof the granite; overhead a coating of whitewash covered the greatbeams that revealed the antiquity of the abode; it was the home ofwell-to-do folk, and the windows looked out upon the old gray market-place of Paimpol, where the /pardons/ are held.
　　"Is it done, Granny Yvonne? Have you nothing else to tell him?""No, my lass, only I would like you to add a word of greeting to youngGaos.""Young Gaos" was otherwise called Yann. The proud beautiful girl hadblushed very red when she wrote those words. And as soon as they wereadded at the bottom of the page, in a running hand, she rose andturned her head aside as if to look at some very interesting objectout on the market-place.
　　Standing, she was rather tall; her waist was modelled in a clingingbodice, as perfectly fitting as that of a fashionable dame. In spiteof her cap, she looked like a real lady. Even her hands, without beingconventionally small, were white and delicate, never having touchedrough work.
　　True, she had been at first little /Gaud/ (Daisy), paddling bare-footed in the water, motherless, almost wholly neglected during theseason of the fisheries, which her father spent in Iceland; a pretty,untidy, obstinate girl, but growing vigorous and strong in the bracingsea-breeze. In those days she had been sheltered, during the finesummers, by poor Granny Moan, who used to give her Sylvestre to mindduring her days of hard work in Paimpol. Gaud felt the adoration of ayoung mother for the child confided to her tender care. She was hiselder by about eighteen months. He was as dark as she was fair, asobedient and caressing as she was hasty and capricious. She wellremembered that part of her life; neither wealth nor town life hadaltered it; and like a far-off dream of wild freedom it came back toher, or as the remembrance of an undefined and mysterious previousexistence, where the sandy shores seemed longer, and the cliffs higherand nobler.
　　Towards the age of five or six, which seemed long ago to her, wealthhad befallen her father, who began to buy and sell the cargoes ofships. She had been taken to Saint-Brieuc, and later to Paris. Andfrom /la petite Gaud/ she had become Mademoiselle Marguerite, tall andserious, with earnest eyes. Always left to herself, in another kind ofsolitude than that of the Breton coast, she still retained theobstinate nature of her childhood.
　　Living in large towns, her dress had become more modified thanherself. Although she still wore the /coiffe/ that Breton womendiscard so seldom, she had learned to dress herself in another way.
　　Every year she had returned to Brittany with her father--in the summeronly, like a fashionable, coming to bathe in the sea--and lived againin the midst of old memories, delighted to hear herself called Gaud,rather curious to see the Icelanders of whom so much was said, whowere never at home, and of whom, each year, some were missing; on allsides she heard the name of Iceland, which appeared to her as adistant insatiable abyss. And there, now, was the man she loved!
　　One fine day she had returned to live in the midst of these fishers,through a whim of her father, who had wished to end his days there,and live like a landsman in the market-place of Paimpol.
　　The good old dame, poor but tidy, left Gaud with cordial thanks assoon as the letter had been read again and the envelope closed. Shelived rather far away, at the other end of Ploubazlanec, in a hamleton the coast, in the same cottage where she first had seen the lightof day, and where her sons and grandsons had been born. In the town,as she passed along, she answered many friendly nods; she was one ofthe oldest inhabitants of the country, the last of a worthy and highlyesteemed family.
　　With great care and good management she managed to appear pretty welldressed, although her gowns were much darned, and hardly heldtogether. She always wore the tiny brown Paimpol shawl, which was forbest, and upon which the long muslin rolls of her white caps hadfallen for past sixty years; her own marriage shawl, formerly blue,had been dyed for the wedding of her son Pierre, and since then wornonly on Sundays, looked quite nice.
　　She still carried herself very straight, not at all like an old woman;and, in spite of her pointed chin, her soft eyes and delicate profilemade all think her still very charming. She was held in great respect--one could see that if only by the nods that people gave her.
　　On her way she passed before the house of her gallant, the sweetheartof former days, a carpenter by trade; now an octogenarian, who satoutside his door all the livelong day, while the young ones, his sons,worked in the shop. It was said that he never had consoled himself forher loss, for neither in first or second marriage would she have him;but with old age his feeling for her had become a sort of comicalspite, half friendly and half mischievous, and he always called out toher:
　　"Aha, /la belle/, when must I call to take your measure?"But she declined with thanks; she had not yet quite decided to havethat dress made. The truth is, that the old man, with ratherquestionable taste, spoke of the suit in deal planks, which is thelast of all our terrestrial garments.
　　"Well, whenever you like; but don't be shy in asking for it, you know,old lady."He had made this joke several times; but, to-day, she could scarcelytake it good-naturedly. She felt more tired than ever of her hard-working life, and her thoughts flew back to her dear grandson--thelast of them all, who, upon his return from Iceland, was to enter thenavy for five years! Perhaps he might have to go to China, to the war!
　　Would she still be about, upon his return? The thought alone was agonyto her. No, she was surely not so happy as she looked, poor oldgranny!
　　And was it really possible and true, that her last darling was to betorn from her? She, perhaps, might die alone, without seeing himagain! Certainly, some gentlemen of the town, whom she knew, had doneall they could to keep him from having to start, urging that he wasthe sole support of an old and almost destitute grandmother, who couldno longer work. But they had not succeeded--because of Jean Moan, thedeserter, an elder brother of Sylvestre's, whom no one in the familyever mentioned now, but who still lived somewhere over in America,thus depriving his younger brother of the military exemption.
　　Moreover, it had been objected that she had her small pension, allowedto the widows of sailors, and the Admiralty could not deem her poorenough.
　　When she returned home, she said her prayers at length for all herdead ones, sons and grandsons; then she prayed again with renewedstrength and confidence for her Sylvestre, and tried to sleep--thinking of the "suit of wood," her heart sadly aching at the thoughtof being so old, when this new parting was imminent.
　　Meanwhile, the other victim of separation, the girl, had remainedseated at her window, gazing upon the golden rays of the setting sun,reflected on the granite walls, and the black swallows wheeling acrossthe sky above. Paimpol was always quiet on these long May evenings,even on Sundays; the lasses, who had not a single lad to make love tothem, sauntered along, in couples or three together, brooding of theirlovers in Iceland.
　　"A word of greeting to young Gaos!" She had been greatly affected inwriting that sentence, and that name, which now she could not forget.
　　She often spent her evenings here at the window, like a grand lady.
　　Her father did not approve of her walking with the other girls of herage, who had been her early playmates. And as he left the cafe, andwalked up and down, smoking his pipe with old seamen like himself, hewas happy to look up at his daughter among her flowers, in his grandhouse.
　　"Young Gaos!" Against her will she gazed seaward; it could not beseen, but she felt it was nigh, at the end of the tiny street crowdedwith fishermen. And her thoughts travelled through a fascinating anddelightful infinite, far, far away to the northern seas, where "/LaMarie/, Captain Guermeur," was sailing. A strange man was young Gaos!
　　retiring and almost incomprehensible now, after having come forward soaudaciously, yet so lovingly.
　　In her long reverie, she remembered her return to Brittany, which hadtaken place the year before. One December morning after a night oftravelling, the train from Paris had deposited her father and herselfat Guingamp. It was a damp, foggy morning, cold and almost dark. Shehad been seized with a previously unknown feeling; she could scarcelyrecognise the quaint little town, which she had only seen during thesummer--oh, that glad old time, the dear old times of the past! Thissilence, after Paris! This quiet life of people, who seemed of anotherworld, going about their simple business in the misty morning. But thesombre granite houses, with their dark, damp walls, and the Bretoncharm upon all things, which fascinated her now that she loved Yann,had seemed particularly saddening upon that morning. Early housewiveswere already opening their doors, and as she passed she could glanceinto the old-fashioned houses, with their tall chimney-pieces, wheresat the old grandmothers, in their white caps, quiet and dignified. Assoon as daylight had begun to appear, she had entered the church tosay her prayers, and the grand old aisle had appeared immense andshadowy to her--quite different from all the Parisian churches--withits rough pillars worn at the base by the chafing of centuries, andits damp, earthy smell of age and saltpetre.
　　In a damp recess, behind the columns, a taper was burning, beforewhich knelt a woman, making a vow; the dim flame seemed lost in thevagueness of the arches. Gaud experienced there the feeling of a long-forgotten impression: that kind of sadness and fear that she had feltwhen quite young at being taken to mass at Paimpol Church on raw,wintry mornings.
　　But she hardly regretted Paris, although there were many splendid andamusing sights there. In the first place she felt almost cramped fromhaving the blood of the vikings in her veins. And then, in Paris, shefelt like a stranger and an intruder. The /Parisiennes/ were tight-laced, artificial women, who had a peculiar way of walking; and Gaudwas too intelligent even to have attempted to imitate them. In herhead-dress, ordered every year from the maker in Paimpol, she felt outof her element in the capital; and did not understand that if thewayfarers turned round to look at her, it was only because she made avery charming picture.
　　Some of these Parisian ladies quite won her by their high-bred anddistinguished manners, but she knew them to be inaccessible to her,while from others of a lower caste who would have been glad to makefriends with her, she kept proudly aloof, judging them unworthy of herattention. Thus she had lived almost without friends, without othersociety than her father's, who was engaged in business and often away.
　　So she did not regret that life of estrangement and solitude.
　　But, none the less, on that day of arrival she had been painfullysurprised by the bitterness of this Brittany, seen in full winter. Andher heart sickened at the thought of having to travel another five orsix hours in a jolting car--to penetrate still farther into the blank,desolate country to reach Paimpol.
　　All through the afternoon of that same grisly day, her father andherself had journeyed in a little old ramshackle vehicle, open to allthe winds; passing, with the falling night, through dull villages,under ghostly trees, black-pearled with mist in drops. And ere longlanterns had to be lit, and she could perceive nothing else but whatseemed two trails of green Bengal lights, running on each side beforethe horses, and which were merely the beams that the two lanternsprojected on the never-ending hedges of the roadway. But how was itthat trees were so green in the month of December? Astonished atfirst, she bent to look out, and then she remembered how the gorse,the evergreen gorse of the paths and the cliffs, never fades in thecountry of Paimpol. At the same time a warmer breeze began to blow,which she knew again and which smelt of the sea.
　　Towards the end of the journey she had been quite awakened and amusedby the new notion that struck her, namely: "As this is winter, I shallsee the famous fishermen of Iceland."For in December they were to return, the brothers, cousins, and loversof whom all her friends, great and small, had spoken to her during thelong summer evening walks in her holiday trips. And the thought hadhaunted her, though she felt chilled in the slow-going vehicle.
　　Now she had seen them, and her heart had been captured by one of themtoo.
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 4
The first day she had seen him, this Yann, was the day after hisarrival, at the "/Pardon des Islandais/," which is on the eighth ofDecember, the fete-day of Our Lady of Bonne-Nouvelle, the patroness offishers--a little before the procession, with the gray streets, stilldraped in white sheets, on which were strewn ivy and holly and wintryblossoms with their leaves.
　　At this /Pardon/ the rejoicing was heavy and wild under the sad sky.
　　Joy without merriment, composed chiefly of insouciance and contempt;of physical strength and alcohol; above which floated, less disguisedthan elsewhere, the universal warning of death.
　　A great clamour in Paimpol; sounds of bells mingled with the chants ofthe priests. Rough and monotonous songs in the taverns--old sailorlullabies--songs of woe, arisen from the sea, drawn from the deepnight of bygone ages. Groups of sailors, arm-in-arm, zigzaggingthrough the streets, from their habit of rolling, and because theywere half-drunk. Groups of girls in their nun-like white caps. Oldgranite houses sheltering these seething crowds; antiquated roofstelling of their struggles, through many centuries, against thewestern winds, the mist, and the rain; and relating, too, many storiesof love and adventure that had passed under their protection.
　　And floating over all was a deep religious sentiment, a feeling ofbygone days, with respect for ancient veneration and the symbols thatprotect it, and for the white, immaculate Virgin. Side by side withthe taverns rose the church, its deep sombre portals thrown open, andsteps strewn with flowers, with its perfume of incense, its lightedtapers, and the votive offerings of sailors hung all over the sacredarch. And side by side also with the happy girls were the sweetheartsof dead sailors, and the widows of the shipwrecked fishers, quittingthe chapel of the dead in their long mourning shawls and their smoothtiny /coiffes/; with eyes downward bent, noiselessly they passedthrough the midst of this clamouring life, like a sombre warning. Andclose to all was the everlasting sea, the huge nurse and devourer ofthese vigorous generations, become fierce and agitated as if to takepart in the fete.
　　Gaud had but a confused impression of all these things together.
　　Excited and merry, yet with her heart aching, she felt a sort ofanguish seize her at the idea that this country had now become her ownagain. On the market-place, where there were games and acrobats, shewalked up and down with her friends, who named and pointed out to herfrom time to time the young men of Paimpol or Ploubazlanec. A group ofthese "Icelanders" were standing before the singers of"/complaintes/," (songs of woe) with their backs turned towards them.
　　And directly Gaud was struck with one of them, tall as a giant, withhuge shoulders almost too broad; but she had simply said, perhaps witha touch of mockery: "There is one who is tall, to say the least!" Andthe sentence implied beneath this was: "What an incumbrance he'll beto the woman he marries, a husband of that size!"He had turned round as if he had heard her, and had given her a quickglance from top to toe, seeming to say: "Who is this girl who wearsthe /coiffe/ of Paimpol, who is so elegant, and whom I never have seenbefore?"And he quickly bent his eyes to the ground for politeness' sake, andhad appeared to take a renewed interest in the singers, only showingthe back of his head and his black hair that fell in rather long curlsupon his neck. And although she had asked the names of several others,she had not dared ask his. The fine profile, the grand half-savagelook, the brown, almost tawny pupils moving rapidly on the bluish opalof the eyes; all this had impressed her and made her timid.
　　And it just happened to be that "Fils Gaos," of whom she had heard theMoans speak as a great friend of Sylvestre's. On the evening of thissame /Pardon/, Sylvestre and he, walking arm-in-arm, had crossed herfather and herself, and had stopped to wish them good-day.
　　And young Sylvestre had become again to her as a sort of brother. Asthey were cousins they had continued to /tutoyer/ (using thou for you,a sign of familiarity) each other; true, she had at first hesitateddoing so to this great boy of seventeen, who already wore a blackbeard, but as his kind, soft, childish eyes had hardly changed at all,she recognized him soon enough to imagine that she had never lostsight of him.
　　When he used to come into Paimpol, she kept him to dinner of anevening; it was without consequence to her, and he always had a verygood appetite, being on rather short rations at home.
　　To speak truly, Yann had not been very polite to her at this firstmeeting, which took place at the corner of a tiny gray street, strewnwith green branches. He had raised his hat to her, with a noble thoughtimid gesture; and after having given her an ever-rapid glance, turnedhis eyes away, as if he were vexed with this meeting and in a hurry togo. A strong western breeze that had arisen during the procession, hadscattered branches of box everywhere and loaded the sky with dark graydraperies.
　　Gaud, in her dreamland of remembrances, saw all this clearly again;the sad gloaming falling upon the remains of the /Pardon/; the sheetsstrewn with white flowers floating in the wind along the walls; thenoisy groups of Icelanders, other waifs of the gales and tempestsflocking into the taverns, singing to cheer themselves under the gloomof the coming rain; and above all, Gaud remembered the giant standingin front of her, turning aside as if annoyed, and troubled at havingmet her.
　　What a wonderful change had come over her since then; and what adifference there was between that hubbub and the present tranquility!
　　How quiet and empty Paimpol seemed to-night in the warm long twilightof May, which kept her still at her window alone, lulled in her love'syoung dream!
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 5
Their second meeting was at a wedding-feast. Young Gaos had beenchosen to offer her his arm. At first she had been rather vexed, notliking the idea of strolling through the streets with this tallfellow, whom everybody would stare at, on account of his excessiveheight, and who, most probably, would not know what to speak to herabout. Besides, he really frightened her with his wild, lofty look.
　　At the appointed hour all were assembled for the wedding processionsave Yann, who had not appeared. Time passed, yet he did not come, andthey talked of giving up any further waiting for him. Then it was shediscovered that it was for his pleasure, and his alone, that she haddonned her best dress; with any other of the young men present at theball, the evening's enjoyment would be spoiled.
　　At last he arrived, in his best clothes also, apologizing, without anyembarrassment, to the bride's party. The excuse was, that someimportant shoals of fish, not at all expected, had been telegraphedfrom England, as bound to pass that night a little off Aurigny; and soall the boats of Ploubazlanec hastily had set sail. There was greatexcitement in the villages, women rushing about to find their husbandsand urging them to put off quickly, and struggling hard themselves tohoist the sails and help in the launching; in fact, a regular"turnout" throughout the places, though in the midst of the companyYann related this very simply; he had been obliged to look out for asubstitute and warrant him to the owner of the boat to which hebelonged for the winter season. It was this that had caused him to belate, and in order not to miss the wedding, he had "turned up"(abandoned) his share in the profits of the catch. His plea wasperfectly well understood by his hearers, no one thinking of blaminghim; for well all know that, in this coast life, all are more or lessdependent upon the unforeseen events at sea, and the mysteriousmigrations of the fishy regions. The other Icelandes present weredisappointed at not having been warned in time, like the fishers ofPloubazlanec, of the fortune that was skirting their very shores.
　　But it was too late now, worse luck! So they gave their arms to thelasses, the violins began to play, and joyously they all tramped out.
　　At first Yann had only paid her a few innocent compliments, such asfall to a chance partner met at a wedding, and of whom one knows butlittle. Amidst all the couples in the procession, they formed the onlyone of strangers, the others were all relatives or sweethearts.
　　But during the evening while the dancing was going on, the talkbetween them had again turned to the subject of the fish, and lookingher straight in the eyes, he roughly said to her:
　　"You are the only person about Paimpol, and even in the world, forwhom I would have missed a windfall; truly, for nobody else would Ihave come back from my fishing, Mademoiselle Gaud."At first she was rather astonished that this fisherman should dare soto address her who had come to this ball rather like a young queen,but then delighted, she had ended by answering:
　　"Thank you, Monsieur Yann; and I, too, would rather be with you thanwith anybody else."That was all. But from that moment until the end of the dancing, theykept on chatting in a different tone than before, low and soft-voiced.
　　The dancing was to the sound of a hurdy-gurdy and violin, the samecouples almost always together. When Yann returned to invite heragain, after having danced with another girl for politeness' sake,they exchanged a smile, like friends meeting anew, and continued theirinterrupted conversation, which had become very close. Simply enough,Yann spoke of his fisher life, its hardships, its wage, and of hisparents' difficulties in former years, when they had fourteen littleGaoses to bring up, he being the eldest. Now, the old folks were outof the reach of need, because of a wreck that their father had foundin the Channel, the sale of which had brought in 10,000 francs,omitting the share claimed by the Treasury. With the money they builtan upper story to their house, which was situated at the point ofPloubazlanec, at the very land's end, in the hamlet of Pors-Even,overlooking the sea, and having a grand outlook.
　　"It is mighty tough, though," said he, "this here life of anIcelander, having to start in February for such a country, where it isawful cold and bleak, with a raging, foaming sea."Gaud remembered every phrase of their conversation at the ball, as ifit had all happened yesterday, and details came regularly back to hermind, as she looked upon the night falling over Paimpol. If Yann hadhad no idea of marriage, why had he told her all the items of hisexistence, to which she had listened, as only an engaged sweetheartwould have done; he did not seem a commonplace young man, prone tobabbling his business to everybody who came along.
　　"The occupation is pretty good, nevertheless," he said, "and I shallnever change my career. Some years we make eight hundred francs, andothers twelve hundred, which I get upon my return, and hand over tothe old lady.""To your mother, Monsieur Yann, eh?""Yes, every penny of it, always. It's the custom with us Icelanders,Mademoiselle Gaud." He spoke of this as a quite ordinary and naturalcourse.
　　"Perhaps you'll hardly believe it, but I scarcely ever have anypocket-money. Of a Sunday mother gives me a little when I come intoPaimpol. And so it goes all the time. Why, look 'ee here, this year myfather had these clothes made for me, without which treat I nevercould have come to the wedding; certain sure, for I never should havedared offer you my arm in my old duds of last year."For one like her, accustomed to seeing Parisians, Yann's habilimentswere, perhaps, not very stylish; a short jacket open over the old-fashioned waistcoat; but the build of their wearer was irreproachablyhandsome, so that he had a noble look withal.
　　Smiling, he looked at her straight in the depths of her eyes each timehe spoke to her, so as to divine her opinion. And how good and honestwas his look, as he told her all these short-comings, so that shemight well understand that he was not rich!
　　And she smiled also, as she gazed at him full in the face; answeringseldom, but listening with her whole soul, more and more astonishedand more and more drawn towards him. What a mixture of untamedroughness and caressing childishness he was! His earnest voice, shortand blunt towards others, became softer and more and more tender as hespoke to her; and for her alone he knew how to make it trill withextreme sweetness, like the music of a stringed instrument with themute upon it.
　　What a singular and astonishing fact it was to see this man of brawn,with his free air and forbidding aspect, always treated by his familylike a child, and deeming it quite natural; having travelled over allthe earth, met with all sorts of adventures, incurred all dangers, andyet showing the same respectful and absolute obedience to his parents.
　　She compared him to others, two or three dandies in Paris, clerks,quill-drivers, or what not, who had pestered her with theirattentions, for the sake of her money. He seemed to be the best, aswell as the most handsome, man she had ever met.
　　To put herself more on an equality with him she related how, in herown home, she had not always been so well-off as at present; that herfather had begun life as a fisherman off Iceland, and always held theIcelanders in great esteem; and that she herself could clearlyremember as a little child, having run barefooted upon the beach,after her poor mother's death.
　　Oh! the exquisite night of that ball, unique in her life! It seemedfar away now, for it dated back to December, and May had alreadyreturned. All the sturdy partners of that evening were out fishingyonder now, scattered over the far northern seas, in the clear palesun, in intense loneliness, while the dust thickened silently on theland of Brittany.
　　Still Gaud remained at her window. The market-place of Paimpol, hedgedin on all sides by the old-fashioned houses, became sadder and sadderwith the darkling; everywhere reigned silence. Above the housetops thestill brilliant space of the heavens seemed to grow more hollow, toraise itself up and finally separate itself from all terrestrialthings: these, in the last hour of day, were entirely blended into thesingle dark outline of the gables of olden roofs.
　　From time to time a window or door would be suddenly closed; some oldsailor, shaky upon his legs, would blunder out of the tavern andplunge into the small dark streets; or girls passed by, returning homelate after their walk and carrying nosegays of May-flowers. One ofthem who knew Gaud, calling out good-evening to her, held up a branchof hawthorn high towards her as if to offer it her to smell; in thetransparent darkness she could distinguish the airy tufts of its whiteblossoms. From the gardens and courts floated another soft perfume,that of the flowering honeysuckle along the granite walls, mingledwith a vague smell of seaweed in the harbour.
　　Bats flew silently through the air above, like hideous creatures in adream.
　　Many and many an evening had Gaud passed at her window, gazing uponthe melancholy market-place, thinking of the Icelanders who were faraway, and always of that same ball.
　　Yann was a capital waltzer, as straight as a young oak, moving with agraceful yet dignified bearing, his head thrown well back, his brown,curled locks falling upon his brow, and floating with the motion ofthe dance. Gaud, who was rather tall herself, felt their contact uponher cap, as he bent towards her to grasp her more tightly during theswift movements.
　　Now and then he pointed out to her his little sister Marie, dancingwith Sylvestre, who was her /fiance/. He smiled with a very tenderlook at seeing them both so young and yet so reserved towards oneanother, bowing gravely, and putting on very timid airs as theycommuned lowly, on most amiable subjects, no doubt.
　　Of course, Yann would never have allowed it to be otherwise; yet itamused him, venturesome and bold as he was, to find them so coy; andhe and Gaud exchanged one of their confidential smiles, seeming tosay: "How pretty, but how funny /our/ little brother is!"Towards the close of the evening, all the girls received the breaking-up kiss; cousins, betrothed, and lovers, all, in a good frank, honestway, before everybody. But, of course, Yann had not kissed Gaud; nonemight take that liberty with the daughter of M. Mevel; but he seemedto strain her a little more tightly to him during the last waltzes,and she, trusting him, did not resist, but yielded closer still,giving up her whole soul, in the sudden, deep, and joyous attractionthat bound her to him.
　　"Did you see the saucy minx, what eyes she made at him?" queried twoor three girls, with their own eyes timidly bent under their golden orblack brows, though they had among the dancers one or two lovers, tosay the least. And truly Gaud did look at Yann very hard, only she hadthe excuse that he was the first and only young man whom she ever hadnoticed in her life.
　　At dawn, when the party broke up and left in confusion, they had takenleave of one another, like betrothed ones, who are sure to meet thefollowing day. To return home, she had crossed this same market-placewith her father, little fatigued, feeling light and gay, happy tobreathe the frosty fog, and loving the sad dawn itself, so sweet andenjoyable seemed bare life.
　　The May night had long since fallen; nearly all the windows had closedwith a grating of their iron fittings, but Gaud remained at her place,leaving hers open. The last passers-by, who could distinguish thewhite cap in the darkness, might say to themselves, "That's surelysome girl, dreaming of her sweetheart." It was true, for she wasdreaming of hers, with a wild desire to weep; her tiny teeth bit herlips and continually opened and pursed up the deep dimple thatoutlined the under lip of her fresh, pure mouth. Her eyes remainedfixed on the darkness, seeing nothing of tangible things.
　　But, after the ball, why had he not returned? What change had comeover him? Meeting him by chance, he seemed to avoid her, turning asidehis look, which was always fleeting, by the way. She had often debatedthis with Sylvestre, who could not understand either.
　　"But still, he's the lad for you to marry, Gaud," said Sylvestre, "ifyour father allowed ye. In the whole country round you'd not find hislike. First, let me tell 'ee, he's a rare good one, though he mayn'tlook it. He seldom gets tipsy. He sometimes is stubborn, but is verypliable for all that. No, I can't tell 'ee how good he is! And such anA.B. seaman! Every new fishing season the skippers regularly fight tohave him."She was quite sure of her father's permission, for she never had beenthwarted in any of her whims. And it mattered little to her whetherYann were rich or not. To begin with, a sailor like him would need buta little money in advance to attend the classes of the coastnavigation school, and might shortly become a captain whom allshipowners would gladly intrust with their vessels. It also matteredlittle to her that he was such a giant; great strength may become adefect in a woman, but in a man is not prejudicial to good looks.
　　Without seeming to care much, she had questioned the girls of thecountry round about, who knew all the love stories going; but he hadno recognized engagement with any one, he paid no more attention toone than another, but roved from right to left, to Lezardrieux as wellas to Paimpol, to all the beauties who cared to receive his address.
　　One Sunday evening, very late, she had seen him pass under herwindows, in company with one Jeannie Caroff, whom he tucked under hiswing very closely; she was pretty, certainly, but had a very badreputation. This had pained Gaud very much indeed. She had been toldthat he was very quick-tempered: one night being rather tipsy in atavern of Paimpol, where the Icelanders held their revels, he hadthrown a great marble table through a door that they would not open tohim. But she forgave him all that; we all know what sailors aresometimes when the fit takes them. But if his heart were good, why hadhe sought one out who never had thought of him, to leave herafterward; what reason had he had to look at her for a whole eveningwith his fair, open smile, and to use his softest, tenderest voice tospeak to her of his affairs as to a betrothed? Now, it was impossiblefor her to become attached to another, or to change. In this samecountry, when quite a child, she was used to being scolded whennaughty and called more stubborn than any other child in her ideas;and she had not altered. Fine lady as she was now, rather serious andproud in her ways, none had refashioned her, and she remained alwaysthe same.
　　After this ball, the past winter had been spent in waiting to see himagain, but he had not even come to say good-bye before his departurefor Iceland. Since he was no longer by, nothing else existed in hereyes; slowly time seemed to drag until the return in autumn, when shehad made up her mind to put an end to her doubts.
　　The town-hall clock struck eleven, with that peculiar resonance thatbells have during the quiet spring nights. At Paimpol eleven o'clockis very late; so Gaud closed her window and lit her lamp, to go tobed.
　　Perhaps it was only shyness in Yann, after all, or was it because,being proud also, he was afraid of a refusal, as she was so rich? Shewanted to ask him this herself straightforwardly, but Sylvestrethought that it would not be the right thing, and it would not lookwell for her to appear so bold. In Paimpol already her manners anddress were sufficiently criticised.
　　She undressed slowly as if in a dream; first her muslin cap, then hertown-cut dress, which she threw carelessly on a chair. The littlelamp, alone to burn at this late hour, bathed her shoulders and bosomin its mysterious light, her perfect form, which no eye ever hadcontemplated, and never could contemplate if Yann did not marry her.
　　She knew her face was beautiful, but she was unconscious of the beautyof her figure. In this remote land, among daughters of fishers, beautyof shape is almost part of the race; it is scarcely ever noticed, andeven the least respectable women are ashamed to parade it.
　　Gaud began to unbraid her tresses, coiled in the shape of a snail-shell and rolled round her ears, and two plaits fell upon hershoulders like weighty serpents. She drew them up into a crown on thetop of her head--this was comfortable for sleeping--so that, by reasonof her straight profile, she looked like a Roman vestal.
　　She still held up her arms, and biting her lip, she slowly ran herfingers through the golden mass, like a child playing with a toy,while thinking of something else; and again letting it fall, shequickly unplaited it to spread it out; soon she was covered with herown locks, which fell to her knees, looking like some Druidess.
　　And sleep having come, notwithstanding love and an impulse to weep,she threw herself roughly in her bed, hiding her face in the silkenmasses floating round her outspread like a veil.
　　In her hut in Ploubazlanec, Granny Moan, who was on the other anddarker side of her life, had also fallen to sleep--the frozen sleep ofold age--dreaming of her grandson and of death.
　　And at this same hour, on board the /Marie/, on the Northern Sea,which was very heavy on this particular evening, Yann and Sylvestre--the two longed-for rovers--sang ditties to one another, and went ongaily with their fishing in the everlasting daylight.
Part 1 On The Icy Sea Chapter 6
About a month later, around Iceland, the weather was of that rare kindthat the sailors call a dead calm; in other words, in the air nothingmoved, as if all the breezes were exhausted and their task done.
　　The sky was covered with a white veil, which darkened towards itslower border near the horizon, and gradually passed into dull grayleaden tints; over this the still waters threw a pale light, whichfatigued the eyes and chilled the gazer through and through. All atonce, liquid designs played over the surface, such light evanescentrings as one forms by breathing on a mirror. The sheen of the watersseemed covered with a net of faint patterns, which intermingled andreformed, rapidly disappearing. Everlasting night or everlasting day,one could scarcely say what it was; the sun, which pointed to nospecial hour, remained fixed, as if presiding over the fading glory ofdead things; it appeared but as a mere ring, being almost withoutsubstance, and magnified enormously by a shifting halo.
　　Yann and Sylvestre, leaning against one another, sang "Jean-Francoisde Nantes," the song without an end; amused by its very monotony,looking at one another from the corner of their eyes as if laughing atthe childish fun, with which they began the verses over and overagain, trying to put fresh spirit into them each time. Their cheekswere rosy under the sharp freshness of the morning: the pure air theybreathed was strengthening, and they inhaled it deep down in theirchests, the very fountain of all vigorous existence. And yet, aroundthem, was a semblance of non-existence, of a world either finished ornot yet created; the light itself had no warmth; all things seemedwithout motion, and as if chilled for eternity under the great ghostlyeye that represented the sun.
　　The /Marie/ projected over the sea a shadow long and black as night,or rather appearing deep green in the midst of the polished surface,which reflected all the purity of the heavens; in this shadowed part,which had no glitter, could be plainly distinguished through thetransparency, myriads upon myriads of fish, all alike, gliding slowlyin the same direction, as if bent towards the goal of their perpetualtravels. They were cod, performing their evolutions all as parts of asingle body, stretched full length in the same direction, exactlyparallel, offering the effect of gray streaks, unceasingly agitated bya quick motion that gave a look of fluidity to the mass of dumb lives.
　　Sometimes, with a sudden quick movement of the tail, all turned roundat the same time, showing the sheen of their silvered sides; and thesame movement was repeated throughout the entire shoal by slowundulations, as if a thousand metal blades had each thrown a tinyflash of lightning from under the surface.
　　The sun, already very low, lowered further; so night had decidedlycome. As the great ball of flame descended into the leaden-colouredzones that surrounded the sea, it grew yellow, and its outer rimbecame more clear and solid. Now it could be looked straight at, as ifit were but the moon. Yet it still gave out light and looked quitenear in the immensity; it seemed that by going in a ship, only so faras the edge of the horizon, one might collide with the great mournfulglobe, floating in the air just a few yards above the water.
　　Fishing was going on well; looking into the calm water, one could seeexactly what took place; how the cod came to bite, with a greedyspring; then, feeling themselves hooked, wriggled about, as if to hookthemselves still firmer. And every moment, with rapid action, thefishermen hauled in their lines, hand overhand, throwing the fish tothe man who was to clean them and flatten them out.
　　The Paimpol fleet were scattered over the quiet mirror, animating thedesert. Here and there appeared distant sails, unfurled for mereform's sake, considering there was no breeze. They were like clearwhite outlines upon the greys of the horizon. In this dead calm,fishing off Iceland seemed so easy and tranquil a trade that ladies'
　　yachting was no name for it.
　　"Jean Francois de Nantes;Jean Francois,Jean Francois!"So they sang, like a couple of children.
　　Yann little troubled whether or no he was handsome and good-looking.
　　He was boyish only with Sylvestre, it is true, and sang and joked withno other; on the contrary, he was rather distant with the others andproud and disdainful--very willing though, when his help was required,and always kind and obliging when not irritated.
　　So the twain went on singing their song, with two others, a few stepsoff, singing another, a dirge--a clashing of sleepiness, health, andvague melancholy. But they did not feel dull, and the hours flew by.
　　Down in the cabin a fire still smouldered in the iron range, and thehatch was kept shut, so as to give the appearance of night there forthose who needed sleep. They required but little air to sleep; indeed,less robust fellows, brought up in towns, would have wanted more. Theyused to go to bed after the watch at irregular times, just when theyfelt inclined, hours counting for little in this never-fading light.
　　And they always slept soundly and peacefully without restlessness orbad dreams.
　　"Jean Francois de Nantes;Jean Francois,Jean Francois!"They looked attentively at some almost imperceptible object, far offon the horizon, some faint smoke rising from the waters like a tinyjot of another gray tint slightly darker than the sky's. Their eyeswere used to plumbing depths, and they had seen it.
　　"A sail, a sail, thereaway!""I have an idea," said the skipper, staring attentively, "that it's agovernment cruiser coming on her inspection-round."This faint smoke brought news of home to the sailors, and amongothers, a letter we wrote of, from an old grandam, written by the handof a beautiful girl. Slowly the steamer approached till they perceivedher black hull. Yes, it was the cruiser, making the inspection inthese western fjords.
　　At the same time, a slight breeze sprang up, fresher yet to inhale,and began to tarnish the surface of the still waters in patches; ittraced designs in a bluish green tint over the shining mirror, andscattering in trails, these fanned out or branched off like a coraltree; all very rapidly with a low murmur; it was like a signal ofawakening foretelling the end of this intense torpor. The sky, itsveil being rent asunder, grew clear; the vapours fell down on thehorizon, massing in heaps like slate-coloured wadding, as if to form asoft bank to the sea. The two ever-during mirrors between which thefishermen lived, the one on high and the one beneath, recovered theirdeep lucidity, as if the mists tarnishing them had been brushed away.
　　The weather was changing in a rapid way that foretold no good. Smacksbegan to arrive from all points of the immense plane; first, all theFrench smacks in the vicinity, from Brittany, Normandy, Boulogne, orDunkirk. Like birds flocking to a call, they assembled round thecruiser; from the apparently empty corners of the horizon, othersappeared on every side; their tiny gray wings were seen till theypeopled the pallid waste.
　　No longer slowly drifting, for they had spread out their sails to thenew and cool breeze, and cracked on all to approach.
　　Far-off Iceland also reappeared, as if she would fain come near themalso; showing her great mountains of bare stones more distinctly thanever.
　　And there arose a new Iceland of similar colour, which little bylittle took a more definite form, and none the less was purelyillusive, its gigantic mountains merely a condensation of mists. Thesun, sinking low, seemed incapable of ever rising over all things,though glowing through this phantom island so tangible that it seemedplaced in front of it. Incomprehensible sight! no longer was itsurrounded by a halo, but its disc had become firmly spread, ratherlike some faded yellow planet slowly decaying and suddenly checkedthere in the heart of chaos.
　　The cruiser, which had stopped, was fully surrounded by the fleet ofIcelanders. From all boats were lowered, like so many nut-shells, andconveyed their strong, long-bearded men, in barbaric-looking dresses,to the steamer.
　　Like children, all had something to beg for; remedies for pettyailments, materials for repairs, change of diet, and home letters.
　　Others came, sent by their captains, to be clapped in irons, toexpiate some fault; as they had all been in the navy, they took thisas a matter of course. When the narrow deck of the cruiser wasblocked-up by four or five of these hulking fellows, stretched outwith the bilboes round their feet, the old sailor who had just chainedthem up called out to them, "Roll o' one side, my lads, to let uswork, d'ye hear?" which they obediently did with a grin.
　　There were a great many letters this time for the Iceland fleet. Amongthe rest, two for "/La Marie/, Captain Guermeur"; one addressed to"Monsieur Gaos, Yann," the other to "Monsieur Moan, Sylvestre." Thelatter had come by way of Rykavyk, where the cruiser had taken it on.
　　The purser, diving into his post-bags of sailcloth, distributed themall round, often finding it hard to read the addresses, which were notalways written very skilfully, while the captain kept on saying: "Lookalive there, look alive! the barometer is falling."He was rather anxious to see all the tiny yawls afloat, and so manyvessels assembled in that dangerous region.
　　Yann and Sylvestre used to read their letters together. This time theyread them by the light of the midnight sun, shining above the horizon,still like a dead luminary. Sitting together, a little to one side, ina retired nook of the deck, their arms about each other's shoulders,they very slowly read, as if to enjoy more thoroughly the news sentthem from home.
　　In Yann's letter Sylvestre got news of Marie Gaos, his littlesweetheart; in Sylvestre's, Yann read all Granny Moan's funny stories,for she had not her like for amusing the absent ones you willremember; and the last paragraph concerning him came up: the "word ofgreeting to young Gaos."When the letters were got through, Sylvestre timidly showed his to hisbig friend, to try and make him admire the writing of it.
　　"Look, is it not pretty writing, Yann?"But Yann, who knew very well whose hand had traced it, turned aside,shrugging his shoulders, as much as to say that he was worried toooften about this Gaud girl.
　　So Sylvestre carefully folded up the poor, rejected paper, put it intoits envelope and all in his jersey, next his breast, saying to himselfsadly: "For sure, they'll never marry. But what on earth can he haveto say against her?"Midnight was struck on the cruiser's bell. And yet our couple remainedsitting there, thinking of home, the absent ones, a thousand things inreverie. At this same moment the everlasting sun, which had dipped itslower edge into the waters, began slowly to reascend, and lo! this wasmorning.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 1
THE PLAYTHING OF THE STORMThe Northern sun had taken another aspect and changed its colour,opening the new day by a sinister morn. Completely free from its veil,it gave forth its grand rays, crossing the sky in fitful flashes,foretelling nasty weather. During the past few days it had been toofine to last. The winds blew upon that swarm of boats, as if to clearthe sea of them; and they began to disperse and flee, like an army putto rout, before the warning written in the air, beyond possibility tomisread. Harder and harder it blew, making men and ships quake alike.
　　And the still tiny waves began to run one after another and to melttogether; at first they were frosted over with white foam spread outin patches; and then, with a whizzing sound, arose smoke as thoughthey burned and scorched, and the whistling grew louder every moment.
　　Fish-catching was no longer thought of; it was their work on deck. Thefishing lines had been drawn in, and all hurried to make sail and someto seek for shelter in the fjords, while yet others preferred to roundthe southern point of Iceland, finding it safer to stand for the opensea, with the free space about them, and run before the stern wind.
　　They could still see each other a while: here and there, above thetrough of the sea, sails wagged as poor wearied birds fleeing; themasts tipped, but ever and anon righted, like the weighted pithfigures that similarly resume an erect attitude when released afterbeing blown down.
　　The illimitable cloudy roof, erstwhile compacted towards the westernhorizon, in an island form, began to break up on high and send itsfragments over the surface. It seemed indestructible, for vainly didthe winds stretch it, pull and toss it asunder, continually tearingaway dark strips, which they waved over the pale yellow sky, graduallybecoming intensely and icily livid. Ever more strongly grew the windthat threw all things in turmoil.
　　The cruiser had departed for shelter at Iceland; some fishers aloneremained upon the seething sea, which now took an ill-boding look anda dreadful colour. All hastily made preparations for bad weather.
　　Between one and another the distance grew greater, till some were lostsight of.
　　The waves, curling up in scrolls, continued to run after each other,to reassemble and climb on one another, and between them the hollowsdeepened.
　　In a few hours, everything was belaboured and overthrown in theseregions that had been so calm the day before, and instead of the pastsilence, the uproar was deafening. The present agitation was adissolving view, unconscientious and useless, and quicklyaccomplished. What was the object of it all? What a mystery of blinddestruction it was!
　　The clouds continued to stream out on high, out of the westcontinually, racing and darkening all. A few yellow clefts remained,through which the sun shot its rays in volleys. And the now greenishwater was striped more thickly with snowy froth.
　　By midday the /Marie/ was made completely snug for dirty weather: herhatches battened down, and her sails storm-reefed; she bounded lightlyand elastic; for all the horrid confusion, she seemed to be playinglike the porpoises, also amused in storms. With her foresail taken in,she simply scudded before the wind.
　　It had become quite dark overhead, where stretched the heavilycrushing vault. Studded with shapeless gloomy spots, it appeared a setdome, unless a steadier gaze ascertained that everything was in thefull rush of motion; endless gray veils were drawn along, unceasinglyfollowed by others, from the profundities of the sky-line--draperiesof darkness, pulled from a never-ending roll.
　　The /Marie/ fled faster and faster before the wind; and time fled also--before some invisible and mysterious power. The gale, the sea, the/Marie/, and the clouds were all lashed into one great madness ofhasty flight towards the same point. The fastest of all was the wind;then the huge seething billows, heavier and slower, toiling after;and, lastly, the smack, dragged into the general whirl. The wavestracked her down with their white crests, tumbling onward in continualmotion, and she--though always being caught up to and outrun--stillmanaged to elude them by means of the eddying waters she spurned inher wake, upon which they vented their fury. In this similitude offlight the sensation particularly experienced was of buoyancy, thedelight of being carried along without effort or trouble, in a springysort of way. The /Marie/ mounted over the waves without any shaking,as if the wind had lifted her clean up; and her subsequent descent wasa slide. She almost slid backward, though, at times, the mountainslowering before her as if continuing to run, and then she suddenlyfound herself dropped into one of the measureless hollows that evadedher also; without injury she sounded its horrible depths, amid a loudsplashing of water, which did not even sprinkle her decks, but wasblown on and on like everything else, evaporating in finer and finerspray until it was thinned away to nothing. In the trough it wasdarker, and when each wave had passed the men looked behind them tosee if the next to appear were higher; it came upon them with furiouscontortions, and curling crests, over its transparent emerald body,seeming to shriek: "Only let me catch you, and I'll swallow youwhole!"But this never came to pass, for, as a feather, the billows softlybore them up and then down so gently; they felt it pass under them,with all its boiling surf and thunderous roar. And so on continually,but the sea getting heavier and heavier. One after another rushed thewaves, more and more gigantic, like a long chain of mountains, withyawning valleys. And the madness of all this movement, under the ever-darkening sky, accelerated the height of the intolerable clamour.
　　Yann and Sylvestre stood at the helm, still singing, "Jean Francois deNantes"; intoxicated with the quiver of speed, they sang out loudly,laughing at their inability to hear themselves in this prodigiouswrath of the wind.
　　"I say, lads, does it smell musty up here too?" called out Guermeur tothem, passing his bearded face up through the half-open hatchway, likeJack-in-the-box.
　　Oh, no! it certainly did not smell musty on deck. They were not at allfrightened, being quite conscious of what men can cope with, havingfaith in the strength of their barkey and their arms. And theyfurthermore relied upon the protection of that china Virgin, which hadvoyaged forty years to Iceland, and so often had danced the dance ofthis day, smiling perpetually between her branches of artificialflowers.
　　Generally speaking, they could not see far around them; a few hundredyards off, all seemed entombed in the fearfully big billows, withtheir frothing crests shutting out the view. They felt as if in anenclosure, continually altering shape; and, besides, all things seemeddrowned in the aqueous smoke, which fled before them like a cloud withthe greatest rapidity over the heaving surface. But from time to timea gleam of sunlight pierced through the north-west sky, through whicha squall threatened; a shuddering light would appear from above, arather spun-out dimness, making the dome of the heavens denser thanbefore, and feebly lighting up the surge. This new light was sad tobehold; far-off glimpses as they were, that gave too strong anunderstanding that the same chaos and the same fury lay on all sides,even far, far behind the seemingly void horizon; there was no limit toits expanse of storm, and they stood alone in its midst!
　　A tremendous tumult arose all about, like the prelude of anapocalypse, spreading the terror of the ultimate end of the earth. Andamidst it thousands of voices could be heard above, shrieking,bellowing, calling, as from a great distance. It was only the wind,the great motive breath of all this disorder, the voice of theinvisible power ruling all. Then came other voices, nearer and lessindefinite, threatening destruction, and making the water shudder andhiss as if on burning coals; the disturbance increased in terror.
　　Notwithstanding their flight, the sea began to gain on them, to "burythem up," as they phrased it: first the spray fell down on them frombehind, and masses of water thrown with such violence as to breakeverything in their course. The waves were ever increasing, and thetempest tore off their ridges and hurled them, too, upon the poop,like a demon's game of snowballing, till dashed to atoms on thebulwarks. Heavier masses fell on the planks with a hammering sound,till the /Marie/ shivered throughout, as if in pain. Nothing could bedistinguished over the side, because of the screen of creamy foam; andwhen the winds soughed more loudly, this foam formed into whirlingspouts, like the dust of the way in summer time. At length a heavyrain fell crossways, and soon straight up and down, and how all theseelements of destruction yelled together, clashed and interlocked, notongue can tell.
　　Yann and Sylvestre stuck staunchly to the helm, covered with theirwaterproofs, hard and shiny as sharkskin; they had firmly secured themat the throat by tarred strings, and likewise at wrists and ankles toprevent the water from running in, and the rain only poured off them;when it fell too heavily, they arched their backs, and held all themore stoutly, not to be thrown over the board. Their cheeks burned,and every minute their breath was beaten out or stopped.
　　After each sea was shipped and rushed over, they exchanged glances,grinning at the crust of salt settled in their beards.
　　In the long run though, this became tiresome, an unceasing fury, whichalways promised a worse visitation. The fury of men and beasts soonfalls and dies away; but the fury of lifeless things, without cause orobject, is as mysterious as life and death, and has to be borne forvery long.
　　"Jean Francois de Nantes;Jean Francois,Jean Francois!"Through their pale lips still came the refrain of the old song, but asfrom a speaking automaton, unconsciously taken up from time to time.
　　The excess of motion and uproar had made them dumb, and despite theiryouth their smiles were insincere, and their teeth chattered withcold; their eyes, half-closed under their raw, throbbing eyelids,remained glazed in terror. Lashed to the helm, like marble caryatides,they only moved their numbed blue hands, almost without thinking, bysheer muscular habit. With their hair streaming and mouths contracted,they had become changed, all the primitive wildness in man appearingagain. They could not see one another truly, but still were aware ofbeing companioned. In the instants of greatest danger, each time thata fresh mountain of water rose behind them, came to overtower them,and crash horribly against their boat, one of their hands would moveas if involuntarily, to form the sign of the cross. They no morethought of Gaud than of any other woman, or any marrying. The travailwas lasting too long, and they had no thoughts left. The intoxicationof noise, cold, and fatigue drowned all in their brain. They weremerely two pillars of stiffened human flesh, held up by the helm; twostrong beasts, cowering, but determined they would not be overwhelmed.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 2
In Brittany, towards the end of September, on an already chilly day,Gaud was walking alone across the common of Ploubazlanec, in thedirection of Pors-Even.
　　The Icelanders had returned a month back, except two, which hadperished in that June gale. But the /Marie/ had held her own, and Yannand all her crew were peacefully at home.
　　Gaud felt very troubled at the idea of going to Yann's house. She hadseen him once since the return from Iceland, when they had all gonetogether to see poor little Sylvestre off to the navy. Theyaccompanied him to the coaching-house, he blubbering a little and hisgrandmother weeping, and he had started to join the fleet at Brest.
　　Yann, who had come also to bid good-bye to his little friend, hadfeigned to look aside when Gaud looked at him, and as there were manypeople round the coach to see the other sailors off, and parentsassembled to say good-bye, the pair had not a chance to speak. So, atlast, she had formed a strong resolution, and rather timidly wendedher way towards the Gaos's home.
　　Her father had formerly had mutual interests with Yann's father(complicated business, which, with peasants and fishers alike, seemsto be endless), and owed him a hundred francs for the sale of a boat,which had just taken place in a raffle.
　　"You ought to let me carry the money to him, father," she had said. "Ishall be pleased to see Marie Gaos. I never have been so far inPloubazlanec, either, and I shall enjoy the long walk."To speak the truth, she was curiously anxious to know Yann's family,which she might some day enter; and she also wanted to see the houseand village.
　　In one of their last chats, before his departure, Sylvestre hadexplained to her, in his own way, his friend's shyness.
　　"D'ye see, Gaud, he's like this, he won't marry anybody, that's hisidea; he only loves the sea, and one day even, in fun, he said he hadpromised to be wedded to it."Whereupon, she forgave him all his peculiar ways, and remembered onlyhis beautiful open smile on the night of the ball, and she hoped onand on.
　　If she were to meet him in his home, of course she would say nothing;she had no intention of being so bold. But if he saw her closelyagain, perhaps he might speak.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 3
She had been walking for the last hour, lightly yet oppressed,inhaling the healthy open breeze whistling up the roads to where theycrossed and /Calvaires/ were erected, ghastly highway ornaments of ourSaviour on His cross, to which Bretons are given.
　　From time to time she passed through small fishing villages, which arebeaten about by the winds the whole year through till of the colour ofthe rocks. In one of these hamlets, where the path narrows suddenlybetween dark walls, and between the whitewashed roofs, high andpointed like Celtic huts, a tavern sign-board made her smile. It was"The Chinese Cider Cellars." On it were painted two grotesque figures,dressed in green and pink robes, with pigtails, drinking cider. Nodoubt the whim of some old sailor who had been in China. She saw allon her way; people who are greatly engrossed in the object of ajourney always find more amusement than others in its thousanddetails.
　　The tiny village was far behind her now, and as she advanced in thislast promontory of the Breton land, the trees around her became morescarce, and the country more mournful.
　　The ground was undulating and rocky, and from all the heights the opensea could be seen. No more trees now; nothing but the shorn heathswith their green reeds, and here and there the consecrated crossesrose, their outstretched arms outlined against the sky, giving thewhole country the aspect of a cemetery.
　　At one of the cross-ways, guarded by a colossal image of Christ, shehesitated between two roads running among thorny slopes.
　　A child happening to pass, came to her rescue: "Good-day, MademoiselleGaud!"It was one of the little Gaoses, one of Yann's wee sisters. Gaudkissed her and asked her if her parents were at home.
　　"Father and mother are, yes. But brother Yann," said the little one,without intent, of course, "has gone to Loguivy; but I don't thinkhe'll be very late home again."So he was not there? Again destiny was between them, everywhere andalways. She thought at first of putting off her visit to another day.
　　But the little lass who had met her might mention the fact. What wouldthey think at Pors-Even? So she decided to go on, but loitering so asto give Yann time to return.
　　As she neared his village, in this lost country, all things seemedrougher and more desolate. Sea breezes that made men stronger, madeshorter and more stubbly plants. Seaweeds of all kinds were scatteredover the paths, leaves from growths in another element, proving theexistence of a neighbouring world; their briny odour mingled with theperfume of the heather.
　　Now and again Gaud met passers-by, sea-folk, who could be seen a longway off, over the bare country, outlined and magnified against thehigh sea-line. Pilots or fishers, seeming to watch the great sea, inpassing her wished her good-day. Broad sun-burnt faces were theirs,manly and determined under their easy caps.
　　Time did not go quickly enough, and she really did not know what to doto lengthen the way; these people seemed surprised at seeing her walkso slowly.
　　What could Yann be doing at Loguivy? Courting the girls, perhaps.
　　Ah! if she only had known how little he troubled his head about them!
　　He had simply gone to Loguivy to give an order to a basket-maker, whowas the only one in the country knowing how to weave lobster pots. Hismind was very free from love just now.
　　She passed a chapel, at such a height it could be seen remotely. Itwas a little gray old chapel in the midst of the barren. A clump oftrees, gray too, and almost leafless, seemed like hair to it, pushedby some invisible hand all on one side.
　　It was that same hand that had wrecked the fishers' boats, the eternalhand of the western winds, and had twisted all the branches of thecoast trees in the direction of the waves and of the off-sea breezes.
　　The old trees had grown awry and dishevelled, bending their backsunder the time-honoured strength of that hand.
　　Gaud was almost at the end of her walk, as the chapel in sight wasthat of Pors-Even; so she stopped there to win a little more time.
　　A petty mouldering wall ran round an enclosure containing tombstones.
　　Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; thewhole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones,the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wallniches, were covered by the same grayish lichen, splashed pale yellow.
　　On one of the wooden crosses this name was written in large letters:
　　"GAOS.--GAOS, JOEL, 80 years."Yes, this was the old grandfather--she knew that--for the sea had notwanted this old sailor. And many of Yann's relatives, besides, slepthere; it was only natural, and she might have expected it;nevertheless, the name upon the tomb had made a sad impression.
　　To waste a little more time, she entered to say a prayer under the oldcramped porch, worn away and daubed over with whitewash. But shestopped again with a sharp pain at her heart. "Gaos"--again that name,engraved upon one of the slabs erected in memory of those who die atsea.
　　She read this inscription:
　　"To the Memory ofGAOS, JEAN-LOUIS,Aged 24 years; seaman on board the /Marguerite/.
　　Disappeared off Iceland, August 3d, 1877.
　　May he rest in peace!"Iceland--always Iceland! All over the porch were wooden slabs bearingthe names of dead sailors. It was the place reserved for theshipwrecked of Pors-Even. Filled with a dark foreboding she was sorryto have gone there.
　　In Paimpol church she had seen many such inscriptions; but in thisvillage the empty tomb of the Iceland fishers seemed more sad becauseso lone and humble. On each side of the doorway was a granite seat forthe widows and mothers; and this shady spot, irregularly shaped like agrotto, was guarded by an old image of the Virgin, coloured red, withlarge staring eyes, looking most like Cybele--the first goddess of theearth.
　　"Gaos!" Again!
　　"To the Memory ofGAOS, FRANCOIS,Husband of Anne-Marie le Goaster,Captain on board the /Paimpolais/,Lost off Iceland, between the 1st and 3d of May, 1877,With the twenty-three men of his crew.
　　May they rest in peace!"And, lower down, were two cross-bones under a black skull with greeneyes, a simple but ghastly emblem, reminding one of all the barbarismof a bygone age.
　　"Gaos, Gaos!" The name was everywhere. As she read, thrills of sweettenderness came over her for this Yann of her choice, damped by afeeling of hopelessness. Nay, he would never be hers! How could shetear him from the sea where so many other Gaoses had gone down,ancestors and brothers, who must have loved the sea like he! Sheentered the chapel. It was almost dark, badly lit by low windows withheavy frames. And there, her heart full of tears that would betterhave fallen, she knelt to pray before the colossal saints, surroundedby common flowers, touching the vaulted roof with their massive heads.
　　Outside, the rising wind began to sob as if it brought the death-gaspsof the drowned men back to their Fatherland.
　　Night drew near; she rose and went on her way. After having asked inthe village, she found the home of the Gaos family, which was built upagainst a high cliff. A dozen granite steps led up to it. Trembling alittle at the thought that Yann might have returned, she crossed thesmall garden where chrysanthemums and veronicas grew.
　　When she was indoors, she explained she had come to bring the moneyfor the boat, and they very politely asked her to sit down, to awaitthe father's return, as he was the one to sign the receipt for her.
　　Amidst all, her eyes searched for Yann--but did not see him.
　　They were very busy in the home. Already they were cutting out the newwaterproof cloth on the clean white table, and getting it ready forthe approaching Iceland season.
　　"You see, Mademoiselle Gaud, it's like this: every man wants two newsuits."They explained to her how they set to work to make them, and to rendertheir seams waterproof with tar, for they were for wet weather wear.
　　And while they worked, Gaud looked attentively around the home ofthese Gaoses.
　　It was furnished after the traditional manner of all Breton cottages;an immense chimney-place took up one whole end, and on the sides ofthe walls the Breton beds, bunks, as on shipboard, were placed oneabove another. But it was not so sombre and sad as the cabins of otherpeasants, which are generally half-hidden by the wayside; it was allfresh and clean, as the homes of seamen usually are. Several littleGaoses were there, girls and boys, all sisters and brothers of Yann;without counting two big ones, who were already out at sea. And,besides, there was a little fair girl, neat, but sad, unlike theothers.
　　"We adopted her last year," explained the mother; "we had enoughchildren as it was, of course, but what else could we do, MademoiselleGaud, for her daddy belonged to the /Maria-Dieu-t'aime/, lost lastseason off Iceland, as you know; so the neighbours divided the littleones between them, and this one fell to our lot."Hearing herself spoken of, the adopted child hung her pretty head andsmiled, hiding herself behind little Laumec Gaos, her favourite.
　　There was a look of comfort all over the place, and radiant healthbloomed on all the children's rosy cheeks.
　　They received Gaud very profusely, like a great lady whose visit wasan honour to the family. She was taken upstairs, up a newly-builtwooden staircase, to see the room above, which was the glory of thehome. She remembered the history of its construction; it was after thefinding of a derelict vessel in the channel, which luck had befallenYann's father and his cousin the pilot.
　　The room was very gay and pretty in its whiteness; there were two townbeds in it, with pink chintz curtains, and a large table in themiddle. Through the window the whole of Paimpol could be seen, withthe Icelanders at anchor off shore, and the channel through which theypassed.
　　She did not dare question, but she would have liked to have knownwhere Yann slept; probably as a child he had slept downstairs in oneof the antique cupboard-beds. But perhaps now he slept under thosepink draperies. She would have loved to have known all the details ofhis life, especially what he did in the long winter evenings.
　　A heavy footstep on the stairs made her tremble. But it was not Yann,though a man much like him; notwithstanding his white hair, as talland as straight. It was old father Gaos returning from fishing.
　　After he had saluted her and asked her the object of her visit, hesigned her receipt for her which was rather a long operation, as hishand was not very steady, he explained.
　　But he would not accept the hundred francs as a final payment, butonly as an instalment; he would speak to M. Mevel again about it.
　　Whereupon Gaud, to whom money was nothing, smiled imperceptibly; shehad fancied the business was not quite terminated, and this justsuited her.
　　They made something like excuses for Yann's absence; as if they foundit more orthodox for the whole family to assemble to receive her.
　　Perhaps the father had guessed, with the shrewdness of an old salt,that his son was not indifferent to this beautiful heiress; for herather insisted upon talking about him.
　　"It's very queer," said he, "the boy's never so late out. He went overto Loguivy, Mademoiselle Gaud, to buy some lobster baskets; as youknow, lobster-catching is our main winter fishery."She dreamily lengthened out her call, although conscious that it wastoo long already, and feeling a tug at her heart at the idea that shewould not see him after all.
　　"A well-conducted young man like Yann--what can he be doing? Surelyhe's not at the inn. We don't fear that for our lad. I don't say thatnow and then, of a Sunday, with his mates---- You know, MademoiselleGaud, what them sailors are. Eh! ye know, he's but a young chap, andmust have some liberty now and again. But it's very rare with him tobreak out, for he's a straight-goer; we can say that."But night was falling, and the work had been folded up. The littleones on the benches around drew closer to one another, saddened by thegrey dismal gloaming, and eyed Gaud hard, seeming to say--"Why doesn't she go now?"On the hearth, the flames burned redder in the midst of the fallingshadows.
　　"You ought to stay and have a bit o' supper with us, MademoiselleGaud.""Oh, no! I couldn't think of it!" The blood rushed to her face at theidea of having remained so late. She got up and took her leave.
　　Yann's father also rose to accompany her part of the way, anyhow asfar as a lonely nook where the old trees make a dark lane.
　　As they walked along together, she felt a sudden sympathy of respectand tenderness towards him; she would have liked to have spoken as toa father in the sudden gushes of feeling that came over her; but thewords were stifled in her throat, and she said not a word.
　　And so they went their way, in the cold evening wind, full of theodour of the sea, passing here and there, on the barren heath, somepoor hovels, where beach-combers dwelt and had already sealedthemselves up for the night; dark and neglected they looked under theweather-beaten roofs; these crosses, clumps of reeds, and bouldersthey left behind.
　　What a great way off Pors-Even was, and what a time she had remained!
　　Now and then they met folks returning from Paimpol or Loguivy; and asshe watched the shadows approach, each time she thought it was Yann;but it was easy to recognise him at a good distance off, and so shewas quickly undeceived. Every moment her feet caught in the browntrailing plants, tangled like hair, which were sea-weeds littering thepathway.
　　At the Cross of Plouezoc'h she bade good-bye to the old man, andbegged him to return. The lights of Paimpol were already in view, andthere was no more occasion to be afraid.
　　So hope was over for this time. Who could tell her when she might seeYann again?
　　An excuse to return to Pors-Even would have been easy; but it wouldreally look too bad to begin her quest all over again. She would haveto be braver and prouder than that. If only her little confidantSylvestre had been there, she might have asked him to go and fetchYann, so that there could be some explanation. But he was gone now,and for how many years?
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 4
"Me get married?" said Yann to his parents that same evening. "Me getmarried? Good heavens, why should I? Shall I ever be as happy as herewith ye? no troubles, no tiffs with any one, and warm soup ready forme every night when I come home from sea. Oh! I quite understand thatyou mean the girl that came here to-day, but what's such a rich girlto do with us? 'Tisn't clear to my thinking. And it'll be neither her,nor any other. It's all settled, I won't marry--it ain't to myliking."The two old Gaoses looked at one another in silence, deeplydisappointed, for, after having talked it over together, they werepretty well sure that this young lady would not refuse their handsomeYann. But they did not try to argue, knowing how useless that wouldbe. The mother lowered her head, and said no more; she respected thewill of her son, her eldest born, who was all but the head of thefamily; although he was always tender and gentle with her, moreobedient than a child in the petty things of life, he long ago hadbeen her absolute master for the great ones, eluding all restraintwith a quiet though savage independence. He never sat up late, beingin the habit, like other fishermen, of rising before break of day. Andafter supper at eight o'clock, he had given another satisfactory lookto his baskets and new nets from Loguivy, and began to undress--calmto all appearances, and went up to sleep in the pink-curtained bed,which he shared with his little brother Laumec.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 5
For the last fortnight Gaud's little confidant, Sylvestre, had beenquartered in Brest; very much out of his element, but very quiet andobedient to discipline. He wore his open blue sailor-collar and red-balled, flat, woollen cap, with a frank, fearless look, and was nobleand dignified in his sailor garb, with his free step and tall figure,but at the bottom of his heart he was still the same innocent boy asever, and thinking of his dear old grandam.
　　One evening he had got tipsy together with some lads from his parts,simply because it is the custom; and they had all returned to thebarracks together arm-in-arm, singing out as lustily as they could.
　　And one Sunday, too, they had all gone to the theatre, in the uppergalleries. A melodrama was being played, and the sailors, exasperatedagainst the villain, greeted him with a howl, which they all roaredtogether, like a blast of the Atlantic cyclones.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 6
One day Sylvestre was summoned before the officer of his company; andthey told him he was among those ordered out to China--in the squadronfor Formosa. He had been pretty well expecting it for some time, as hehad heard those who read the papers say that out there the war seemednever-ending.
　　And because of the urgency of the departure, he was informed at thesame time that he would not be able to have the customary leave forhis home farewells; in five days' time he would have to pack up and beoff.
　　Then a bitter pain came over him; though charmed at the idea of far-off travels amid the unknown and of the war. There also was agony atthe thought of leaving all he knew and loved, with the vagueapprehension that he might never more return.
　　A thousand noises rang in his head. Around was the bustle of thebarrack-rooms, where hundreds of others were called up, like himself,chosen for the Chinese squadron. And rapidly he wrote to his oldgrandmother, with a stump of pencil, crouching on the floor, alone inhis own feverish dream, though in the thick of the continual hurry andhubbub amidst all the young sailors hurried away like himself.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 7
　　"His sweetheart's a trifle old!" said the others, a couple of days later, asthey laughed after Sylvestre and his grandmother, "but they seem to get onfine together all the same."It amused them to see the boy, for the first time, walk through thestreets of Recouvrance, with a woman at his side, like the rest of them; and,bending towards her with a tender look, whisper what seemed to be verysoft nothings.
　　She was a very quick, diminutive person seen from behind, with rathershort skirts for the fashion of the day; and a scanty brown shawl, and ahigh Paimpol /coiffe/. She, too, hanging on his arm, turned towards himwith an affectionate glance.
　　"A trifle old was his sweetheart!"That's what the others called after him, we say, but without spite, forany one could see that she was his old granny, come up from the country.
　　She had come, too, in a hurry, suddenly terrified at the news of his suddendeparture; for this Chinese war had already cost Paimpol many sailors. Soshe had scraped together all her poor little savings, put her best Sundaydress and a fresh clean /coiffe/ in a box, and had set out to kiss him once61AN ICELAND FISHERMANagain.
　　She had gone straight to the barracks to ask for him; at first hisadjutant had refused to let him go out.
　　"If you've anything to say, my good woman, go and speak to thecaptain yourself. There he is, passing."So she calmly walked up to him, and he allowed himself to be wonover.
　　"Send Moan to change his clothes, to go out," said he.
　　All in hot haste Moan had gone to rig up in his best attire, while thegood old lady, to make him laugh, of course, made a most inimitably drollface and a mock curtsey at the adjutant behind his back.
　　But when the grandson appeared in his full uniform, with theinevitable turned-down collar, leaving his throat bare, she was quite struckwith his beauty; his black beard was cut into a seamanly fashionable pointby the barber, and his cap was decked out with long floating ribbons, witha golden anchor at each end. For the moment she almost saw in him herson Pierre, who, twenty years before, had also been a sailor in the navy,and the remembrance of the far past, with all its dead, stealthily shadowedthe present hour.
　　But the sadness soon passed away. Arm-in-arm they strolled on, happyto be together; and it was then that the others had pretended to see in herhis sweetheart, and voted her "a trifle old."She had taken him, for a treat, to dine in an inn kept by some peoplefrom Paimpol, which had been recommended to her as rather cheap. Andthen, still arm-in-arm, they had sauntered through Brest, looking at theshop-windows. There never were such funny stories told as those she toldher grandson to make him laugh; of course all in Paimpol Breton, so thatthe passers-by might not understand.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 8
She stayed three days with him, three happy days, though over themhung a dark and ominous forecast; one might as well call them threedays of respite.
　　At last she was forced to return to Ploubazlanec, for she had come tothe end of her little savings, and Sylvestre was to embark the dayafterward. The sailors are always inexorably kept in barracks the daybefore foreign cruises (a custom that seems rather barbarous at first,but which is a necessary precaution against the "flings" they wouldhave before leaving definitely).
　　Oh that last day! She had done her very best to hatch up some morefunny stories in her head, to tell her boy just at the parting; butshe had remembered nothing--no; only tears had welled up, and at everymoment sobs choked her. Hanging on his arm, she reminded him of athousand things he was not to forget to do, and he also tried hard torepress his tears. They had ended by going into a church to say theirprayers together.
　　It was by the night train that she went. To save a few pence, they hadgone on foot to the station; he carrying her box, and holding her onhis strong arm, upon which she weighed heavily.
　　She was so very, very tired--poor old lady! She had scarcely anystrength left after the exertion of the last three or four days. Hershoulders were bent under her brown shawl, and she had no force tobear herself up; her youngish look was gone, and she felt the weightof her seventy-six years.
　　Oh! how her heart ached at the thought that it was all over, and thatin a few moments she must leave him! Was he really to go out so far,to China, perhaps to slaughter. She still had him there with her,quite close, her poor hands could yet grasp him--and yet he must go;all the strength of her will, all her tears, and all her greatheartrending despair--all! would nothing be of avail to keep him back?
　　With her ticket, and her lunch-basket, and her mittens in her grasp,agitated, she gave him her last blessing and advice, and he answeredher with an obedient "Ay, ay," bending his head tenderly towards herand gazing lovingly at her, in his soft childish way.
　　"Now then, old lady, you must make up your mind plaguey quick if youwant to go by this train!"The engine whistled. Suddenly terrified at the idea of losing thetrain, she bore her box from Sylvestre's grasp, and flinging it down,threw her arms round his neck in a last and supreme embrace.
　　Many people on the platform stared at them, but not one smiled.
　　Hustled about by the porters, worn out and full of pain, she pressedinto the first carriage near; the door was banged quickly upon her,while Sylvestre, with all the speed of a young sailor, rushed out ofthe station to the rails beside the line to see the train pass.
　　A shrill screeching whistle, a noisy grinding of the wheels, and hisgrandmother passed away, leaving him leaning against the gate andswinging up his cap with its flying ribbons, while she, hanging out ofthe window of her third-class carriage, made an answering signal withher handkerchief; and for as long as she could see the dark blue-cladfigure, that was her child, followed him with her eyes, throwing herwhole soul into that "good-bye!" kept back to the last, and alwaysuncertain of realization when sailors are concerned.
　　Look long at your little Sylvestre, poor old woman; until the verylatest moment, do not lose sight of his fleeting shadow, which isfading away for ever.
　　When she could see him no longer, she fell back, completely crushingher still clean unrumpled cap, weeping and sobbing in the agony ofdeath itself.
　　He had turned away slowly, with his head bent, and big tears fallingdown his cheeks. The autumn night had closed in; everywhere the gaswas flaring, and the sailors' riotous feasts had begun anew. Paying noheed to anything about him, he passed through Brest and over theRecouvrance Bridge, to the barracks.
　　"Whist! here, you darling boy!" called out some nocturnal prowlers tohim; but he passed on, and entering the barracks, flung himself downin his hammock, weeping, all alone, and hardly sleeping until dawn.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 9
Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over theunknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried himoff to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stopnowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed wasunceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he wasa topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldierscrowded upon the deck.
　　Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up moreZouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amidsands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look atthe dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in smallboats to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.
　　The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, madehim feel out of his element.
　　One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe wavedoverhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on afeast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a movingsea.
　　They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of thelong streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestrenever had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement andnumbers of boats excited and amused him.
　　With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boatscrowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itselfin a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high hecould see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing inthe plain.
　　On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-colouredattire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour ofconfused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of thelocomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breakingsorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.
　　The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon ofwater between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long filethrough the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, andthey were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speedthrough this warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with theirboiling wake like blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in histop, where he would hum his old song of "Jean-Francois de Nantes," toremind him of his dear brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good oldbygone days.
　　Sometimes, in the depths of the shadowy distance, some wonderfullytinted mountain would arise. Notwithstanding the distance and thedimness around, the names of those projected capes of countriesappeared as the eternal landmarks on the great roadways of the earthto the steersmen of this vessel; but a topman is carried on like aninanimate thing, knowing nothing, and unconscious of the distance overthe everlasting, endless waves.
　　All he felt was a terrible estrangement from the things of this world,which grew greater and greater; and the feeling was very defined andexact as he looked upon the seething foam behind, and tried toremember how long had lasted this pace that never slackened night orday. Down on deck, the crowd of men, huddled together in the shadow ofthe awnings, panted with weariness. The water and the air, even thevery light above, had a dull, crushing splendour; and the fadelessglory of those elements were as a very mockery of the human beingswhose physical lives are so ephemeral.
　　Once, up in his crow's nest, he was gladdened by the sight of flocksof tiny birds, of an unknown species, which fell upon the ship like awhirlwind of coal dust. They allowed themselves to be taken andstroked, being worn out with fatigue. All the sailors had them as petsupon their shoulders. But soon the most exhausted among them began todie, and before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards,ports, and sails--poor little things!--under the blasting sun of theRed Sea. They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeingbefore a sandstorm. And through fear of falling into the blue watersthat stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flightupon the passing ship. Over yonder, in some distant region of Libya,they had been fledged in masses. Indeed, there were so many of them,that their blind and unkind mother, Nature, had driven away before herthis surplus, as unmoved as if they had been superabundant men. On thescorching funnels and ironwork of the ship they died away; the deckwas strewn with their puny forms, only yesterday so full of life,songs, and love. Now, poor little black dots, Sylvestre and the otherspicked them up, spreading out their delicate blue wings, with a lookof pity, and swept them overboard into the abysmal sea.
　　Next came hosts of locusts, the spawn of those conjured up by Moses,and the ship was covered with them. At length, though, it surged on alifeless blue sea, where they saw no things around them, except fromtime to time the flying fish skimming along the level water.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 10
Rain in torrents, under a heavy black sky. This was India. Sylvestrehad just set foot upon land, chance selecting him to complete the crewof a whale boat. He felt the warm shower upon him through the thickfoliage, and looked around, surprised at the novel sight. All wasmagnificently green; the leaves of the trees waved like giganticfeathers, and the people walking beneath them had large velvety eyes,which seemed to close under the weight of their lashes. The very windthat brought the rain had the odour of musk and flowers.
　　At a distance, dusky girls beckoned him to come to them. Some happystrain they sang, like the "Whist! here, you darling boy!" so oftenheard at Brest. But seductive as was their country, their call wasimperious and exasperating, making his very flesh shudder. Theirperfect bosoms rose and fell under transparent muslin, in which theywere solely draped; they were glowing and polished as in bronzestatues. Hesitating, fascinated by them, he wavered about, followingthem; but the boatswain's sharp shrill whistle rent the air with bird-like trills, summoning him hurriedly back to his boat, about to pushoff.
　　He took his flight, and bade farewell to India's beauties.
　　After a second week of the blue sea, they paused off another land ofdewy verdure. A crowd of yellow men appeared, yelling out and pressingon deck, bringing coal in baskets.
　　"Already in China?" asked Sylvestre, at the sight of those grotesquefigures in pigtails.
　　"Bless you, no, not yet," they told him; "have a little morepatience."It was only Singapore. He went up into his mast-top again, to avoidthe black dust tossed about by the breeze, while the coal wasfeverishly heaped up in the bunkers from little baskets.
　　One day, at length, they arrived off a land called Tourane, where the/Circe/ was anchored, to blockade the port. This was the ship to whichSylvestre had been long ago assigned, and he was left there with hisbag.
　　On board he met with two mates from home, Icelanders, who werecaptains of guns for the time being. Through the long, hot, stillevenings, when there was no work to be done, they clustered on deckapart from the others, to form together a little Brittany ofremembrances.
　　Five months he passed there in inaction and exile, locked up in thecheerless bay, with the feverish desire to go out and fight and slay,for change's sake.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 11
In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before the setting-outfor Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale andstill. For Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had seen himcome in, and indistinctly heard his voice.
　　All through the winter they never had met, as if some invincible fatealways had kept them apart.
　　After the failure to find him in her walk to Pors-Even, she had placedsome hope on the /Pardon des Islandais/ where there would be manychances for them to see and talk to one another, in the market-placeat dusk, among the crowd.
　　But on the very morning of the holiday, though the streets werealready draped in white and strewn with green garlands, a hard rainhad fallen in torrents, brought from the west by a soughing wind;never had so black a sky shadowed Paimpol. "What a pity! the boyswon't come over from Ploubazlanec now," had moaned the lasses, whosesweethearts dwelt there. And they did not come, or else had gonestraight into the taverns to drink together.
　　There had been no processions or strolls, and she, with her heartaching more than ever, had remained at her window the whole eveninglistening to the water streaming over the roofs, and the fishers'
　　noisy songs rising and falling out of the depths of the taverns.
　　For the last few days she had been expecting this visit, surmisingtruly that old Gaos would send his son to terminate the businessconcerning the sale of the boat, as he did not care to come intoPaimpol himself. She determined then that she would go straight tohim, and, unlike other girls, speak out frankly, to have herconscience clear on the subject. She would reproach him with havingsought her out and having abandoned her like a man without honour. Ifit were only stubbornness, timidity, his great love for his sailor-life, or simply the fear of a refusal, as Sylvestre had hinted, why,all these objections would disappear, after a frank, fairunderstanding between them. His fond smile might return, which hadcharmed and won her the winter before, and all would be settled. Thishope gave her strength and courage, and sweetened her impatience. Fromafar, things always appear so easy and simple to say and to do.
　　This visit of Yann's fell by chance at a convenient hour. She was surethat her father, who was sitting and smoking, would not get up to walkpart of the way with him; so in the empty passage she might have herexplanation out with him.
　　But now that the time had come, such boldness seemed extreme. The bareidea of looking him face to face at the foot of those stairs, made hertremble; and her heart beat as if it would break. At any moment thedoor below might open, with the squeak she knew so well, to let himout!
　　"No, no, she never would dare; rather would she die of longing andsorrow, than attempt such an act." She already made a few return stepstowards the back of her room, to regain her seat and work. But shestopped again, hesitating and afraid, remembering that to-morrow wasthe sailing day for Iceland, and that this occasion stood alone. Ifshe let it slip by, she would have to wait through months upon monthsof solitude and despair, languishing for his return--losing anotherwhole summer of her life.
　　Below, the door opened--Yann was coming out!
　　Suddenly resolute, she rushed downstairs, and tremblingly stood beforehim.
　　"Monsieur Yann, I--I wish to speak to you, please.""To me, Mademoiselle Gaud?" queried he, lowering his voice andsnatching off his hat.
　　He looked at her fiercely, with a hard expression in his flashingeyes, and his head thrown back, seeming even to wonder if he ought tostop for her at all. With one foot ready to start away, he stoodstraight up against the wall, as if to be as far apart from her aspossible, in the narrow passage, where he felt imprisoned.
　　Paralyzed, she could remember nothing of what she had wished to say;she had not thought he would try and pass on without listening to her.
　　What an affront!
　　"Does our house frighten you, Monsieur Yann?" she asked, in a dry, oddtone--not at all the one she wished to use.
　　He turned his eyes away, looking outside; his cheeks blazed red, arush of blood burned all his face, and his quivering nostrils dilatedwith every breath, keeping time with the heavings of his chest, like ayoung bull's.
　　"The night of the ball," she tried to continue, "when we weretogether, you bade me good-bye, not as a man speaks to an indifferentperson. Monsieur Yann, have you no memory? What have I done to vexyou?"The nasty western breeze blowing in from the street ruffled his hairand the frills of Gaud's /coiffe/, and behind them a door was bangedfuriously. The passage was not meet for talking of serious matters in.
　　After these first phrases, choking, Gaud remained speechless, feelingher head spin, and without ideas. They still advanced towards thestreet door; he seemed so anxious to get away, and she was sodetermined not to be shaken off.
　　Outside the wind blew noisily and the sky was black. A sad livid lightfell upon their faces through the open door. And an opposite neighbourlooked at them: what could the pair be saying to one another in thatpassage together, looking so troubled? What was wrong over at theMevel's?
　　"Nay, Mademoiselle Gaud," he answered at last, turning away with thepowerful grace of a young lion, "I've heard folks talk about us quiteenough already! Nay, Mademoiselle Gaud, for, you see, you are rich,and we are not people of the same class. I am not the fellow to comeafter a 'swell' lady."He went forth on his way. So now all was over for ever and ever. Shehad not even said what she wished in that interview, which had onlymade her seem a very bold girl in his sight. What kind of a fellow wasthis Yann, with his contempt for women, his scorn for money, and alldesirable things?
　　At first she remained fixed to the spot, sick with giddiness, asthings swam around her. One intolerably painful thought suddenlystruck her like a flash of lightning--Yann's comrades, the Icelanders,were waiting for him below in the market-place. What if he were totell them this as a good joke--what a still more odious affront uponher! She quickly returned to her room to watch them through herwindow-curtains.
　　Before the house, indeed, she saw the men assembled, but they weresimply contemplating the weather, which was becoming worse and worse,and discussed the threatening rain.
　　"It'll only be a shower. Let's go in and drink away the time, till itpasses."They poked jokes and laughed loudly over Jeannie Caroff and otherbeauties; but not even one of them looked up at /her/ window. Theywere all joyful, except Yann, who said nothing, and remained grave andsad. He did not go in to drink with them; and without noticing eitherthem or the rain, which had begun to fall, he slowly walked away underthe shower, as if absorbed in his thoughts, crossing the market-placetowards Ploubazlanec.
　　Then she forgave him all, and a feeling of hopeless tenderness for himcame, instead of the bitter disappointment that previously had filledher heart. She sat down and held her head between her hands. Whatcould she do now?
　　Oh! if he had listened only a moment to her, or if he could come intothat room, where they might speak together alone, perhaps all mightyet be arranged. She loved him enough to tell him so to his face. Shewould say to him: "You sought me out when I asked you for nothing; nowI am yours with my whole soul, if you will have me. I don't mind a bitbeing the wife of a fisherman, and yet, if I liked, I need but chooseamong all the young men of Paimpol; but I do love you, because,notwithstanding all, I believe you to be better than others. I'mtolerably well-to-do, and I know I am pretty; although I have lived intowns, I am sure that I am not a spoiled girl, as I never have doneanything wrong; then, if I love you so, why shouldn't you take me?"But all this never would be said except in dreams; it was too late!
　　Yann would not hear her. Try and talk to him a second time? Oh, no!
　　what kind of a creature would he take her then to be? She would ratherdie.
　　Yet to-morrow they would all start for Iceland. The whitish Februarydaylight streamed into her fine room. Chill and lonely she fell uponone of the chairs along the wall. It seemed to her as if the wholeworld were crashing and falling in around her. All things past andpresent were as if buried in a fearful abyss, which yawned on allsides of her. She wished her life would end, and that she were lyingcalm beneath some cold tombstone, where no more pain might touch her.
　　But she had sincerely forgiven him, and no hatred mingled with herdesperate love.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 12
The sea, the gray sea once more, where Yann was gently gliding alongits broad, trackless road, that leads the fishermen every year to theLand of Ice.
　　The day before, when they all had set off to the music of the oldhymns, there blew a brisk breeze from the south, and all the shipswith their outspread sails had dispersed like so many gulls; but thatbreeze had suddenly subsided, and speed had diminished; great fog-banks covered the watery surface.
　　Yann was perhaps quieter than usual. He said that the weather was toocalm, and appeared to excite himself, as if he would drive away somecare that weighed upon him. But he had nothing to do but be carriedserenely in the midst of serene things; only to breathe and lethimself live. On looking out, only the deep gray masses around couldbe seen; on listening, only silence.
　　Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible rumbling, which came frombelow, accompanied by a grinding sensation, as when a brake comes harddown on carriage wheels. The /Marie/ ceased all movement. They hadstruck. Where, and on what? Some bank off the English coast probably.
　　For since overnight they had been able to see nothing, with thosecurtains of mist.
　　The men ran and rushed about, their bustle contrasting strongly withthe sudden rigidity of their ship. How had the /Marie/ come to a stopin that spot? In the midst of that immensity of fluid in this dullweather, seeming to be almost without consistence, she had been seizedby some resistless immovable power hidden beneath the waves; she wastight in its grasp, and might perish there.
　　Who has not seen poor birds caught by their feet in the lime? At firstthey can scarcely believe they are caught; it changes nothing in theiraspect; but they soon are sure that they are held fast, and in dangerof never getting free again. And when they struggle to get free, andthe sticky stuff soils their wings and heads, they gradually assumethat pitiful look of a dumb creature in distress, about to die. Suchwas the case with the /Marie/. At first it did not seem much to beconcerned about; she certainly was careened a little on one side, butit was broad morning, and the weather was fair and calm; one had toknow such things by experience to become uneasy, and understand thatit was a serious matter.
　　The captain was to be pitied. It was his fault, as he had notunderstood exactly where they were. He wrung his hands, saying: "Godhelp us! God help us!" in a voice of despair.
　　Close to them, during a lifting of the fog, they could distinguish aheadland, but not recognize it. But the mists covered it anew, andthey saw it no longer.
　　There was no sail or smoke in sight. They all jostled about, hurryingand knocking the deck lumber over. Their dog Turc, who did not usuallymind the movement of the sea, was greatly affected too by thisincident, these sounds from down below, these heavy wallowings whenthe low swell passed under, and the sudden calm that afterwardsfollowed; he understood that all this was unusual, and hid himselfaway in corners, with his tail between his legs. They got out theboats to carry the kedges and set them firm, and tried to row her outof it by uniting all their forces together upon the tow-lines--a heavypiece of work this, which lasted ten successive hours. So, whenevening came, the poor bark, which had only that morning been so freshand light, looked almost swamped, fouled, and good for nothing. Shehad fought hard, floundered about on all sides, but still remainedthere, fixed as in a dock.
　　Night was overtaking them; the wind and the waves were rising; thingswere growing worse, when, all of a sudden, towards six o'clock, theywere let go clear, and could be off again, tearing asunder the tow-lines, which they had left to keep her head steady. The men wept,rushing about like madmen, cheering from stem to stern--"We're afloat,boys!"They were afloat, with a joy that cannot be described; what it was tofeel themselves going forwards on a buoyant craft again, instead of onthe semi-wreck it was before, none but a seaman feels, and few of themcan tell.
　　Yann's sadness had disappeared too. Like his ship, he became livelyonce more, cured by the healthy manual labour; he had found hisreckless look again, and had thrown off his glum thoughts.
　　Next morning, when the kedges were fished up, the /Marie/ went on herway to Iceland, and Yann's heart, to all appearance, was as free as inhis early years.
Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 13
The home letters were being distributed on board the /Circe/, atanchor at Ha-Long, over on the other side of the earth. In the midstof a group of sailors, the purser called out, in a loud voice, thenames of the fortunate men who had letters to receive. This went on atevening, on the ship's side, all crushing round a funnel.
　　"Moan, Sylvestre!" There was one for him, postmarked "Paimpol," but itwas not Gaud's writing. What did that mean? from whom did it comeelse?
　　After having turned and flourished it about, he opened it fearingly,and read:
　　"PLOUBAZLANEC, March 5th, 1884.
　　"MY DEAR GRANDSON:"So, it was from his dear old granny. He breathed free again. At thebottom of the letter she even had placed her signature, learned byheart, but trembling like a school-girl's scribble: "Widow Moan.""Widow Moan!" With a quick spontaneous movement he carried the paperto his lips and kissed the poor name, as a sacred relic. For thisletter arrived at a critical moment of his life; to-morrow at dawn, hewas to set out for the battlefield.
　　It was in the middle of April; Bac-Ninh and Hong-Hoa had just beentaken. There was no great warfare going on in Tonquin, yet thereinforcements arriving were not sufficient; sailors were taken fromall the ships to make up the deficit in the corps already disembarked.
　　Sylvestre, who had languished so long in the midst of cruises andblockades, had just been selected with some others to fill up thevacancies.
　　It is true that now peace was spoken of, but something told them thatthey yet would disembarck in good time to fight a bit. They packedtheir bags, made all their other preparations, and said good-bye, andall the evening through they strolled about with their unfortunatemates who had to remain, feeling much grander and prouder than they.
　　Each in his own way showed his impression at this departure--some weregrave and serious, others exuberant and talkative.
　　Sylvestre was very quiet and thoughtful, though impatient; only, whenthey looked at him, his smile seemed to say, "Yes, I'm one of thefighting party, and huzza! the action is for to-morrow morning!"Of gunshots and battle he formed but an incomplete idea as yet; butthey fascinated him, for he came of a valiant race.
　　The strange writing of his letter made him anxious about Gaud, and hedrew near a porthole to read the epistle through. It was difficultamid all those half-naked men pressing round, in the unbearable heatof the gundeck.
　　As he thought she would do, in the beginning of her letter Granny Moanexplained why she had had to take recourse to the inexperienced handof an old neighbour:
　　"My dear child, I don't ask your cousin to write for me to-day, asshe is in great trouble. Her father died suddenly two days ago. Itappears that his whole fortune has been lost through unluckygambling last winter in Paris. So his house and furniture willhave to be sold. Nobody in the place was expecting this. I think,dear child, that this will pain you as much as it does me.
　　"Gaos, the son, sends you his kind remembrance; he has renewed hisarticles with Captain Guermeur of the /Marie/, and the departurefor Iceland was rather early this year, for they set sail on thefirst of the month, two days before our poor Gaud's trouble, andhe don't know of it yet.
　　"But you can easily imagine that we shall not get them wed now,for she will be obliged to work for her daily bread."Sylvestre dwelt stupor-stricken; this bad news quite spoiled his gleeat going out to fight.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 1
Hark! a bullet hurtles through the air!
　　Sylvestre stops short to listen!
　　He is upon an infinite meadow, green with the soft velvet carpet ofspring. The sky is gray, lowering, as if to weigh upon one's veryshoulders.
　　They are six sailors reconnoitring among the fresh rice-fields, in amuddy pathway.
　　Hist! again the whizz, breaking the silence of the air--a shrill,continuous sound, a kind of prolonged /zing/, giving one a strongimpression that the pellets buzzing by might have stung fatally.
　　For the first time in his life Sylvestre hears that music. The bulletscoming towards a man have a different sound from those fired byhimself: the far-off report is attenuated, or not heard at all, so itis easier to distinguish the sharp rush of metal as it swiftly passesby, almost grazing one's ears.
　　Crack! whizz! ping! again and yet again! The balls fall in regularshowers now. Close by the sailors they stop short, and are buried inthe flooded soil of the rice-fields, accompanied by a faint splash,like hail falling sharp and swift in a puddle of water.
　　The marines looked at one another as if it was all a piece of odd fun,and said:
　　"Only John Chinaman! pish!"To the sailors, Annamites, Tonquinese, or "Black Flags" are all of thesame Chinese family. It is difficult to show their contempt andmocking rancour, as well as eagerness for "bowling over the beggars,"when they speak of "the Chinese."Two or three bullets are still flying about, more closely grazing;they can be seen bouncing like grasshoppers in the green. The slightshower of lead did not last long.
　　Perfect silence returns to the broad verdant plain, and nowhere cananything be seen moving. The same six are still there, standing on thewatch, scenting the breeze, and trying to discover whence the volleycame. Surely from over yonder, by that clump of bamboos, which lookslike an island of feathers in the plain; behind it several pointedroofs appear half hidden. So they all made for it, their feet slippingor sinking into the soaked soil. Sylvestre runs foremost, on hislonger, more nimble legs.
　　No more buzz of bullets; they might have thought they were dreaming.
　　As in all the countries of the world, some features are the same; thecloudy gray skies and the fresh tints of fields in spring-time, forexample; one could imagine this upon French meadows, and these youngfellows, running merrily over them, playing a very different sportfrom this game of death.
　　But as they approach, the bamboos show the exotic delicacy of theirfoliage, and the village roofs grow sharper in the singularity oftheir curves, and yellow men hidden behind advance to reconnoitre;their flat faces are contracted by fear and spitefulness. Thensuddenly they rush out screaming, and deploy into a long line,trembling, but decided and dangerous.
　　"The Chinese!" shout the sailors again, with their same brave smile.
　　But this time they find that there are a good many--too many; and oneof them turning round perceives other Chinese coming from behind,springing up from the long tall grass.
　　At this moment, young Sylvestre came out grand; his old granny wouldhave been proud to see him such a warrior. Since the last few days hehad altered. His face was bronzed, and his voice strengthened. He wasin his own element here.
　　In a moment of supreme indecision the sailors hit by the bulletsalmost yielded to an impulse of retreat, which would certainly havebeen death to them all; but Sylvestre continued to advance, clubbinghis rifle, and fighting a whole band, knocking them down right andleft with smashing blows from the butt-end. Thanks to him thesituation was reversed; that panic or madness that blindly deceivesall in these leaderless skirmishes had now passed over to the Chineseside, and it was they who began to retreat.
　　It was soon all over; they were fairly taking to their heels. The sixsailors, reloading their repeating rifles, shot them down easily; uponthe grass lay dead bodies by red pools, and skulls were emptying theirbrains into the river.
　　They fled, cowering like leopards. Sylvestre ran after them, althoughhe had two wounds--a lance-thrust in the thigh and a deep gash in hisarm; but feeling nothing save the intoxication of battle, thatunreasoning fever that comes of vigorous blood, gives lofty courage tosimple souls, and made the heroes of antiquity.
　　One whom he was pursuing turned round, and with a spasm of desperateterror took a deliberate aim at him. Sylvestre stopped short, smilingscornfully, sublime, to let him fire, and seeing the direction of theaim, only shifted a little to the left. But with the pressure upon thetrigger the barrel of the Chinese jingal deviated slightly in the samedirection. He suddenly felt a smart rap upon his breast, and in aflash of thought understood what it was, even before feeling any pain;he turned towards the others following, and tried to cry out to themthe traditional phrase of the old soldier, "I think it's all up withme!" In the great breath that he inhaled after having run, to refillhis lungs with air, he felt the air rush in also by a hole in hisright breast, with a horrible gurgling, like the blast in a brokenbellows. In that same time his mouth filled with blood, and a sharppain shot through his side, which rapidly grew worse, until it becameatrocious and unspeakable. He whirled round two or three times, hisbrain swimming too; and gasping for breath through the rising red tidethat choked him, fell heavily in the mud.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 2
　　About a fortnight later, as the sky was darkening at the approach of therains, and the heat more heavily weighed over yellow Tonquin, Sylvestre brought to Hanoi, was sent to Ha-Long, and placed on board a hospital-ship about to return to France.
　　He had been carried about for some time on different stretchers, withintervals of rest at the ambulances. They had done all they could for him;but under the insufficient conditions, his chest had filled with water on thepierced side, and the gurgling air entered through the wound, which wouldnot close up.
　　He had received the military medal, which gave him a moment's joy.
　　But he was no longer the warrior of old--resolute of gait, and steady in hisresounding voice. All that had vanished before the long-suffering andweakening fever. He had become a home-sick boy again; he hardly spokeexcept in answering occasional questions, in a feeble and almost inaudiblevoice. To feel oneself so sick and so far away; to think that it wanted somany days before he could reach home! Would he ever live until then,with his strength ebbing away? Such a terrifying feeling of distancecontinually haunted him and weighed at every wakening; and when, aftera few hours' stupor, he awoke from the sickening pain of his wounds, withfeverish heat and the whistling sound in his pierced bosom, he imploredthem to put him on board, in spite of everything. He was very heavy tocarry into his ward, and without intending it, they gave him some crueljolts on the way.
　　They laid him on one of the iron camp bedsteads placed in rows,hospital fashion, and then he set out in an inverse direction, on his longjourney through the seas. Instead of living like a bird in the full wind ofthe tops, he remained below deck, in the midst of the bad air of medicines,wounds, and misery.
　　During the first days the joy of being homeward bound made him feela little better. He could even bear being propped up in bed with pillows,and at times he asked for his box. His seaman's chest was a deal box,bought in Paimpol, to keep all his loved treasures in; inside were lettersfrom Granny Yvonne, and also from Yann and Gaud, a copy-book intowhich he had copied some sea-songs, and one of the works of Confuciusin Chinese, caught up at random during pillage; on the blank sides of itsleaves he had written the simple account of his campaign.
　　Nevertheless he got no better, and after the first week, the doctorsdecided that death was imminent. They were near the Line now, in thestifling heat of storms. The troop-ship kept on her course, shaking her beds,the wounded and the dying; quicker and quicker she sped over the tossingsea, troubled still as during the sway of the monsoons.
　　Since leaving Ha-Long more than one patient died, and was consignedto the deep water on the high road to France; many of the narrow beds nolonger bore their suffering burdens.
　　Upon this particular day it was very gloomy in the travelling hospital;on account of the high seas it had been necessary to close the iron port-lids,which made the stifling sick-room more unbearable. Sylvestre was worse;the end was nigh. Lying always upon his wounded side, he pressed upon itwith both hands with all his remaining strength, to try and allay the waterydecomposition that rose in his right lung, and to breathe with the otherlung only. But by degrees the other was affected and the ultimate agonyhad begun.
　　Dreams and visions of home haunted his brain; in the hot darkness,beloved or horrible faces bent over him; he was in a never-endinghallucination, through which floated apparitions of Brittany and Iceland.
　　In the morning was called in the priest, and the old man, who was used toseeing sailors die, was astonished to find so pure a soul in so strong andmanly a body.
　　He cried out for air, air! but there was none anywhere; the ventilatorsno long gave any; the attendant, who was fanning him with a Chinese fan,only moved unhealthy vapours over him of sickening staleness, whichrevolted all lungs. Sometimes fierce, desperate fits came over him; hewished to tear himself away from that bed, where he felt death wouldcome to seize him, and rush above into the full fresh wind and try to liveagain. Oh! to be like those others, scrambling about among the rigging,and living among the masts. But his extreme effort only ended in thefeeble lifting of his weakened head; something like the incompletedmovement of a sleeper. He could not manage it, but fell back in the hollowof his crumpled bed, partly chained there by death; and each time, after thefatigue of a like shock, he lost all consciousness.
　　To please him they opened a port at last, although it was dangerous,the sea being very rough. It was going on for six in the evening. When thedisk was swung back, a red light entered, glorious and radiant. The dyingsun appeared upon the horizon in dazzling splendour, through a torn rift ina gloomy sky; its blinding light glanced over the waves, and lit up thefloating hospital, like a waving torch.
　　But no air rushed in; the little there was outside, was powerless toenter and drive before it the fevered atmosphere. Over all sides of thatboundless equatorial sea, floated a warm and heavy moisture, unfit forrespiration. No air on any side, not even for the poor gasping fellows ontheir deathbeds.
　　One vision disturbed him greatly; it was of his old grandmother,walking quickly along a road, with a heartrending look of alarm; fromlow-lying funereal clouds above her, fell the drizzling rain; she was on herway to Paimpol, summoned thither to be informed of his death.
　　He was struggling now, with the death-rattle in his throat. From thecorners of his mouth they sponged away the water and blood, which hadwelled up in quantities from his chest in writhing agony. Still the grand,glorious sun lit up all, like a conflagration of the whole world, with blood-laden clouds; through the aperture of the port-hole, a wide streak ofcrimson fire blazed in, and, spreading over Sylvestre's bed, formed a haloaround him.
　　At that very moment that same sun was to be seen in Brittany, wheremidday was about to strike. It was, indeed, the same sun, beheld at theprecise moment of its never-ending round; but here it kept quite anotherhue. Higher up in the bluish sky, it kept shedding a soft white light ongrandmother Yvonne, sitting out at her door, sewing.
　　In Iceland, too, where it was morning, it was shining at that samemoment of death. Much paler there, it seemed as if it only showed its faceby some miracle. Sadly it shed its rays over the fjord where /La Marie/floated; and now its sky was lit up by a pure northern light, which alwaysgives the idea of a frozen planet's reflection, without an atmosphere. With a cold accuracy, it outlined all the essentials of that stony chaos that isIceland; the whole of the country as seen from /La Marie/ seemed fixed inone same perspective and held upright. Yann was there, lit up by a strangelight, fishing, as usual, in the midst of this lunar-like scenery.
　　As the beam of fiery flame that came through the port-hole faded, andthe sun disappeared completely under the gilded billows, the eyes of thegrandson rolled inward toward his brow as if to fall back into his head.
　　They closed his eyelids with their own long lashes, and Sylvestrebecame calm and beautiful again, like a reclining marble statue of manlyrepose.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 3
I cannot refrain from telling you about Sylvestre's funeral, which Iconducted myself in Singapore. We had thrown enough other dead intothe Sea of China, during the early days of the home voyage; and as theMalay land was quite near, we decided to keep his remains a few hourslonger; to bury him fittingly.
　　It was very early in the morning, on account of the terrible sun. Inthe boat that carried him ashore, his corpse was shrouded in thenational flag. The city was in sleep as we landed. A wagonette, sentby the French Consul, was waiting on the quay; we laid Sylvestre uponit, with a wooden cross made on board--the paint still wet upon it,for the carpenter had to hurry over it, and the white letters of hisname ran into the black ground.
　　We crossed that Babel in the rising sun. And then it was such anemotion to find the serene calm of an European place of worship in themidst of the distasteful turmoil of the Chinese country. Under thehigh white arch, where I stood alone with my sailors, the "/DiesIroe/," chanted by a missionary priest, sounded like a soft magicalincantation. Through the open doors we could see sights that resembledenchanted gardens, exquisite verdure and immense palm-trees, the windshook the large flowering shrubs and their perfumed crimson petalsfell like rain, almost to the church itself. Thence we marched to theceremony, very far off. Our little procession of sailors was veryunpretentious, but the coffin remained conspicuously wrapped in theflag of France. We had to traverse the Chinese quarter, throughseething crowds of yellow men; and then the Malay and Indian suburbs,where all types of Asiatic faces looked upon us with astonishment.
　　Then came the open country already heated; through shady groves whereexquisite butterflies, on velvety blue wings, flitted in masses. Oneither side, waved tall luxuriant palms, and quantities of flowers insplendid profusion. At last we came to the cemetery, with mandarins'
　　tombs and many-coloured inscriptions, adorned with paintings ofdragons and other monsters; amid astounding foliage and plants growingeverywhere. The spot where we laid him down to rest resembled a nookin the gardens of Indra. Into the earth we drove the little woodencross, lettered:
　　SYLVESTRE MOAN,AGED 19.
　　And we left him, forced to go because of the hot rising sun; we turnedback once more to look at him under those marvellous trees and hugenodding flowers.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 4
The trooper continued its course through the Indian Ocean. Down belowin the floating hospital other death-scenes went on. On deck there wascarelessness of health and youth. Round about, over the sea, was avery feast of pure sun and air.
　　In this fine trade-wind weather, the sailors, stretched in the shadeof the sails, were playing with little pet parrots and making them runraces. In this Singapore, which they had just left, the sailors buyall kinds of tame animals. They had all chosen baby parrots, withchildish looks upon their hooknose faces; they had no tails yet; theywere green, of a wonderful shade. As they went running over the cleanwhite planks, they looked like fresh young leaves, fallen fromtropical trees.
　　Sometimes the sailors gathered them all together in one lot, when theyinspected one another funnily; twisting about their throats, to beseen under all aspects. They comically waddled about like so many lamepeople, or suddenly started off in a great hurry for some unknowndestination; and some fell down in their excitement. And there weremonkeys, learning tricks of all kinds, another source of amusement.
　　Some were most tenderly loved and even kissed extravagantly, as theynestled against the callous bosoms of their masters, gazing fondly atthem with womanish eyes, half-grotesque and half-touching.
　　Upon the stroke of three o'clock, the quartermasters brought on decktwo canvas bags, sealed with huge red seals, bearing Sylvestre's name;for by order of the regulations in regard to the dead, all his clothesand personal worldly belongings were to be sold by auction. Thesailors gaily grouped themselves around the pile; for, on board ahospital ship, too many of these sales of effects are seen to exciteany particular emotion. Besides, Sylvestre had been but little knownupon that ship.
　　His jackets and shirts and blue-striped jerseys were fingered andturned over and then bought up at different prices, the buyers forcingthe bidding just to amuse themselves.
　　Then came the turn of the small treasure-box, which was sold for fiftysous. The letters and military medal had been taken out of it, to besent back to the family; but not the book of songs and the work ofConfucious, with the needles, cotton, and buttons, and all the pettyrequisites placed there by the forethought of Granny Moan for sewingand mending.
　　Then the quartermaster who held up the things to be sold drew out twosmall buddhas, taken in some pagoda to give to Gaud, and so funny werethey that they were greeted with a general burst of laughter, whenthey appeared as the last lot. But the sailors laughed, not for wantof heart, but only through thoughtlessness.
　　To conclude, the bags were sold, and the buyer immediately struck outthe name on them to substitute his own.
　　A careful sweep of the broom was afterward given to clear thescrupulously clean deck of the dust and odds and ends, while thesailors returned merrily to play with their parrots and monkeys.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 5
One day, in the first fortnight of June, as old Yvonne was returninghome, some neighbours told her that she had been sent for by theCommissioner from the Naval Registry Office. Of course it concernedher grandson, but that did not frighten her in the least. The familiesof seafarers are used to the Naval Registry, and she, the daughter,wife, mother, and grandmother of seamen, had known that office for thepast sixty years.
　　Doubtless it had to do with his "delegation"; or perhaps there was asmall prize-money account from /La Circe/ to take through her proxy.
　　As she knew what respect was due to "/Monsieur le Commissaire/," sheput on her best gown and a clean white cap, and set out about twoo'clock.
　　Trotting along swiftly on the pathways of the cliff, she nearedPaimpol; and musing upon these two months without letters, she grew abit anxious.
　　She met her old sweetheart sitting out at his door. He had greatlyaged since the appearance of the winter cold.
　　"Eh, eh! When you're ready, you know, don't make any ceremony, mybeauty!" That "suit of deal" still haunted his mind.
　　The joyous brightness of June smiled around her. On the rocky heightsthere still grew the stunted reeds with their yellow blossoms; butpassing into the hollow nooks sheltered against the bitter sea winds,one met with high sweet-smelling grass. But the poor old woman did notsee all this, over whose head so many rapid seasons had passed, whichnow seemed as short as days.
　　Around the crumbling hamlet with its gloomy walls grew roses, pinks,and stocks; and even up on the tops of the whitewashed and mossyroofs, sprang the flowerets that attracted the first "miller"butterflies of the season.
　　This spring-time was almost without love in the land of Icelanders,and the beautiful lasses of proud race, who sat out dreaming on theirdoorsteps, seemed to look far beyond the visible things with theirblue or brown eyes. The young men, who were the objects of theirmelancholy and desires, were remote, fishing on the northern seas.
　　But it was a spring-time for all that--warm, sweet, and troubling,with its buzzing of flies and perfume of young plants.
　　And all this soulless freshness smiled upon the poor old grandmother,who was quickly walking along to hear of the death of her last-borngrandson. She neared the awful moment when this event, which had takenplace in the so distant Chinese seas, was to be told to her; she wastaking that sinister walk that Sylvestre had divined at his death-hour--the sight of that had torn his last agonized tears from him; hisdarling old granny summoned to Paimpol to be told that he was dead!
　　Clearly he had seen her pass along that road, running straight on,with her tiny brown shawl, her umbrella, and large head-dress. Andthat apparition had made him toss and writhe in fearful anguish, whilethe huge, red sun of the Equator, disappearing in its glory, peeredthrough the port-hole of the hospital to watch him die. But he, in hislast hallucination, had seen his old granny moving under a rain-ladensky, and on the contrary a joyous laughing spring-time mocked her onall sides.
　　Nearing Paimpol, she became more and more uneasy, and improved herspeed. Now she is in the gray town with its narrow granite streets,where the sun falls, bidding good-day to some other old women, hercontemporaries, sitting at their windows. Astonished to see her; theysaid: "Wherever is she going so quickly, in her Sunday gown, on aweek-day?""Monsieur le Commissaire" of the Naval Enlistment Office was not injust then. One ugly little creature, about fifteen years old, who washis clerk, sat at his desk. As he was too puny to be a fisher, he hadreceived some education and passed his time in that same chair, in hisblack linen dust-sleeves, scratching away at paper.
　　With a look of importance, when she had said her name, he got up toget the official documents from off a shelf.
　　There were a great many papers--what did it all mean? Parchments,sealed papers, a sailor's record-book, grown yellow on the sea, andover all floated an odour of death. He spread them all out before thepoor old woman, who began to tremble and feel dizzy. She had justrecognized two of the letters which Gaud used to write for her to hergrandson, and which were now returned to her never unsealed. The samething had happened twenty years ago at the death of her son Pierre;the letters had been sent back from China to "Monsieur leCommissaire," who had given them to her thus.
　　Now he was reading out in a consequential voice: "Moan, Jean-Marie-Sylvestre, registered at Paimpol, folio 213, number 2091, died onboard the /Bien Hoa/, on the 14th of ----.""What--what has happened to him, my good sir?""Discharged--dead," he answered.
　　It wasn't because this clerk was unkind, but if he spoke in thatbrutal way, it was through want of judgment, and from lack ofintelligence in the little incomplete being.
　　As he saw that she did not understand that technical expression, hesaid in Breton:
　　"/Marw eo/!""/Marw eo/!" (He is dead.)She repeated the words after him, in her aged tremulous voice, as apoor cracked echo would send back some indifferent phrase. So what shehad partly foreseen was true; but it only made her tremble; now thatit was certain, it seemed to affect her no more. To begin with, herfaculty to suffer was slightly dulled by old age, especially sincethis last winter. Pain did not strike her immediately. Somethingseemed to fall upside down in her brain, and somehow or another shemixed this death up with others. She had lost so many of them before.
　　She needed a moment to grasp that this was her very last one, herdarling, the object of all her prayers, life, and waiting, and of allher thoughts, already darkened by the sombre approach of secondchildhood.
　　She felt a sort of shame at showing her despair before this littlegentleman who horrified her. Was that the way to tell a grandmother ofher darling's death? She remained standing before the desk, stiffened,and tearing the fringes of her brown shawl with her poor aged hands,sore and chapped with washing.
　　How far away she felt from home! Goodness! what a long walk back to begone through, and steadily, too, before nearing the whitewashed hut inwhich she longed to shut herself up, like a wounded beast who hides inits hole to die. And so she tried not to think too much and not tounderstand yet, frightened above all at the long home-journey.
　　They gave her an order to go and take, as the heiress, the thirtyfrancs that came from the sale of Sylvestre's bag; and then theletters, the certificates, and the box containing the military medal.
　　She took the whole parcel awkwardly with open fingers, unable to findpockets to put them in.
　　She went straight through Paimpol, looking at no one, her body bentslightly like one about to fall, with a rushing of blood in her ears;pressing and hurrying along like some poor old machine, which couldnot be wound up, at a great pressure, for the last time, without fearof breaking its springs.
　　At the third mile she went along quite bent in two and exhausted; fromtime to time her foot struck against the stones, giving her a painfulshock up to the very head. She hurried to bury herself in her home,for fear of falling and having to be carried there.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 6
"Old Yvonne's tipsy!" was the cry.
　　She had fallen, and the street children ran after her. It was just atthe boundary of the parish of Ploubazlanec, where many houses stragglealong the roadside. But she had the strength to rise and hobble alongon her stick.
　　"Old Yvonne's tipsy!"The bold little creatures stared her full in the face, laughing. Her/coiffe/ was all awry. Some of these little ones were not reallywicked, and these, when they scanned her closer and saw the senilegrimace of bitter despair, turned aside, surprised and saddened,daring to say nothing more.
　　At home, with the door tightly closed, she gave vent to the deepscream of despair that choked her, and fell down in a corner, her headagainst the wall. Her cap had fallen over her eyes; she threw offroughly what formerly had been so well taken care of. Her Sunday dresswas soiled, and a thin mesh of yellowish white hair strayed frombeneath her cap, completing her pitiful, poverty-stricken disorder.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 7
Thus did Gaud, coming in for news in the evening, find her; her hairdishevelled, her arms hanging down, and her head resting against thestone wall, with a falling jaw grinning, and the plaintive whimper ofa little child; she scarcely could weep any more; these grandmothers,grown too old, have no tears left in their dried-up eyes.
　　"My grandson is dead!" She threw the letters, papers, and medal intoher caller's lap.
　　Gaud quickly scanned the whole, saw the news was true, and fell on herknees to pray. The two women remained there together almost dumb,through the June gloaming, which in Brittany is long but in Iceland isnever-ending. On the hearth the cricket that brings joy was chirpinghis shrill music.
　　The dim dusk entered through the narrow window into the dwelling ofthose Moans, who had all been devoured by the sea, and whose familywas now extinguished.
　　At last Gaud said: "/I'll/ come to you, good granny, to live with you;I'll bring my bed that they've left me, and I'll take care of you andnurse you--you shan't be all alone."She wept, too, for her little friend Sylvestre, but in her sorrow shewas led involuntarily to think of another--he who had gone back to thedeep-sea fishery.
　　They would have to write to Yann and tell him Sylvestre was dead; itwas just now that the fishers were starting. Would he, too, weep forhim? Mayhap he would, for he had loved him dearly. In the midst of herown tears, Gaud thought a great deal of him; now and again waxingwroth against the hard-hearted fellow, and then pitying him at thethought of that pain which would strike him also, and which would beas a link between them both--one way and another, her heart was fullof him.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 8
　　One pale August evening, the letter that announced Yann's brother'sdeath, at length arrived on board the /Marie/, upon the Iceland seas; it wasafter a day of hard work and excessive fatigue, just as they were goingdown to sup and to rest. With eyes heavy with sleep, he read it in theirdark nook below deck, lit by the yellow beam of the small lamp; at thefirst moment he became stunned and giddy, like one dazed out of fairunderstanding. Very proud and reticent in all things concerning thefeelings was Yann, and he hid the letter in his blue jersey, next his breast,without saying anything, as sailors do. But he did not feel the courage tosit down with the others to supper, and disdaining even to explain why, hethrew himself into his berth and fell asleep. Soon he dreamed of Sylvestredead, and of his funeral going by.
　　Towards midnight, being in that state of mind that is peculiar toseaman who are conscious of the time of day in their slumber, and quiteclearly see the hour draw night when to awaken for the watch--he saw thefuneral, and said to himself: "I am dreaming; luckily the mate will comeand wake me up, and the vision will pass away."But when a heavy hand was laid upon him and a voice cried out:
　　"Tumble out, Gaos! watch, boy!" he heard the slight rustling of paper athis breast, a fine ghastly music that affirmed the fact of the death. Yes, theletter! It was true, then? The more cruel, heartrending impressiondeepened, and he jumped up so quickly in his sudden start, that he struckhis forehead against the overhead beam. He dressed and opened thehatchway to go up mechanically and take his place in the fishing.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 9
When Yann was on deck, he looked around him with sleep-laden eyes,over the familiar circle of the sea. That night the illimitableimmensity showed itself in its most astonishingly simple aspects, inneutral tints, giving only the impression of depth. This horizon,which indicated no recognisable region of the earth, or even anygeological age, must have looked so many times the same since theorigin of time, that, gazing upon it, one saw nothing save theeternity of things that exist and cannot help existing.
　　It was not the dead of night, for a patch of light, which seemed toooze from no particular point, dimly lit up the scene. The wind sobbedas usual its aimless wail. All was gray, a fickle gray, which fadedbefore the fixed gaze. The sea, during its mysterious rest, hid itselfunder feeble tints without a name.
　　Above floated scattered clouds; they had assumed various shapes, for,without form, things cannot exist; in the darkness they had blendedtogether, so as to form one single vast veiling.
　　But in one particular spot of the sky, low down on the waters, theyseemed a dark-veined marble, the streaks clearly defined although verydistant; a tender drawing, as if traced by some dreamy hand--somechance effect, not meant to be viewed for long, and indeed hasteningto die away. Even that alone, in the midst of this broad grandeur,appeared to mean something; one might think that the sad, undefinedthought of the nothingness around was written there; and the sightinvoluntarily remained fixed upon it.
　　Yann's dazzled eyes grew accustomed to the outside darkness, and gazedmore and more steadily upon that veining in the sky; it had now takenthe shape of a kneeling figure with arms outstretched. He began tolook upon it as a human shadow rendered gigantic by the distanceitself.
　　In his mind, where his indefinite dreams and primitive beliefs stilllingered, the ominous shadow, crushed beneath the gloomy sky, slowlycoalesced with the thought of his dead brother, as if it were a lasttoken from him.
　　He was used to such strange associations of ideas, that thrive in theminds of children. But words, vague as they may be, are still tooprecise to express those feelings; one would need that uncertainlanguage that comes in dreams, of which upon awakening, one retainsmerely enigmatical, senseless fragments.
　　Looking upon the cloud, he felt a deep anguish, full of unknownmystery, that froze his very soul; he understood full well now thathis poor little brother would never more be seen; sorrow, which hadbeen some time penetrating the hard, rough rind of his heart, nowgushed in and brimmed it over. He beheld Sylvestre again with his softchildish eyes; at the thought of embracing him no more, a veil fellbetween his eyelids and his eyes, against his will; and, at first, hecould not rightly understand what it was--never having wept in all hismanhood. But the tears began to fall heavily and swiftly down hischeeks, and then sobs rent his deep chest.
　　He went on with his fishing, losing no time and speaking to no one,and his two mates, though hearing him in the deep silence, pretendednot to do so, for fear of irritating him, knowing him to be so haughtyand reserved.
　　In his opinion death was the end of it all. Out of respect he oftenjoined in the family prayers for the dead, but he believed in noafter-life of the soul. Between themselves, in their long talks, thesailors all said the same, in a blunt taken-for-granted way, as awell-known fact; but it did not stop them from believing in ghosts,having a vague fear of graveyards, and an unlimited confidence inprotecting saints and images, and above all a deep respect for theconsecrated earth around the churches.
　　So Yann himself feared to be swallowed up by the sea, as if it wouldannihilate him, and the thought of Sylvestre, so far away on the otherside of the earth, made his sorrow more dark and desperate. With hiscontempt for his fellows, he had no shame or constraint in weeping, nomore than if he were alone.
　　Around the boat the chaos grew whiter, although it was only twoo'clock, and at the same time it appeared to spread farther, hollowingin a fearful manner. With that kind of rising dawn, eyes opened wider,and the awakened mind could conceive better the immensity of distance,as the boundaries of visible space receded and widened away.
　　The pale aurora increased, seeming to come in tiny jets with slightshocks; eternal things seemed to light up by sheer transparency, as ifwhite-flamed lamps had slowly been raised up behind the shapeless grayclouds, and held there with mysterious care, for fear of disturbingthe calm, even rest of the sea. Below the horizon that colossal whitelamp was the sun, which dragged itself along without strength, beforetaking its leisurely ascent, which began in the dawn's eye above theocean.
　　On this day, the usual rosy tints were not seen; all remained pale andmournful. On board the gray ship, Yann wept alone. The tears of thefierce elder brother, together with the melancholy of this surroundingwaste, were as mourning, worn in honour of the poor, obscure, younghero, upon these seas of Iceland, where half his life had been passed.
　　When the full light of day appeared, Yann abruptly wiped his eyes withhis sleeve and ceased weeping. That grief was over now. He seemedcompletely absorbed by the work of the fishery, and by the monotonousroutine of substantial deeds, as if he never had thought of anythingelse.
　　The catching went on apace, and there were scant hands for the work.
　　Around about the fishers, in the immense depths, a transformationscene was taking place. The grand opening out of the infinitude, thatgreat wonder of the morning, had finished, and the distance seemed todiminish and close in around them. How was it that before the sea hadseemed so boundless!
　　The horizon was quite clear now, and more space seemed necessary. Thevoid filled in with flecks and streamers that floated above, somevague as mist, others with visibly jagged edges. They fell softly amidan utter silence, like snowy gauze, but fell on all sides together, sothat below them suffocation set in swiftly; it took away the breath tosee the air so thickened.
　　It was the first of the August fogs that was rising. In a few momentsthe winding-sheet became universally dense; all around the /Marie/ awhite damp lay under the light, and in it the mast faded anddisappeared.
　　"Here's the cursed fog now, for sure," grumbled the men. They had longago made the acquaintance of that compulsory companion of the secondpart of the fishing season; but it also announced its end and the timefor returning to Brittany.
　　It condensed into fine, sparkling drops in their beards, and shoneupon their weather-beaten faces. Looking athwart ship to one another,they appeared dim as ghosts; and by comparison, nearer objects wereseen more clearly under the colourless light. They took care not toinhale the air too deeply, for a feeling of chill and wet penetratedthe lungs.
　　But the fishing was going on briskly, so that they had no time left tochatter, and they only thought of their lines. Every moment big heavyfish were drawn in on deck, and slapped down with a smack like a whip-crack; there they wriggled about angrily, flapping their tails on thedeck, scattering plenty of sea-water about, and silvery scales too, inthe course of their death-struggle. The sailor who split them openwith his long knife, sometimes cut his own fingers, in his haste, sothat his warm blood mingled with the brine.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 10
Caught in the fog, they remained ten days in succession without beingable to see anything. The fishing went on handsomely the while, andwith so much to do there was no time for weariness. At regularintervals one of them blew a long fog-horn, whence issued a sound likethe howling of a wild beast.
　　Sometimes, out of the depths of white fog, another bellowing answeredtheir call. Then a sharper watch was kept. If the blasts wereapproaching, all ears were turned in the direction of that unknownneighbour, whom they might perhaps never see, but whose presence wasnevertheless a danger. Conjectures were made about the strange vessel;it became a subject of conversation, a sort of company for them; alllonging to see her, strained their eyes in vain efforts to piercethose impalpable white shrouds.
　　Then the mysterious consort would depart, the bellowing of her trumpetfading away in the distance, and they would remain again in the deephush, amid the infinity of stagnant vapour. Everything was drenchedwith salt water; the cold became more penetrating; each day the suntook longer to sink below the horizon; there were now real nights oneor two hours long, and their gray gloaming was chilly and weird.
　　Every morning they heaved the lead, through fear that the /Marie/might have run too near the Icelandic coast. But all the lines onboard, fastened end to end, were paid out in vain--the bottom couldnot be touched. So they knew that they were well out in blue water.
　　Life on board was rough and wholesome; the comfort in the snug strongoaken cabin below was enhanced by the impression of the piercing coldoutside, when they went down to supper or for rest.
　　In the daytime, these men, who were as secluded as monks, spoke butlittle among themselves. Each held his line, remaining for hours andhours in the same immovable position. They were separated by somethree yards of space, but it ended in not even seeing one another.
　　The calm of the fog dulled the mind. Fishing so lonely, they hummedhome songs, so as not to scare the fish away. Ideas came more slowlyand seldom; they seemed to expand, filling in the space of time,without leaving any vacuum. They dreamed of incoherent and mysteriousthings, as if in slumber, and the woof of their dreams was as airy asfog itself.
　　This misty month of August usually terminated the Iceland season, in aquiet, mournful way. Otherwise the full physical life was the same,filling the sailors' lungs with rustling air and hardening theiralready strong muscles.
　　Yann's usual manner had returned, as if his great grief had notcontinued; watchful and active, quick at his fishing work, a happy-go-lucky temper, like one who had no troubles; communicative at times,but very rarely--and always carrying his head up high, with his oldindifferent, domineering look.
　　At supper in the rough retreat, when they were all seated at table,with their knives busy on their hot plates, he occasionally laughedout as he used to do at droll remarks of his mates. In his inner selfhe perhaps thought of Gaud, to whom, doubtless, Sylvestre had plightedhim in his last hours; and she had become a poor girl now, alone inthe world. And above all, perhaps, the mourning for his belovedbrother still preyed upon his heart. But this heart of his was avirgin wilderness, difficult to explore and little known, where manythings took place unrevealed on the exterior.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 11
One morning, going on three o'clock, while all were dreaming quietlyunder their winding-sheet of fog, they heard something like a clamourof voices--voices whose tones seemed strange and unfamiliar. Those ondeck looked at each other questioningly.
　　"Who's that talking?"Nobody. Nobody had said anything. For that matter, the sounds hadseemed to come from the outer void. Then the man who had charge of thefog-horn, but had been neglecting his duty since overnight, rushed forit, and inflating his lungs to their utmost, sounded with all hismight the long bellow of alarm. It was enough to make a man of ironstart, in such a silence.
　　As if a spectre had been evoked by that thrilling, though deep-tonedroar, a huge unforeseen gray form suddenly arose very loftily andtowered threateningly right beside them; masts, spars, rigging, alllike a ship that had taken sudden shape in the air instantly, just asa single beam of electric light evokes phantasmagoria on the screen ofa magic lantern.
　　Men appeared, almost close enough to touch them, leaning over thebulwarks, staring at them with eyes distended in the awakening ofsurprise and dread.
　　The /Marie's/ men rushed for oars, spars, boat-hooks, anything theycould lay their hands on for fenders, and held them out to shove offthat grisly thing and its impending visitors. Lo! these others,terrified also, put out large beams to repel them likewise.
　　But there came only a very faint creaking in the topmasts, as bothstanding gears momentarily entangled became disentangled without theleast damage; the shock, very gentle in such a calm had been almostwholly deadened; indeed, it was so feeble that it really seemed as ifthe other ship had no substance, that it was a mere pulp, almostwithout weight.
　　When the fright was over, the men began to laugh; they had recognisedeach other.
　　"/La Marie/, ahoy! how are ye, lads?""Halloa! Gaos, Laumec, Guermeur!"The spectre ship was the /Reine-Berthe/, also of Paimpol, and so thesailors were from neighbouring villages; that thick, tall fellow withthe huge, black beard, showing his teeth when he laughed, wasKerjegou, one of the Ploudaniel boys, the others were from Plounes orPlounerin.
　　"Why didn't you blow your fog-horn, and be blowed to you, you herd ofsavages?" challenged Larvoer of the /Reine-Berthe/.
　　"If it comes to that, why didn't you blow yours, you crew of pirates--you rank mess of toad-fish?""Oh, no! with us, d'ye see, the sea-law differs. /We're forbidden tomake any noise!/"He made this reply with the air of giving a dark hint, and a queersmile, which afterward came back to the memory of the men of the/Marie/, and caused them a great deal of thinking. Then, as if hethought he had said too much, he concluded with a joke:
　　"Our fog-horn, d'ye see, was burst by this rogue here a-blowing toohard into it." He pointed to a sailor with a face like a Triton, a manall bull-neck and chest, extravagantly broad-shouldered, low-set uponhis legs, with something unspeakably grotesque and unpleasant in thedeformity of strength.
　　While they were looking at each other, waiting for breeze orundercurrent to move one vessel faster than the other and separatethem, a general palaver began. Leaning over the side, but holding eachother off at a respectable distance with their long wooden props, likebesieged pikemen repelling an assault, they began to chat about home,the last letters received, and sweethearts and wives.
　　"I say! my old woman," said Kerjegou, "tells me she's had the littleboy we were looking for; that makes half-score-two now!"Another had found himself the father of twins; and a third announcedthe marriage of pretty Jenny Caroff, a girl well known to all theIcelanders, with some rich and infirm old resident of the Commune ofPlourivo. As they were eyeing each other as if through white gauze,this also appeared to alter the sound of the voices, which came as ifmuffled and from far away.
　　Meanwhile Yann could not take his eyes off one of those brotherfishermen, a little grizzled fellow, whom he was quite sure he neverhad seen before, but who had, nevertheless, straightway said to him,"How d'o, long Yann?" with all the familiarity of bosom acquaintance.
　　He wore the provoking ugliness of a monkey, with an apish twinkling ofmischief too in his piercing eyes.
　　"As for me," said Larvoer, of the /Reine-Berthe/, "I've been told ofthe death of the grandson of old Yvonne Moan, of Ploubazlanec--who wasserving his time in the navy, you know, in the Chinese squadron--avery great pity."On hearing this, all the men of /La Marie/ turned towards Yann tolearn if he already knew anything of the sad news.
　　"Ay," he answered in a low voice, but with an indifferent and haughtyair, "it was told me in the last letter my father sent me." They stillkept on looking at him, curious at finding out the secret of hisgrief, and it made him angry.
　　These questions and answers were rapidly exchanged through the pallidmists, so the moments of this peculiar colloquy skipped swiftly by.
　　"My wife wrote me at the same time," continued Larvoer, "that MonsieurMevel's daughter has left the town to live at Ploubazlanec and takecare of her old grand-aunt--Granny Moan. She goes out to needlework bythe day now--to earn her living. Anyhow, I always thought, I did, thatshe was a good, brave girl, in spite of her fine-lady airs and herfurbelows."Then again they all stared at Yann, which made him still more angry; ared flush mounted to his cheeks, under their tawny tan.
　　With Larvoer's expression of opinion about Gaud ended this parley withthe crew of the /Reine-Berthe/, none of whom were ever again to beseen by human eyes. For a moment their faces became more dim, theirvessel being already farther away; and then, all at once, the men ofthe /Marie/ found they had nothing to push against, nothing at the endof their poles--all spars, oars, odds and ends of deck-lumber, weregroping and quivering in emptiness, till they fell heavily, one afterthe other, down into the sea, like their own arms, lopped off andinert.
　　They pulled all the useless defences on board. The /Reine-Berthe/,melting away into the thick fog, had disappeared as suddenly as apainted ship in a dissolving view. They tried to hail her, but theonly response was a sort of mocking clamour--as of many voices--endingin a moan, that made them all stare at each other in surprise.
　　This /Reine-Berthe/ did not come back with the other Icelandicfishers; and as the men of the /Samuel-Azenide/ afterward picked up insome fjord an unmistakable waif (part of her taffrail with a bit ofher keel), all ceased to hope; in the month of October the names ofall her crew were inscribed upon black slabs in the church.
　　From the very time of that apparition--the date of which was wellremembered by the men of the /Marie/--until the time of their return,there had been no really dangerous weather on the Icelandic seas, buta great storm from the west had, three weeks before, swept severalsailors overboard, and swallowed up two vessels. The men rememberedLarvoer's peculiar smile, and putting things together many strangeconjectures were made. In the dead of night, Yann, more than once,dreamed that he again saw the sailor who blinked like an ape, and someof the men of the /Marie/ wondered if, on that remembered morning,they had not been talking with ghosts.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 12
Summer advanced, and, at the end of August, with the first autumnalmists, the Icelanders came home.
　　For the last three months the two lone women had lived together atPloubazlanec in the Moan's cottage. Gaud filled a daughter's place inthe poor birthplace of so many dead sailors. She had sent hither allthat remained from the sale of her father's house; her grand bed inthe town fashion, and her fine, different coloured dresses. She hadmade herself a plainer black dress, and like old Yvonne, wore amourning cap, of thick white muslin, adorned merely with simpleplaits. Every day she went out sewing at the houses of the rich peoplein the town, and returned every evening without being detained on herway home by any sweetheart. She had remained as proud as ever, and wasstill respected as a fine lady; and as the lads bade her good-night,they always raised a hand to their caps.
　　Through the sweet evening twilight, she walked home from Paimpol, allalong the cliff road inhaling the fresh, comforting sea air. Constantsitting at needlework had not deformed her like many others, who arealways bent in two over their work--and she drew up her beautifulsupple form perfectly erect in looking over the sea, fairly across towhere Yann was it seemed.
　　The same road led to his home. Had she walked on much farther, towardsa well-known rocky windswept nook, she would come to that hamlet ofPors-Even, where the trees, covered with gray moss, grew crampedlybetween the stones, and are slanted over lowly by the western gales.
　　Perhaps she might never more return there, although it was only aleague away; but once in her lifetime she had been there, and that wasenough to cast a charm over the whole road; and, besides, Yann wouldcertainly often pass that way, and she could fancy seeing him upon thebare moor, stepping between the stumpy reeds.
　　She loved the whole region of Ploubazlanec, and was almost happy thatfate had driven her there; she never could have become resigned tolive in any other place.
　　Towards this end of August, a southern warmth, diffusing languor,rises and spreads towards the north, with luminous afterglows andstray rays from a distant sun, which float over the Breton seas. Oftenthe air is calm and pellucid, without a single cloud on high.
　　At the hour of Gaud's return journey, all things had already begun tofade in the nightfall, and become fused into close, compact groups.
　　Here and there a clump of reeds strove to make way between stones,like a battle-torn flag; in a hollow, a cluster of gnarled treesformed a dark mass, or else some straw-thatched hamlet indented themoor. At the cross-roads the images of Christ on the cross, whichwatch over and protect the country, stretched out their black arms ontheir supports like real men in torture; in the distance the Channelappeared fair and calm, one vast golden mirror, under the alreadydarkened sky and shade-laden horizon.
　　In this country even the calm fine weather was a melancholy thing;notwithstanding, a vague uneasiness seemed to hover about; a palpabledread emanating from the sea to which so many lives are intrusted, andwhose everlasting threat only slumbered.
　　Gaud sauntered along as in a dream, and never found the way longenough. The briny smell of the shore, and a sweet odour of floweretsgrowing along the cliffs amid thorny bushes, perfumed the air. Had itnot been for Granny Yvonne waiting for her at home, she would haveloitered along the reed-strewn paths, like the beautiful ladies instories, who dream away the summer evenings in their fine parks.
　　Many thoughts of her early childhood came back to her as she passedthrough the country; but they seemed so effaced and far away now,eclipsed by her love looming up between.
　　In spite of all, she went on thinking of Yann as engaged in a degree--a restless, scornful betrothed, whom she never would really have, butto whom she persisted in being faithful in mind, without speakingabout it to any one. For the time, she was happy to know that he wasoff Iceland; for there, at least, the sea would keep him lonely in herdeep cloisters, and he would belong to no other woman.
　　True, he would return one of these days, but she looked upon thatreturn more calmly than before. She instinctively understood that herpoverty would not be a reason for him to despise her; for he was notas other men. Moreover, the death of poor Sylvestre would draw themcloser together. Upon his return, he could not do otherwise than cometo see his friend's old granny; and Gaud had decided to be present atthat visit; for it did not seem to her that it would be undignified.
　　Appearing to remember nothing, she would talk to him as to a long-known friend; she would even speak with affection, as was due toSylvestre's brother, and try to seem easy and natural. And who knows?
　　Perhaps it would not be impossible to be as a sister to him, now thatshe was so lonely in the world; to rely upon his friendship, even toask it as a support, with enough preliminary explanation for him notto accuse her of any after-thought of marriage.
　　She judged him to be untamed and stubborn in his independent ideas,yet tender and loyal, and capable of understanding the goodness thatcomes straight from the heart.
　　How would he feel when he met her again, in her poor ruined home?
　　Very, very poor she was--for Granny Moan was not strong enough now togo out washing, and only had her small widow's pension left; granted,she ate but little, and the two could still manage to live, notdependent upon others.
　　Night was always fallen when she arrived home; before she could entershe had to go down a little over the worn rocks, for the cottage wasplaced on an incline towards the beach, below the level of thePloubazlanec roadside. It was almost hidden under its thick brownstraw thatch, and looked like the back of some huge beast, shrunk downunder its bristling fur. Its walls were sombre and rough like therocks, but with tiny tufts of green moss and lichens over them. Therewere three uneven steps before the threshold, and the inside latch wasopened by a length of rope-yarn run through a hole. Upon entering, thefirst thing to be seen was the window, hollowed out through the wallas in the substance of a rampart, and giving view of the sea, whenceinflowed a dying yellow light. On the hearth burned brightly thesweet-scented branches of pine and beechwood that old Yvonne used topick up along the way, and she herself was sitting there, seeing totheir bit of supper; indoors she wore a kerchief over her head to saveher cap. Her still beautiful profile was outlined in the red flame ofher fire. She looked up at Gaud. Her eyes, which formerly were brown,had taken a faded look, and almost appeared blue; they seemed nolonger to see, and were troubled and uncertain with old age. Each dayshe greeted Gaud with the same words:
　　"Oh, dear me! my good lass, how late you are to-night!""No, Granny," answered Gaud, who was used to it. "This is the sametime as other days.""Eh? It seemed to me, dear, later than usual."They sat down to supper at their table, which had almost becomeshapeless from constant use, but was still as thick as the generousslice of a huge oak. The cricket began its silver-toned music again.
　　One of the sides of the cottage was filled up by roughly sculptured,worm-eaten woodwork, which had an opening wherein were set thesleeping bunks, where generations of fishers had been born, and wheretheir aged mothers had died.
　　Quaint old kitchen utensils hung from the black beams, as well asbunches of sweet herbs, wooden spoons, and smoked bacon; fishing-nets,which had been left there since the shipwreck of the last Moans, theirmeshes nightly bitten by the rats.
　　Gaud's bed stood in an angle under its white muslin draperies; itseemed like a very fresh and elegant modern invention brought into thehut of a Celt.
　　On the granite wall hung a photograph of Sylvestre in his sailorclothes. His grandmother had fixed his military medal to it, with hisown pair of those red cloth anchors that French men-of-wars-men wearon their right sleeve; Gaud had also brought one of those funerealcrowns, of black and white beads, placed round the portraits of thedead in Brittany. This represented Sylvestre's mausoleum, and was allthat remained to consecrate his memory in his own land.
　　On summer evenings they did not sit up late, to save the lights; whenthe weather was fine, they sat out a while on a stone bench before thedoor, and looked at passers-by in the road, a little over their heads.
　　Then old Yvonne would lie down on her cupboard shelf; and Gaud on herfine bed, would fall asleep pretty soon, being tired out with herday's work, and walking, and dreaming of the return of the Icelanders.
　　Like a wise, resolute girl, she was not too greatly apprehensive.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 13
But one day in Paimpol, hearing that /La Marie/ had just got in, Gaudfelt possessed with a kind of fever. All her quiet composuredisappeared; she abruptly finished up her work, without quite knowingwhy, and set off home sooner than usual.
　　Upon the road, as she hurried on, she recognised /him/, at somedistance off, coming towards her. She trembled and felt her strengthgiving way. He was now quite close, only about twenty steps off, hishead erect and his hair curling out from beneath his fisher's cap. Shewas so taken by surprise at this meeting, that she was afraid shemight fall, and then he would understand all; she would die of veryshame at it. She thought, too, she was not looking well, but weariedby the hurried work. She would have done anything to be hidden awayunder the reeds or in one of the ferret-holes.
　　He also had taken a backward step, as if to turn in another direction.
　　But it was too late now. Both met in the narrow path. Not to touchher, he drew up against the bank, with a side swerve like a skittishhorse, looking at her in a wild, stealthy way.
　　She, too, for one half second looked up, and in spite of herselfmutely implored him, with an agonized prayer. In that involuntarymeeting of their eyes, swift as the firing of a gun, these gray pupilsof hers had appeared to dilate and light up with some grand noblethought, which flashed forth in a blue flame, while the blood rushedcrimson even to her temples beneath her golden tresses.
　　As he touched his cap he faltered. "Wish you good-day, MademoiselleGaud.""Good-day, Monsieur Yann," she answered.
　　That was all. He passed on. She went on her way, still quivering, butfeeling, as he disappeared, that her blood was slowly circulatingagain and her strength returning.
　　At home, she found Granny Moan crouching in a corner with her headheld between her hands, sobbing with her childish "he, he!" her hairdishevelled and falling from beneath her cap like thin skeins of grayhemp.
　　"Oh, my kind Gaud! I've just met young Gaos down by Plouherzel as Icame back from my wood-gathering; we spoke of our poor lad, of course.
　　They arrived this morning from Iceland, and in the afternoon he cameover to see me while I was out. Poor lad, he had tears in his eyes,too. He came right up to my door, my kind Gaud, to carry my littlefagot."She listened, standing, while her heart seemed almost to break; sothis visit of Yann's, upon which she had so much relied for saying somany things, was already over, and would doubtless not occur again. Itwas all done. Her poor heart seemed more lonely than ever. Her miseryharder, and the world more empty; and she hung her head with a wilddesire to die.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 14
Slowly the winter drew nigh, and spread over all like a shroudleisurely drawn. Gray days followed one another, but Yann appeared nomore, and the two women lived on in their loneliness. With the cold,their daily existence became harder and more expensive.
　　Old Yvonne was difficult to tend, too; her poor mind was going. Shegot into fits of temper now, and spoke wicked, insulting speeches onceor twice every week; it took her so, like a child, about merenothings.
　　Poor old granny! She was still so sweet in her lucid days, that Gauddid not cease to respect and cherish her. To have always been so goodand to end by being bad, and show towards the close a depth of maliceand spitefulness that had slumbered during her whole life, to use awhole vocabulary of coarse words that she had hidden; what mockery ofthe soul! what a derisive mystery! She began to sing, too, which wasstill more painful to hear than her angry words, for she mixedeverything up together--the /oremus/ of a mass with refrains of loosesongs heard in the harbour from wandering sailors. Sometimes she sang"/Les Fillettes de Paimpol/" (The Lasses of Paimpol), or, nodding herhead and beating time with her foot, she would mutter:
　　"Mon mari vient de partir;Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir,Il m'a laissee sans le sou,Mais--trala, trala la lou,J'en gagne, j'en gagne."(My husband went off sailingUpon the Iceland cruise,But never left me money,Not e'en a couple sous.
　　But--ri too loo! ri tooral loo!
　　I know what to do!)She always stopped short, while her eyes opened wide with a lifelessexpression, like those dying flames that suddenly flash out beforefading away. She hung her head and remained speechless for a greatlength of time, her lower jaw dropping as in the dead.
　　One day she could remember nothing of her grandson. "Sylvestre?
　　Sylvestre?" repeated she, wondering whom Gaud meant; "oh! my dear,d'ye see, I've so many of them, that now I can't remember theirnames!"So saying she threw up her poor wrinkled hands, with a careless,almost contemptuous toss. But the next day she remembered him quitewell; mentioning several things he had said or done, and that wholeday long she wept.
　　Oh! those long winter evenings when there was not enough wood fortheir fire; to work in the bitter cold for one's daily bread, sewinghard to finish the clothes brought over from Paimpol.
　　Granny Yvonne, sitting by the hearth, remained quiet enough, her feetstuck in among the smouldering embers, and her hands clasped beneathher apron. But at the beginning of the evening, Gaud always had totalk to her to cheer her a little.
　　"Why don't ye speak to me, my good girl? In my time I've known manygirls who had plenty to say for themselves. I don't think it 'ud seemso lonesome, if ye'd only talk a bit."So Gaud would tell her chit-chat she had heard in town, or spoke ofthe people she had met on her way home, talking of things that werequite indifferent to her, as indeed all things were now; and stoppingin the midst of her stories when she saw the poor old woman wasfalling asleep.
　　There seemed nothing lively or youthful around her, whose fresh youthyearned for youth. Her beauty would fade away, lonely and barren. Thewind from the sea came in from all sides, blowing her lamp about, andthe roar of the waves could be heard as in a ship. Listening, theever-present sad memory of Yann came to her, the man whose dominionwas these battling elements; through the long terrible nights, whenall things were unbridled and howling in the outer darkness, shethought of him with agony.
　　Always alone as she was, with the sleeping old granny, she sometimesgrew frightened and looked in all dark corners, thinking of thesailors, her ancestors, who had lived in these nooks, but perished inthe sea on such nights as these. Their spirits might possibly return;and she did not feel assured against the visit of the dead by thepresence of the poor old woman, who was almost as one of them herself.
　　Suddenly she shivered from head to foot, as she heard a thin, crackedvoice, as if stifled under the earth, proceed from the chimney corner.
　　In a chirping tone, which chilled her very soul, the voice sang:
　　"Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir,Il m'a laissee sans le sou,Mais--trala, trala la lou!"Then she was seized with that peculiar terror that one has of madpeople.
　　The rain fell with an unceasing, fountain-like gush, and streamed downthe walls outside. There were oozings of water from the old moss-grownroof, which continued dropping on the self-same spots with amonotonous sad splash. They even soaked through into the floor inside,which was of hardened earth studded with pebbles and shells.
　　Dampness was felt on all sides, wrapping them up in its chill masses;an uneven, buffeting dampness, misty and dark, and seeming to isolatethe scattered huts of Ploubazlanec still more.
　　But the Sunday evenings were the saddest of all, because of therelative gaiety in other homes on that day, for there are joyfulevenings even among those forgotten hamlets of the coast; here andthere, from some closed-up hut, beaten about by the inky rains,ponderous songs issued. Within, tables were spread for drinkers;sailors sat before the smoking fire, the old ones drinking brandy andthe young ones flirting with the girls; all more or less intoxicatedand singing to deaden thought. Close to them, the great sea, theirtomb on the morrow, sang also, filling the vacant night with itsimmense profound voice.
　　On some Sundays, parties of young fellows who came out of the tavernsor back from Paimpol, passed along the road, near the door of theMoans; they were such as lived at the land's end of Pors-Even way.
　　They passed very late, caring little for the cold and wet, accustomedas they were to frost and tempests. Gaud lent her ear to the medley oftheir songs and shouts--soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or thebreakers--trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feelingstrangely perplexed if she thought she had heard it.
　　It really was too unkind of Yann not to have returned to see themagain, and to lead so gay a life so soon after the death of Sylvestre;all this was unlike him. No, she really could not understand him now,but in spite of all she could not forget him or believe him to bewithout heart.
　　The fact was that since his return he had been leading a mostdissipated life indeed. Three or four times, on the Ploubazlanec road,she had seen him coming towards her, but she was always quick enoughto shun him; and he, too, in those cases, took the opposite directionover the heath. As if by mutual understanding, now, they fled fromeach other.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 15
At Paimpol lives a large, stout woman named Madame Tressoleur. In oneof the streets that lead to the harbour she keeps a tavern, well knownto all the Icelanders, where captains and ship-owners come to engagetheir sailors, and choose the strongest among them, men and mastersall drinking together.
　　At one time she had been beautiful, and was still jolly with thefishers; she has a mustache, is as broad built as a Dutchman, and asbold and ready of speech as a Levantine. There is a look of thedaughter of the regiment about her, notwithstanding her ample nun-likemuslin headgear; for all that, a religious halo of its sort floatsaround her, for the simple reason that she is a Breton born.
　　The names of all the sailors of the country are written in her head asin a register; she knows them all, good or bad, and knows exactly,too, what they earn and what they are worth.
　　One January day, Gaud, who had been called in to make a dress, satdown to work in a room behind the tap-room.
　　To go into the abode of our Madame Tressoleur, you enter by a broad,massive-pillared door, which recedes in the olden style under thefirst floor. When you go to open this door, there is always someobliging gust of wind from the street that pushes it in, and the new-comers make an abrupt entrance, as if carried in by a beach roller.
　　The hall is adorned by gilt frames, containing pictures of ships andwrecks. In an angle a china statuette of the Virgin is placed on abracket, between two bunches of artificial flowers.
　　These olden walls must have listened to many powerful songs ofsailors, and witnessed many wild gay scenes, since the first far-offdays of Paimpol--all through the lively times of the privateers, up tothese of the present Icelanders, so very little different from theirancestors. Many lives of men have been angled for and hooked there, onthe oaken tables, between two drunken bouts.
　　While she was sewing the dress, Gaud lent her ear to the conversationgoing on about Iceland, behind the partition, between MadameTressoleur and two old sailors, drinking. They were discussing a newcraft that was being rigged in the harbour. She never would be readyfor the next season, so they said of this /Leopoldine/.
　　"Oh, yes, to be sure she will!" answered the hostess. "I tell 'ee thecrew was all made up yesterday--the whole of 'em out of the old/Marie/ of Guermeur's, that's to be sold for breaking up; five youngfellows signed their engagement here before me, at this here table,and with my own pen--so ye see, I'm right! And fine fellows, too, Ican tell 'ee; Laumec, Tugdual Caroff, Yvon Duff, young Keraez fromTreguier, and long Yann Gaos from Pors-Even, who's worth any three on'em!"The /Leopoldine/! The half-heard name of the ship that was to carryYann away became suddenly fixed in her brain, as if it had beenhammered in to remain more ineffaceably there.
　　At night back again at Ploubazlanec, and finishing off her work by thelight of her pitiful lamp, that name came back to her mind, and itsvery sound impressed her as a sad thing. The names of vessels, as ofthings, have a significance in themselves--almost a particular meaningof their own. The new and unusual word haunted her with an unnaturalpersistency, like some ghastly and clinging warning. She had expectedto see Yann start off again on the /Marie/, which she knew so well andhad formerly visited, and whose Virgin had so long protected itsdangerous voyages; and the change to the /Leopoldine/ increased heranguish.
　　But she told herself that that was not her concern, and nothing abouthim ought ever to affect her. After all, what could it matter to herwhether he were here or there, on this ship or another, ashore or not?
　　Would she feel less miserable with him back in Iceland, when thesummer would return over the deserted cottages, and lonely anxiouswomen--or when a new autumn came again, bringing home the fishers oncemore? All that was alike indifferent to her, equally without joy orhope. There was no link between them now, nothing ever to bring themtogether, for was he not forgetting even poor little Sylvestre? So,she had plainly to understand that this sole dream of her life wasover for ever; she had to forget Yann, and all things appertaining tohis existence, even the very name of Iceland, which still vibrated inher with so painful a charm--because of him all such thoughts must beswept away. All was indeed over, for ever and ever.
　　She tenderly looked over at the poor old woman asleep, who stillrequired all her attention, but who would soon die. Then, what wouldbe the good of living and working after that; of what use would shebe?
　　Out of doors, the western wind had again risen; and, notwithstandingits deep distant soughing, the soft regular patter of the eaves-droppings could be heard as they dripped from the roof. And so thetears of the forsaken one began to flow--tears running even to herlips to impart their briny taste, and dropping silently on her work,like summer showers brought by no breeze, but suddenly falling,hurried and heavy, from the over-laden clouds; as she could no longersee to work, and she felt worked out and discouraged before this greathollowness of her life, she folded up the extra-sized body of MadameTressoleur and went to bed.
　　She shivered upon that fine, grand bed, for, like all things in thecottage, it seemed also to be getting colder and damper. But as shewas very young, although she still continued weeping, it ended by hergrowing warm and falling asleep.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 16
Other sad weeks followed on, till it was early February, fine,temperate weather. Yann had just come from his shipowner's where hehad received his wages for the last summer's fishery, fifteen hundredfrancs, which, according to the custom of the family, he carried tohis mother. The catch had been a good one, and he returned wellpleased.
　　Nearing Ploubazlanec, he spied a crowd by the side of the road. An oldwoman was gesticulating with her stick, while the street boys mockedand laughed around her. It was Granny Moan. The good old granny whomSylvestre had so tenderly loved--her dress torn and bedraggled--hadnow become one of those poor old women, almost fallen back in secondchildhood, who are followed and ridiculed along their roads. The sighthurt him cruelly.
　　The boys of Ploubazlanec had killed her cat, and she angrily anddespairingly threatened them with her stick. "Ah, if my poor lad hadonly been here! for sure, you'd never dared do it, you young rascals!"It appeared that as she ran after them to beat them, she had fallendown; her cap was awry, and her dress covered with mud; they calledout that she was tipsy (as often happens to those poor old "grizzling"people in the country who have met misfortune).
　　But Yann clearly knew that that was not true, and that she was a veryrespectable old woman, who only drank water.
　　"Aren't you ashamed?" roared he to the boys.
　　He was very angry, and his voice and tone frightened them, so that inthe twinkling of an eye they all took flight, frightened and confusedbefore "Long Gaos."Gaud, who was just returning from Paimpol, bringing home her work forthe evening, had seen all this from afar, and had recognised Granny inthe group. She eagerly rushed forward to learn what the matter was,and what they had done to her; seeing the cat, she understood it all.
　　She lifted up her frank eyes to Yann, who did not look aside; neitherthought of avoiding each other now; but they both blushed deeply andthey gazed rather startled at being so near one another; but withouthatred, almost with affection, united as they were in this commonimpulse of pity and protection.
　　The school-children had owed a grudge to the poor dead grimalkin forsome time, because he had a black, satanic look; though he was reallya very good cat, and when one looked closely at him, he was soft andcaress-inviting of coat. They had stoned him to death, and one of hiseyes hung out. The poor old woman went on grumbling, shaking withemotion, and carrying her dead cat by the tail, like a dead rabbit.
　　"Oh, dear, oh, dear! my poor boy, my poor lad, if he were only here;for sure, they'd never dared a-do it."Tears were falling down in her poor wrinkles; and her rough blue-veined hands trembled.
　　Gaud had put her cap straight again, and tried to comfort her withsoothing words. Yann was quite indignant to think that little childrencould be so cruel as to do such a thing to a poor aged woman and herpet. Tears almost came into his eyes, and his heart ached for the poorold dame as he thought of Sylvestre, who had loved her so dearly, andthe terrible pain it would have been to him to see her thus, underderision and in misery.
　　Gaud excused herself as if she were responsible for her state. "Shemust have fallen down," she said in a low voice; " 'tis true her dressisn't new, for we're not very rich, Monsieur Yann; but I mended itagain only yesterday, and this morning when I left home I'm sure shewas neat and tidy."He looked at her steadfastly, more deeply touched by that simpleexcuse than by clever phrases or self-reproaches and tears. Side byside they walked on to the Moans' cottage. He always had acknowledgedher to be lovelier than any other girl, but it seemed to him that shewas even more beautiful now in her poverty and mourning. She wore agraver look, and her gray eyes had a more reserved expression, andnevertheless seemed to penetrate to the inner depth of the soul. Herfigure, too, was thoroughly formed. She was twenty-three now, in thefull bloom of her loveliness. She looked like a genuine fisher'sdaughter, too, in her plain black gown and cap; yet one could notprecisely tell what gave her that unmistakable token of the lady; itwas involuntary and concealed within herself, and she could not beblamed for it; only perhaps her bodice was a trifle nicer fitting thanthe others, though from sheer inborn taste, and showed to advantageher rounded bust and perfect arms. But, no! the mystery was revealedin her quiet voice and look.
Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 17
It was manifest that Yann meant to accompany them; perhaps all the wayhome. They walked on, all three together, as if following the cat'sfuneral procession; it was almost comical to watch them pass; and theold folks on the doorsteps grinned at the sight. Old Yvonne, in themiddle, carried the dead pet; Gaud walked on her right, trembling andblushing, and tall Yann on the left, grave and haughty.
　　The aged woman had become quiet now; she had tidied her hair upherself and walked silently, looking alternately at them both from thetail of her eyes, which had become clear again.
　　Gaud said nothing for fear of giving Yann the opportunity of takinghis leave; she would have liked to feel his kind, tender eyeseternally on her, and to walk along with her own closed so as to thinkof nothing else; to wander along thus by his side in the dream she wasweaving, instead of arriving so soon at their lonely, dark cottage,where all must fade away.
　　At the door occurred one of those moments of indecision when the heartseems to stop beating. The grandam went in without turning round, thenGaud, hesitating, and Yann, behind, entered, too.
　　He was in their house for the first time in his life--probably withoutany reason. What could he want? As he passed over the threshold hetouched his hat, and then his eyes fell and dwelt upon Sylvestre'sportrait in its small black-beaded frame. He went slowly up to it, asto a tomb.
　　Gaud remained standing with her hands resting on the table. He lookedaround him; she watched him take a silent inspection of their poverty.
　　Very poor looked this cottage of the two forsaken women. At least hemight feel some pity for her, seeing her reduced to this misery insideits plain granite and whitewash. Only the fine white bed remained ofall past splendour, and involuntarily Yann's eyes rested there.
　　He said nothing. Why did he not go? The old grandmother, althoughstill so sharp in her lucid intervals, appeared not to notice him. Howodd! So they remained over against one another, seeming respectivelyto question with a yearning desire. But the moments were flitting, andeach second seemed to emphasize the silence between them. They gazedat one another more and more searchingly, as if in solemn expectationof some wonderful, exquisite event, which was too long in coming.
　　"Gaud," he began, in a low grave voice, "if you're still of a mindnow----"What was he going to say? She felt instinctively that he had suddenlytaken a mighty resolution--rapidly as he always did, but hardly daredword it.
　　"If you be still of a mind--d'ye see, the fish has sold well thisyear, and I've a little money ahead----""If she were still of a mind!" What was he asking of her? Had sheheard aright? She felt almost crushed under the immensity of what shethought she premised.
　　All the while, old Yvonne, in her corner, pricked up her ears, feelinghappiness approach.
　　"We could make a splice on it--a marriage, right off, MademoiselleGaud, if you are still of the same mind?"He listened here for her answer, which did not come. What could stopher from pronouncing that "yes?" He looked astonished and frightened,she could see that. Her hands clutched the table edge. She had turnedquite white and her eyes were misty; she was voiceless, and lookedlike some maid dying in her flower.
　　"Well, Gaud, why don't you answer?" said Granny Yvonne, who had risenand come towards them. "Don't you see, it rather surprises her,Monsieur Yann. You must excuse her. She'll think it over and answeryou later on. Sit you down a bit, Monsieur Yann, and take a glass ofcider with us."It was not the surprise, but ecstasy that prevented Gaud fromanswering; no words at all came to her relief. So it really was truethat he was good and kind-hearted. She knew him aright--the same trueYann, her own, such as she never had ceased to see him,notwithstanding his sternness and his rough refusal. For a long timehe had disdained her, but now he accepted her, although she was poor.
　　No doubt it had been his wish all through; he may have had a motivefor so acting, which she would know hereafter; but, for the present,she had no intention of asking him his meaning, or of reproaching himfor her two years of pining. Besides, all that was past, ay, andforgotten now; in one single moment everything seemed carried awaybefore the delightful whirlwind that swept over her life!
　　Still speechless, she told him of her great love and adoration for himby her sweet brimming eyes alone; she looked deeply and steadily athim, while the copious shower of happy tears poured adown her roseatecheeks.
　　"Well done! and God bless you, my children," said Granny Moan. "It'sthankful I be to Him, too, for I'm glad to have been let grow so oldto see this happy thing afore I go."Still there they remained, standing before one another with claspedhands, finding no words to utter; knowing of no word sweet enough, andno sentence worthy to break that exquisite silence.
　　"Why don't ye kiss one another, my children? Lor'! but they're dumb!
　　Dear me, what strange grandchildren I have here! Pluck up, Gaud; saysome'at to him, my dear. In my time lovers kissed when they plightedtheir troth."Yann raised his hat, as if suddenly seized with a vast, heretoforeunfelt reverence, before bending down to kiss Gaud. It seemed to himthat this was the first kiss worthy of the name he ever had given inhis life.
　　She kissed him also, pressing her fresh lips, unused to refinements ofcaresses, with her whole heart, to his sea-bronzed cheek.
　　Among the stones the cricket sang of happiness, being right for thistime. And Sylvestre's pitiful insignificant portrait seemed to smileon them out of its black frame. All things, in fact, seemed suddenlyto throb with life and with joy in the blighted cottage. The verysilence apparently burst into exquisite music; and the pale wintertwilight, creeping in at the narrow window, became a wonderful,unearthly glow.
　　"So we'll go to the wedding when the Icelanders return; eh, my dearchildren?"Gaud hung her head. "Iceland," the "/Leopoldine/"--so it was all real!
　　while she had already forgotten the existence of those terrible thingsthat arose in their way.
　　"When the Icelanders return."How long that anxious summer waiting would seem!
　　Yann drummed on the floor with his foot feverishly and rapidly. Heseemed to be in a great hurry to be off and back, and was telling thedays to know if, without losing time, they would be able to getmarried before his sailing. So many days to get the official papersfilled and signed; so many for the banns: that would only bring themup to the twentieth or twenty-fifth of the month for the wedding, andif nothing rose in the way, they could have a whole honeymoon weektogether before he sailed.
　　"I'm going to start by telling my father," said he, with as much hasteas if each moment of their lives were now numbered and precious.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 1
All sweethearts like to sit on the bench at their cottage door, whennight falls.
　　Yann and Gaud did that likewise. Every evening they sat out togetherbefore the Moans' cottage, on the old granite seat, and talked love.
　　Others have the spring-time, the soft shadow of the trees, balmyevenings, and flowering rosebushes; they had only the Februarytwilight, which fell over the sea-beaten land, strewn with eel-grassand stones. There was no branch of verdure above their heads or aroundthem; nothing but the immense sky, over which passed the slowlywandering mists. And their flowers were brown sea-weeds, drawn up fromthe beach by the fishers, as they dragged their nets along.
　　The winters are not very severe in this part of the country, beingtempered by currents of the sea; but, notwithstanding that, thegloaming was often laden with invisible icy rain, which fell upontheir shoulders as they sat together. But they remained there, feelingwarm and happy. The bench, which was more than a hundred years old,did not seem in the least surprised at their love, having seen manyother pairs in its time; it had listened to many soft words, which arealways the same on the lips of the young, from generation togeneration; and it had become used to seeing lovers sit upon it again,when they returned to it old and trembling; but in the broad day, thistime, to warm themselves in the last sun they would see.
　　From time to time Granny Moan would put her head out at the door tohave a look at them, and try to induce them to come in. "You'll catchcold, my good children," said she, "and then you'll fall ill--Lordknows, it really isn't sensible to remain out so late."Cold! they cold? Were they conscious of anything else besides thebliss of being together.
　　The passers-by in the evening down their pathway, heard the softmurmur of two voices mingling with the voice of the sea, down below atthe foot of the cliffs. It was a most harmonious music; Gaud's sweet,fresh voice alternated with Yann's, which had soft, caressing notes inthe lower tones. Their profiles could be clearly distinguished on thegranite wall against which they reclined; Gaud with her white headgearand slender black-robed figure, and beside her the broad, squareshoulders of her beloved. Behind and above rose the ragged dome of thestraw thatch, and the darkening, infinite, and colourless waste of thesea and sky floated over all.
　　Finally, they did go in to sit down by the hearth, whereupon oldYvonne immediately nodded off to sleep, and did not trouble the twolovers very much. So they went on communing in a low voice, having tomake up for two years of silence; they had to hurry on their courtshipbecause it was to last so short a time.
　　It was arranged that they were to live with Granny Moan, who wouldleave them the cottage in her will; for the present, they made noalterations in it, for want of time, and put off their plan forembellishing their poor lonely home until the fisherman's return fromIceland.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 2

　One evening Yann amused himself by relating to his affianced athousand things she had done, orwhich had happened to her since theirfirst meeting; he even enumerated to her the different dressesshe had had,and the jollifications to which she had been.
　　She listened in great surprise. How did he know all this? Who wouldhave thought of a man everpaying any attention to such matters, andbeing capable of remembering so clearly?
　　But he only smiled at her in a mysterious way, and went onmentioning other facts to her that shehad altogether forgotten.
　　She did not interrupt him; nay, she but let him continue, while anunexpected delicious joywelled up in her heart; she began, at length, todivine and understand everything. He, too, hadloved--loved her, throughthat weary time. She had been his constant thought, as he wasguilelesslyconfessing. But, in this case, what had been his reason for repelling her atfirst andmaking her suffer so long?
　　There always remained this mystery that he had promised to explain toher--yet still seemed toelude--with a confused, incomprehensible smile.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 3
One fine day, the loving pair went over to Paimpol, with Granny Moan,to buy the wedding-dress.
　　Gaud could very easily have done over one of her former town-lady'sdresses for the occasion. But Yann had wanted to make her thispresent, and she had not resisted too long the having a dress given byher betrothed, and paid for by the money he had earned at his fishing;it seemed as if she were already his wife by this act.
　　They chose black, for Gaud had not yet left off mourning for herfather; but Yann did not find any of the stuffs they placed beforethem good enough. He was not a little overbearing with the shopman;he, who formerly never would have set his foot inside a shop, wantedto manage everything himself, even to the very fashion of the dress.
　　He wished it adorned with broad beads of velvet, so that it would bevery fine, in his mind.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 4
One evening as these lovers sat out on their stone bench in thesolitude over which the night fell, they suddenly perceived a hawthornbush, which grew solitarily between the rocks, by the side of theroad, covered with tiny flowered tufts.
　　"It looks as if 'twas in bloom," said Yann.
　　They drew near to inspect it. It was in full flower, indeed. As theycould not see very well in the twilight, they touched the tiny blooms,wet with mist. Then the first impression of spring came to them at thesame time they noticed this; the days had already lengthened, the airwas warmer, and the night more luminous. But how forward thisparticular bush was! They could not find another like it anywherearound, not one! It had blossomed, you see, expressly for them, forthe celebration of their loving plight.
　　"Oh! let us gather some more," said Yann.
　　Groping in the dark, he cut a nosegay with the stout sailor's knifethat he always wore in his belt, and paring off all the thorns, heplaced it in Gaud's bosom.
　　"You look like a bride now," said he, stepping back to judge of theeffect, notwithstanding the deepening dusk.
　　At their feet the calm sea rose and fell over the shingle with anintermittent swash, regular as the breathing of a sleeper; for itseemed indifferent or ever favourable to the love-making going on hardby.
　　In expectation of these evenings the days appeared long to them, andwhen they bade each other good-bye at ten o'clock, they felt a kind ofdiscouragement, because it was all so soon over.
　　They had to hurry with the official documents for fear of not beingready in time, and of letting their happiness slip by until theautumn, or even uncertainty.
　　Their evening courtship in that mournful spot, lulled by the continualeven wash of the sea, with that feverish impression of the flight oftime, was almost gloomy and ominous. They were like no lovers; moreserious and restless were they in their love than the common run.
　　Yet Yann never told her what mysterious thing had kept him away fromher for these two lonely years; and after he returned home of a night,Gaud grew uneasy as before, although he loved her perfectly--this sheknew. It is true that he had loved her all along, but not as now; lovegrew stronger in his heart and mind, like a tide rising andoverbrimming. He never had known this kind of love before.
　　Sometimes on their stone seat he lay down, resting his head in Gaud'slap like a caressing child, till, suddenly remembering propriety, hewould draw himself up erect. He would have liked to lie on the veryground at her feet, and remain there with his brow pressed to the hemof her garments. Excepting the brotherly kiss he gave her when he cameand went, he did not dare to embrace her. He adored that invisiblespirit in her, which appeared in the very sound of her pure, tranquilvoice, the expression of her smile, and in her clear eye.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 5
One rainy evening they were sitting side by side near the hearth, andGranny Moan was asleep opposite them. The fire flames, dancing overthe branches on the hearth, projected their magnified shadows on thebeams overhead.
　　They spoke to one another in that low voice of all lovers. But uponthis particular evening their conversation was now and again broken bylong troubled silence. He, in particular, said very little and loweredhis head with a faint smile, avoiding Gaud's inquiring eyes. For shehad been pressing him with questions all the evening concerning thatmystery that he positively would not divulge; and this time he felthimself cornered. She was too quick for him, and had fully made up hermind to learn; no possible shifts could get him out of telling hernow.
　　"Was it any bad tales told about me?" she asked.
　　He tried to answer "yes," and faltered: "Oh! there was always plentyof rubbish babbled in Paimpol and Ploubazlanec."She asked what, but he could not answer her; so then she thought ofsomething else. "Was it about my style of dress, Yann?"Yes, of course, that had had something to do with it; at one time shehad dressed too grandly to be the wife of a simple fisherman. But hewas obliged to acknowledge that that was not all.
　　"Was it because at that time we passed for very rich people, and youwere afraid of being refused?""Oh, no! not that." He said this with such simple confidence that Gaudwas amused.
　　Then fell another silence, during which the moaning of the sea-windswas heard outside. Looking attentively at him, a fresh idea struckher, and her expression changed.
　　"If not anything of that sort, Yann, /what/ was it?" demanded she,suddenly, looking at him fair in the eyes, with the irresistiblequestioning look of one who guesses the truth, and could dispense withconfirmation.
　　He turned aside, laughing outright.
　　So at last she had, indeed, guessed aright; he never could give her areal reason, because there was none to give. He had simply "played themule" (as Sylvestre had said long ago). But everybody had teased himso much about that Gaud, his parents, Sylvestre, his Iceland mates,and even Gaud herself. Hence he had stubbornly said "no," but knewwell enough in the bottom of his heart that when nobody thought anymore about the hollow mystery it would become "yes."So it was on account of Yann's childishness that Gaud had beenlanguishing, forsaken for two long years, and had longed to die.
　　At first Yann laughed, but now he looked at Gaud with kind eyes,questioning deeply. Would she forgive him? He felt such remorse forhaving made her suffer. Would she forgive him?
　　"It's my temper that does it, Gaud," said he. "At home with my folks,it's the same thing. Sometimes, when I'm stubborn, I remain a wholeweek angered against them, without speaking to anybody. Yet you knowhow I love them, and I always end by doing what they wish, like a boy.
　　If you think that I was happy to live unmarried, you're mistaken. No,it couldn't have lasted anyway, Gaud, you may be sure."Of course, she forgave him. As she felt the soft tears fall, she knewthey were the outflow of her last pangs vanishing before Yann'sconfession. Besides, the present never would have been so happywithout all her suffering; that being over, she was almost pleased athaving gone through that time of trial.
　　Everything was finally cleared up between them, in a very unexpectedthough complete manner; there remained no clouds between their souls.
　　He drew her towards him, and they remained some time with their cheekspressed close, requiring no further explanations. So chaste was theirembrace, that the old grandam suddenly awaking, they remained beforeher as they were without any confusion or embarrassment.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 6
It was six days before the sailing for Iceland. Their weddingprocession was returning from Ploubazlanec Church, driven before afurious wind, under a sombre, rain-laden sky.
　　They looked very handsome, nevertheless, as they walked along as in adream, arm-in-arm, like king and queen leading a long cortege. Calm,reserved, and grave, they seemed to see nothing about them; as if theywere above ordinary life and everybody else. The very wind seemed torespect them, while behind them their "train" was a jolly medley oflaughing couples, tumbled and buffeted by the angry western gale.
　　Many people were present, overflowing with young life; others turninggray, but these still smiled as they thought of /their/ wedding-dayand younger years. Granny Yvonne was there and following, too, pantinga little, but something like happy, hanging on the arm of an old uncleof Yann's, who was paying her old-fashioned compliments. She wore agrand new cap, bought for the occasion, and her tiny shawl, which hadbeen dyed a third time, and black, because of Sylvestre.
　　The wind worried everybody; dresses and skirts, bonnets and /coiffes/,were similarly tossed about mercilessly.
　　At the church door, the newly married couple, pursuant to custom, hadbought two nosegays of artificial flowers, to complete their bridalattire. Yann had fastened his on anyhow upon his broad chest, but hewas one of those men whom anything becomes. As for Gaud, there wasstill something of the lady about the manner in which she had placedthe rude flowers in her bodice, as of old very close fitting to herunrivalled form.
　　The violin player, who led the whole band, bewildered by the wind,played at random; his tunes were heard by fits and starts betwixt thenoisy gusts, and rose as shrill as the screaming of a sea-gull. AllPloubazlanec had turned out to look at them. This marriage seemed toexcite people's sympathy, and many had come from far around; at eachturn of the road there were groups stationed to see them pass. Nearlyall Yann's mates, the Icelanders of Paimpol, were there. They cheeredthe bride and bridegroom as they passed; Gaud returned their greeting,bowing slightly like a town lady, with serious grace; and all alongthe way she was greatly admired.
　　The darkest and most secluded hamlets around, even those in the woods,had been emptied of all their beggars, cripples, wastrels, poor, andidiots on crutches; these wretches scattered along the road, withaccordions and hurdy-gurdies; they held out their hands and hats toreceive the alms that Yann threw to them with his own noble look andGaud with her beautiful queenly smile. Some of these poor waifs werevery old and wore gray locks on heads that had never held much;crouching in the hollows of the roadside, they were of the same colouras the earth from which they seemed to have sprung, but so unformed assoon to be returned without ever having had any human thoughts. Theirwandering glances were as indecipherable as the mystery of theirabortive and useless existences. Without comprehending, they looked atthe merrymakers' line pass by. It went on beyond Pors-Even and theGaoses' home. They meant to follow the ancient bridal tradition ofPloubazlanec and go to the chapel of La Trinite, which is situated atthe very end of the Breton country.
　　At the foot of the outermost cliff, it rests on a threshold of low-lying rocks close to the water, and seems almost to belong to the seaalready. A narrow goat's path leads down to it through masses ofgranite.
　　The wedding party spread over the incline of the forsaken cape head;and among the rocks and stones, happy words were lost in the roar ofthe wind and the surf.
　　It was useless to try and reach the chapel; in this boisterous weatherthe path was not safe, the sea came too close with its high rollers.
　　Its white-crested spouts sprang up in the air, so as to break overeverything in a ceaseless shower.
　　Yann, who had advanced the farthest with Gaud on his arm, was thefirst to retreat before the spray. Behind, his wedding party hadremained strewn about the rocks, in a semicircle; it seemed as if hehad come to present his wife to the sea, which received her withscowling, ill-boding aspect.
　　Turning round, he caught sight of the violinist perched on a grayrock, trying vainly to play his dance tunes between gusts of wind.
　　"Put up your music, my lad," said Yann; "old Neptune is playing us alivelier tune than yours."A heavily beating shower, which had threatened since morning, began tofall. There was a mad rush then, accompanied by outcries and laughter,to climb up the bluff and take refuge at the Gaoses'.
Part 4 Yann's First Wedding Chapter 7
The wedding breakfast was given at Yann's parents', because Gaud'shome was so poor. It took place upstairs in the great new room. Five-and-twenty guests sat down round the newly married pair--sisters andbrothers, cousin Gaos the pilot, Guermeur, Keraez, Yvon Duff, all ofthe old /Marie's/ crew, who were now the /Leopoldine's/; four verypretty bridesmaids, with their hair-plaits wound round their ears,like the empresses' in ancient Byzantium, and their modern white caps,shaped like sea-shells; and four best men, all broad-shoulderedIcelanders, with large proud eyes.
　　Downstairs, of course, there was eating and cooking going on; thewhole train of the wedding procession had gathered there in disorder;and the extra servants, hired from Paimpol, well-nigh lost theirsenses before the mighty lumbering up of the capacious hearth withpots and pans.
　　Yann's parents would have wished a richer wife for their son,naturally, but Gaud was known now as a good, courageous girl; andthen, in spite of her lost fortune, she was the greatest beauty in thecountry, and it flattered them to see the couple so well matched.
　　The old father was inclined to be merry after the soup, and spoke ofthe bringing up of his fourteen little Gaoses; but they were all doingwell, thanks to the ten thousand francs that had made them well off.
　　Neighbour Guermeur related the tricks he played in the navy, yarnsabout China, the West Indies, and Brazil, making the young ones whowould be off some day, open their eyes in wonderment.
　　"There is a cry against the sea-service," said the old sailor,laughing, "but a man can have fine fun in it."The weather did not clear up; on the contrary, the wind and rain ragedthrough the gloomy night; and in spite of the care taken, some of theguests were fidgety about their smacks anchored in the harbour, andspoke of getting up to go and see if all was right. But here a morejovial sound than ever was heard from downstairs, where the youngermembers of the party were supping together; cheers of joy and peals oflaughter ascended. The little cousins were beginning to feelexhilarated by the cider.
　　Boiled and roasted meats had been served up with poultry, differentkinds of fish, omelets and pancakes.
　　The debate had turned upon fishery and smuggling, and the best meansof fooling the coast-guardsmen, who, as we all know, are the swornenemies of honest seafarers.
　　Upstairs, at the grand table, old circumnavigators went so far as torelate droll stories, in the vernacular.
　　But the wind was raging altogether too strong; for the windows shookwith a terrible clatter, and the man telling the tale had hurriedlyended to go and see to his smack.
　　Then another went on: "When I was bo's'n's mate aboard of the/Zenobie/, a-lying at Aden, and a-doing the duty of a corporal ofmarines, by the same token, you ought to ha' seen the ostridge feathertraders a-trying to scramble up over the side. [/Imitating the brokentalk/] 'Bon-joo, cap'n! we're not thiefs--we're honest merchants'--Honest, my eye! with a sweep of the bucket, a purtending to draw somewater up, I sent 'em all flying back an oar's length. 'Honestmerchants, are ye,' says I, 'then send us up a bunch of honestfeathers first--with a hard dollar or two in the core of it, d'ye see,and then I'll believe in your honesty!' Why, I could ha' made myfortun' out of them beggars, if I hadn't been born and brought uphonest myself, and but a sucking-dove in wisdom, saying nothing of myhaving a sweetheart at Toulon in the millinery line, who could haveused any quantity of feathers----"Ha! here's one of Yann's little brothers, a future Iceland fisherman,with a fresh pink face and bright eyes, who is suddenly taken ill fromhaving drunk too much cider. So little Laumec has to be carried off,which cuts short the story of the milliner and the feathers.
　　The wind wailed in the chimney like an evil spirit in torment; withfearful strength, it shook the whole house on its stone foundation.
　　"It strikes me the wind is stirred up, acos we're enjoying ofourselves," said the pilot cousin.
　　"No, it's the sea that's wrathy," corrected Yann, smiling at Gaud,"because I'd promised I'd be wedded to /her/."A strange languor seemed to envelop them both; they spoke to oneanother in a low voice, apart, in the midst of the general gaiety.
　　Yann, knowing thoroughly the effect of wine, did not drink at all. Nowand then he turned dull too, thinking of Sylvestre. It was anunderstood thing that there was to be no dancing, on account of himand of Gaud's dead father.
　　It was the dessert now; the singing would soon begin. But first therewere the prayers to say, for the dead of the family; this form isnever omitted, at all wedding-feasts, and is a solemn duty. So whenold Gaos rose and uncovered his white head, there was a dead silencearound.
　　"This," said he, "is for Guillaume Gaos, my father." Making the signof the cross, he began the Lord's prayer in Latin: "/Pater noster, quies in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tumm/----"The silence included all, even to the joyful little ones downstairs,and every voice was repeating in an undertone the same eternal words.
　　"This is for Yves and Jean Gaos, my two brothers, who were lost in theSea of Iceland. This is for Pierre Gaos, my son, shipwrecked aboardthe /Zelie/." When all the dead Gaoses had had their prayers, heturned towards grandmother Moan, saying, "This one is for SylvestreMoan."Yann wept as he recited another prayer.
　　"/Sed libera nos a malo. Amen/!"Then the songs began; sea-songs learned in the navy, on theforecastle, where we all know there are rare good vocalists.
　　"/Un noble corps, pas moins que celui des Zouaves/," etc.
　　A noble and a gallant ladThe Zouave is, we know,But, capping him for bravery,The sailor stands, I trow.
　　Hurrah, hurrah! long life to him,Whose glory never can grow dim!
　　This was sung by one of the bride's supporters, in a feeling tone thatwent to the soul; and the chorus was taken up by other fine, manlyvoices.
　　But the newly wedded pair seemed to listen as from a distance. Whenthey looked at one another, their eyes shone with dulled brilliance,like that of transparently shaded lamps. They spoke in even a lowervoice, and still held each other's hands. Gaud bent her head, too,gradually overcome by a vast, delightful terror, before her master.
　　The pilot cousin went around the table, serving out a wine of his own;he had brought it with much care, hugging and patting the bottle,which ought not to be shaken, he said. He told the story of it. Oneday out fishing they saw a cask a-floating; it was too big to haul onboard, so they had stove in the head and filled all the pots and pansthey had, with most of its contents. It was impossible to take all, sothey had signalled to other pilots and fishers, and all the sails insight had flocked round the flotsam.
　　"And I know more than one old sobersides who was gloriously topheavywhen we got back to Pors-Even at night!" he chuckled liquorishly.
　　The wind still went on with its fearful din.
　　Downstairs the children were dancing in rings; except some of theyoungest, sent to bed; but the others, who were romping about, led bylittle Fantec (Francis) and Laumec (Guillaume), wanted to go and playoutside. Every minute they were opening the door and letting infurious gusts, which blew out the candles.
　　The pilot cousin went on with his story. Forty bottles had fallen tohis lot, he said. He begged them all to say nothing about it, becauseof "/Monsieur le Commissaire de l'Inscription Maritime/," who wouldsurely make a fuss over the undeclared find.
　　"But, d'ye see," he went on, "it sarved the lubbers right to heaveover such a vallyble cask or let it 'scape the lashings, for it'ssuperior quality, with sartinly more jinywine grape-juice in it thanin all the wine-merchants' cellars of Paimpol. Goodness knows whenceit came--this here castaway liquor."It was very strong and rich in colour, dashed with sea-water, and hadthe flavour of cod-pickle, but in spite of that, relishable; andseveral bottles were emptied.
　　Some heads began to spin; the Babel of voices became more confused,and the lads kissed the lasses less surreptitiously.
　　The songs joyously continued; but the winds would not moderate, andthe seamen exchanged tokens of apprehension about the bad weatherincreasing.
　　The sinister clamour without was indeed worse than ever. It had becomeone continuous howl, deep and threatening, as if a thousand madcreatures were yelling with full throats and out-stretched necks.
　　One might imagine heavy sea-guns shooting out their deafening boom inthe distance, but that was only the sea hammering the coast ofPloubazlanec on all points; undoubtedly it did not appear contented,and Gaud felt her heart shrink at this dismal music, which no one hadordered for their wedding-feast.
　　Towards midnight, during a calm, Yann, who had risen softly, beckonedhis wife to come to speak with him.
　　It was to go home. She blushed, filled with shame, and confused athaving left her seat so promptly. She said it would be impolite to goaway directly and leave the others.
　　"Not a bit on it," replied Yann, "my father allows it; we may go," andaway he carried her.
　　They hurried away stealthily. Outside they found themselves in thecold, the bitter wind, and the miserable, agitated night. They beganto run hand-in-hand.
　　From the height of the cliff-path, one could imagine, without seeingit, the furious open sea, whence arose all this hubbub. They ranalong, the wind cutting their faces, both bowed before the angrygusts, and obliged to put their hands over their mouths to cover theirbreathing, which the wind had completely taken away at first.
　　He held her up by the waist at the outset, to keep her dress fromtrailing on the ground, and her fine new shoes from being spoiled inthe water, which streamed about their feet, and next he held her roundthe neck, too, and continued to run on still faster. He could hardlyrealize that he loved her so much! To think that she was now twenty-three and he nearly twenty-eight; that they might have been marriedtwo years ago, and as happy then as to-night!
　　At last they arrived at home, that poor lodging, with its dampflooring and moss-grown roof. They lit the candle, which the wind blewout twice.
　　Old grandam Moan, who had been taken home before the singing began,was there. She had been sleeping for the last two hours in her bunk,the flaps of which were shut. They drew near with respect and peepedthrough the fretwork of her press, to bid her good-night, if by chanceshe were not asleep. But they only perceived her still venerable faceand closed eyes; she slept, or she feigned to do so, not to disturbthem.
　　They felt they were alone then. Both trembled as they clasped hands.
　　He bent forward to kiss her lips; but Gaud turned them aside, throughignorance of that kind of kiss; and as chastely as on the evening oftheir betrothal, she pressed hers to Yann's cheek, which was chilled,almost frozen, by the wind.
　　It was bitterly cold in their poor, low-roofed cottage. If Gaud hadonly remained rich, what happiness she would have felt in arranging apretty room, not like this one on the bare ground! She was scarcelyyet used to these rugged granite walls, and the rough look of allthings around; but her Yann was there now, and by his presenceeverything was changed and transfigured. She saw only her husband.
　　Their lips met now; no turning aside. Still standing with their armsintertwined tightly to draw themselves together, they remained dumb,in the perfect ecstasy of a never-ending kiss. Their fluttering breathcommingled, and both quivered as if in a burning fever. They seemedwithout power to tear themselves apart, and knew nothing and desirednothing beyond that long kiss of consecrated love.
　　She drew herself away, suddenly agitated. "Nay, Yann! Granny Yvonnemight see us," she faltered.
　　But he, with a smile, sought his wife's lips again and fastened hisown upon them, like a thirsty man whose cup of fresh water had beentaken from him.
　　The movement they had made broke the charm of delightful hesitation.
　　Yann, who, at the first, was going to kneel to her as before a saint,felt himself fired again. He glanced stealthily towards the old oakenbunk, irritated at being so close to the old woman, and seeking someway not to be spied upon, but ever without breaking away from thoseexquisite lips.
　　He stretched forth his arm behind him, and with the back of his handdashed out the light, as if the wind had done it. Then he snatched herup in his arms. Still holding her close, with his mouth continuallypressed to hers, he seemed like a wild lion with his teeth embedded inhis prey. For her part she gave herself up entirely, to that body andsoul seizure that was imperious and without possible resistance, eventhough it remained soft as a great all-comprising embrace.
　　Around them, for their wedding hymn, the same invisible orchestra,played on---- "Hoo-ooh-hoo!" At times the wind bellowed out in itsdeep noise, with a /tremolo/ of rage; and again repeated its threats,as if with refined cruelty, in low sustained tones, flute-like as thehoot of an owl.
　　The broad, fathomless grave of all sailors lay nigh to them, restlessand ravenous, drumming against the cliffs with its muffled boom.
　　One night or another Yann would have to be caught in that maw, andbattle with it in the midst of the terror of ice as well. Both knewthis plainly.
　　But what mattered that now to them on land, sheltered from the sea'sfutile fury. In their poor gloomy cottage, over which tempest rushed,they scorned all that was hostile, intoxicated and delightfullyfortified against the whole by the eternal magic of love.
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.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 1
After the spring day they had enjoyed, the falling night brought backthe impression of winter, and they returned to dine before their fire,which was flaming with new branches. It was their last meal together;but they had some hours yet, and were not saddened.
　　After dinner, they recovered the sweet impression of spring again, outon the Pors-Even road; for the air was calm, almost genial, and thetwilight still lingered over the land.
　　They went to see the family--for Yann to bid good-bye--and returnedearly, as they wished to rise with break of day.
　　The next morning the quay of Paimpol was crowded with people. Thedepartures for Iceland had begun the day before, and with each tidethere was a fresh fleet off. On this particular morning, fifteenvessels were to start with the /Leopoldine/, and the wives or mothersof the sailors were all present at the getting under sail.
　　Gaud, who was now the wife of an Icelander, was much surprised to findherself among them all, and brought thither for the same fatefulpurpose. Her position seemed to have become so intensified within thelast few days, that she had barely had time to realize things as theywere; gliding irresistibly down an incline, she had arrived at thisinexorable conclusion that she must bear up for the present, and do asthe others did, who were accustomed to it.
　　She never before had been present at these farewells; hence all wasnew to her. Among these women was none like her, and she felt herdifference and isolation. Her past life, as a lady, was stillremembered, and caused her to be set aside as one apart.
　　The weather had remained fine on this parting-day; but out at sea aheavy swell came from the west, foretelling wind, and the sea, lyingin wait for these new adventurers, burst its crests afar.
　　Around Gaud stood many good-looking wives like her, and touching, withtheir eyes big with tears; others were thoughtless and lively; thesehad no heart or were not in love. Old women, threatened nearly bydeath, wept as they clung to their sons; sweethearts kissed eachother; half-maudlin sailors sang to cheer themselves up, while otherswent on board with gloomy looks as to their execution.
　　Many sad incidents could be marked; there were poor luckless fellowswho had signed their contracts unconsciously, when in liquor in thegrog-shop, and they had to be dragged on board by force; their ownwives helping the gendarmes. Others, noted for their great strength,had been drugged in drink beforehand, and were carried like corpses onstretchers, and flung down in the forecastles.
　　Gaud was frightened by all this; what companions were these for herYann? and what a fearful thing was this Iceland, to inspire men withsuch terror of it?
　　Yet there were sailors who smiled, and were happy; who, doubtless,like Yann, loved the untrammelled life and hard fishing work; thosewere the sound, able seamen, who had fine noble countenances; if theywere unmarried they went off recklessly, merely casting a last look onthe lasses; and if they were married, they kissed their wives andlittle ones, with fervent sadness and deep hopefulness as to returninghome all the richer.
　　Gaud was a little comforted when she saw that all the /Leopoldines/were of the latter class, forming really a picked crew.
　　The vessels set off two by two, or four by four, drawn out by thetugs. As soon as they moved the sailors raised their caps and, full-voiced, struck up the hymn to the Virgin: "/Salut, Etoile-de-la-Mer/!"(All Hail! Star of the Sea!), while on the quay, the women waved theirhands for a last farewell, and tears fell upon the lace strings of thecaps.
　　As soon as the /Leopoldine/ started, Gaud quickly set off towards thehouse of the Gaoses. After an hour and a half's walk along the coast,through the familiar paths of Ploubazlanec, she arrived there, at thevery land's end, within the home of her new family.
　　The /Leopoldine/ was to cast anchor off Pors-Even before startingdefinitely in the evening, so the married pair had made a lastappointment here. Yann came to land in the yawl, and stayed anotherthree hours with her to bid her good-bye on firm land. The weather wasstill beautiful and spring-like, and the sky serene.
　　They walked out on the high road arm-in-arm, and it reminded them oftheir walk the day before. They strolled on towards Paimpol withoutany apparent object in view, and soon came to their own house, as ifunconsciously drawn there; they entered together for the last time.
　　Grandam Moan was quite amazed at seeing them together again.
　　Yann left many injunctions with Gaud concerning several of his thingsin his wardrobe, especially about his fine wedding clothes; she was totake them out occasionally and air them in the sun, and so on. Onboard ship the sailors learn all these household-like matters; butGaud was amused to hear it. Her husband might have been sure, though,that all his things would be kept and attended to, with loving care.
　　But all these matters were very secondary for them; they spoke of themonly to have something to talk about, and to hide their real feelings.
　　They went on speaking in low, soft tones, as if fearing to frightenaway the moments that remained, and so make time flit by more swiftlystill. Their conversation was as a thing that had inexorably to cometo an end; and the most insignificant things that they said seemed, onthis day, to become wondrous, mysterious, and important.
　　At the very last moment Yann caught up his wife in his arms, andwithout saying a word, they were enfolded in a long and silentembrace.
　　He embarked; the gray sails were unfurled and spread out to the lightwind that rose from the west. He, whom she still could distinguish,waved his cap in a particular way agreed on between them. And with herfigure outlined against the sea, she gazed for a long, long time uponher departing love.
　　That tiny, human-shaped speck, appearing black against the bluish grayof the waters, was still her husband, even though already it becamevague and indefinable, lost in the distance, where persistent sightbecomes baffled, and can see no longer.
　　As the /Leopoldine/ faded out of vision, Gaud, as if drawn by amagnet, followed the pathway all along the cliffs till she had tostop, because the land came to an end; she sat down at the foot of atall cross, which rises amidst the gorse and stones. As it was ratheran elevated spot, the sea, as seen from there, appeared to be rimmed,as in a bowl, and the /Leopoldine/, now a mere point, appeared sailingup the incline of that immense circle. The water rose in great slowundulations, like the upheavals of a submarine combat going onsomewhere beyond the horizon; but over the great space where Yannstill was, all dwelt calm.
　　Gaud still gazed at the ship, trying to fix its image well in herbrain, so that she might recognise it again from afar, when shereturned to the same place to watch for its home-coming.
　　Great swells now rolled in from the west, one after another, withoutcessation, renewing their useless efforts, and ever breaking over thesame rocks, foaming over the same places, to wash the same stones. Thestifled fury of the sea appeared strange, considering the absolutecalmness of the air and sky; it was as if the bed of the sea were toofull and would overflow and swallow up the strand.
　　The /Leopoldine/ had grown smaller and smaller, and was lost in thedistance. Doubtless the under-tow carried her along, for she movedswiftly and yet the evening breezes were very faint. Now she was onlya tiny, gray touch, and would soon reach the extreme horizon of allvisible things, and enter those infinite regions, whence darkness wasbeginning to come.
　　Going on seven o'clock, night closed, and the boat had disappeared.
　　Gaud returned home, feeling withal rather brave, notwithstanding thetears that uncontainably fell. What a difference it would have been,and what still greater pain, if he had gone away, as in the twopreceding years, without even a good-bye! While now everything wassoftened and bettered between them. He was really her own Yann, andshe knew herself to be so truly loved, notwithstanding thisseparation, that, as she returned home alone, she felt at leastconsoled by the thought of the delightful waiting for that "soonagain!" to be realized to which they had pledged themselves for theautumn.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 2
The summer passed sadly, being hot and uneventful. She watchedanxiously for the first yellowed leaves, and the first gathering ofthe swallows, and blooming of the chrysanthemums. She wrote to Yannseveral times by the boats bound for Rykawyk, and by the governmentcruisers, but one never can be sure of such letters reaching theirdestination.
　　Towards the end of July, she received a letter from him, however. Hetold her that his health was good, that the fishing season promised tobe excellent, and that he already had 1500 fish for his share. Frombeginning to end, it was written in the simple conventional way of allthese Icelanders' home letters. Men educated like Yann completelyignore how to write the thousand things they think, feel, or fancy.
　　Being more cultivated than he, Gaud could understand this, and readbetween the lines that deep affection that was unexpressed. Severaltimes in the four-paged letter, he called her by the title of "wife,"as if happy in repeating the word. And the address above: "/A MadameMarguerite Gaos, maison Moan, en Ploubazlanec/"--she was "MadameMarguerite Gaos" since so short a time.
　　She worked hard during these summer months. The ladies of Paimpol had,at first, hardly believed in her talent as an amateur dressmaker,saying her hands were too fine-ladyish; but they soon perceived thatshe excelled in making dresses that were very nice-fitting, so she hadbecome almost a famous dressmaker.
　　She spent all her earnings in embellishing their home against hisreturn. The wardrobe and old-shelved beds were all done up afresh,waxed over, and bright new fastenings put on; she had put a pane ofglass into their little window towards the sea, and hung up a pair ofcurtains; and she had bought a new counterpane for the winter, withnew chairs and table.
　　She had kept the money untouched that her Yann had left her, carefullyput by in a small Chinese box, to show him when he returned. Duringthe summer evenings, by the fading light, she sat out before thecottage door with Granny Moan, whose head was much better in the warmweather, and knitted a fine new blue wool jersey for her Yann; roundthe collar and cuffs were wonderful open-work embroideries. GrannyYvonne had been a very clever knitter in her day, and now she taughtall she knew to Gaud. The work took a great deal of wool; for it hadto be a large jersey to fit Yann.
　　But soon, especially in the evenings, the shortening of the days couldbe perceived. Some plants, which had put forth all their blossoms inJuly, began to look yellow and dying, and the violet scabious by thewayside bloomed for the second time, smaller now, and longer-stalked;the last days of August drew nigh, and the first return-ship fromIceland hove in sight one evening at the cape of Pors-Even. The feastof the returners began.
　　Every one pressed in a crowd on the cliff to welcome it. Which one wasit?
　　It was the /Samuel-Azenide/, always the first to return.
　　"Surely," said Yann's old father, "the /Leopoldine/ won't be long now;I know how 'tis out yonder: when one of 'em begins to start homeward,the others can't hang back in any peace."
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 3
The Icelanders were all returning now. Two ships came in the secondday, four the next, and twelve during the following week. And, allthrough the country, joy returned with them, and there was happinessfor the wives and mothers; and junkets in the taverns where thebeautiful barmaids of Paimpol served out drink to the fishers.
　　The /Leopoldine/ was among the belated; there were yet another tenexpected. They would not be long now, and allowing a week's delay soas not to be disappointed, Gaud waited in happy, passionate joy forYann, keeping their home bright and tidy for his return. Wheneverything was in good order there was nothing left for her to do, andbesides she could think of nothing else but her husband in herimpatience.
　　Three more ships appeared; then another five. There were only twolacking now.
　　"Come, come," they said to her cheerily, "this year the /Leopoldine/and the /Marie-Jeanne/ will be the last, to pick up all the broomsfallen overboard from the other craft."Gaud laughed also. She was more animated and beautiful than ever, inher great joy of expectancy.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 4
But the days succeeded one another without result. She still dressedherself every day, and with a joyful look, went down to the harbour togossip with the other wives. She said that this delay was but natural;was it not the same event every year? These were such safe boats, andhad such capital sailors.
　　But when at home alone, at night, a nervous, anxious shiver of anguishwould run through her whole frame.
　　Was it right to be frightened already? Was there even a single reasonto be so? But she began to tremble at the mere idea of grounds forbeing afraid.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 5
The tenth of September came. How swiftly the days flew by!
　　One morning, a true autumn morning, with cold mist falling over theearth, in the rising sun, she sat under the porch of the chapel of theshipwrecked mariners, where the widows go to pray, with eyes fixed andglassy, throbbing temples tightened as by an iron hand.
　　These sad morning mists had begun two days before, and on thisparticular day Gaud had awakened with a still more bitter uneasiness,caused by the forecast of advancing winter. Why did this day, thishour, this very moment, seem to her more painful than the preceding?
　　Often ships are delayed a fortnight, even a month, for that matter.
　　But surely there was something different about this particularmorning, for she had come to-day for the first time to sit in theporch of this chapel and read the names of the dead sailors, perishedin their prime.
　　"In memory ofGAOS, YVON,Lost at seaNear the Norden-Fjord."Like a great shudder, a gust of wind rose from the sea, and at thesame time something fell like rain upon the roof above. It was onlythe dead leaves though; many were blown in at the porch; the old wind-tossed trees of the graveyard were losing their foliage in this risinggale, and winter was marching nearer.
　　"Lost at sea,Near the Norden-Fjord,In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, 1880."She read mechanically under the arch of the doorway; her eyes soughtto pierce the distance over the sea. That morning it was untraceableunder the gray mist, and a dragging drapery of clouds overhung thehorizon like a mourning veil.
　　Another gust of wind, and other leaves danced in in whirls. A strongergust still, as if the western storm that had strewn those dead overthe sea, wished to deface the very inscriptions that remembered theirnames to the living.
　　Gaud looked with involuntary persistency at an empty space upon thewall that seemed to yawn expectant. By a terrible impression she waspursued, the thought of a fresh slab which might soon, perhaps, beplaced there, with another name which she did not even dare to thinkof in such a spot.
　　She felt cold, and remained seated on the granite bench, her headreclining against the stone wall.
　　* * * * * * * * * * *. . . . . . . "near the Norden-Fjord,In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August,At the age of 23 years,/Requiescat in pace/!"Then Iceland loomed up before her, with its little cemetery lighted upfrom below the sea-line by the midnight sun. Suddenly in the sameempty space on the wall, with horrifying clearness she saw the freshslab she was thinking of; a clear white one, with a skull and cross-bones, and in a flash of foresight, a name--the worshipped name of"Yann Gaos!" Then she suddenly and fearfully drew herself up straightand stiff, with a hoarse, wild cry in her throat like a mad creature.
　　Outside the gray mist of the dawn fell over the land, and the deadleaves were again blown dancingly into the porch.
　　Steps on the footpath? Somebody was coming? She rose and quicklysmoothed down her cap and composed her face. Nearer drew the steps.
　　She assumed the air of one who might be there by chance; for, aboveall, she did not wish to appear yet, like the widow of a shipwreckedmariner.
　　It happened to be Fante Floury, the wife of the second mate of the/Leopoldine/. She understood immediately what Gaud was doing there; itwas useless to dissemble with her. At first each woman stoodspeechless before the other. They were angry and almost hated eachother for having met with a like sentiment of apprehension.
　　"All the men of Treguier and Saint Brieuc have been back this week,"said Fante at last, in a pitiless, muffled, half-irritated voice.
　　She carried a blessed taper in her hand, to offer up a prayer. Gauddid not wish yet to resort to that extreme resource of despairingwives. Yet silently she entered the chapel behind Fante, and theyknelt down together side by side, like two sisters.
　　To the "Star of the Sea" they offered ardent imploring prayers, withtheir whole soul in them. A sound of sobbing was alone heard, as theirrapid tears swiftly fell upon the floor. They rose together, moreconfident and softened. Fante held up Gaud, who staggered, and takingher in her arms, kissed her.
　　Wiping their eyes, and smoothing their dishevelled hair, they brushedoff the salt dust from the flagstones, soiling their gowns, and theywent away in opposite directions, without another word.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 6
This end of September was like another summer, only a little lesslively. The weather was so beautiful, that had it not been for thedead leaves that fell upon the roads, one might have thought that Junehad come back again. Husbands and sweethearts had all returned, andeverywhere was the joy of a second spring-time of love.
　　At last, one day, one of the missing ships was signalled. Which onewas it?
　　The groups of speechless and anxious women had rapidly formed on thecliff. Gaud, pale and trembling, was there, by the side of her Yann'sfather.
　　"I'm almost sure," said the old fisher, "I'm almost sure it's them! Ared rail and a topsail that clews up--it's very like them anyhow. Whatdo you make it, Gaud?
　　"No, it isn't," he went on, with sudden discouragement; "we've made amistake again, the boom isn't the same, and ours has a jigger sail.
　　Well, well, it isn't our boat this time, it's only the /Marie-Jeanne/.
　　Never mind, my lass, surely they'll not be long now."But day followed day, and night succeeded night, with uninterruptedserenity.
　　Gaud continued to dress every day like a poor crazed woman, always infear of being taken for the widow of a shipwrecked sailor, feelingexasperated when others looked furtively and compassionately at her,and glancing aside so that she might not meet those glances that frozeher very blood.
　　She had fallen into the habit of going in the early morning right tothe end of the headland, on the high cliffs of Pors-Even, passingbehind Yann's old home, so as not to be seen by his mother or littlesisters. She went to the extreme point of the Ploubazlanec land, whichis outlined in the shape of a reindeer's horn upon the gray waters ofthe channel, and sat there all day long at the foot of the lonelycross, which rises high above the immense waste of the ocean. Thereare many of these crosses hereabout; they are set up on the mostadvanced cliffs of the seabound land, as if to implore mercy and tocalm that restless mysterious power that draws men away, never to givethem back, and in preference retains the bravest and noblest.
　　Around this cross stretches the ever-green waste, strewn with shortrushes. At this great height the sea air was very pure; it scarcelyretained the briny odour of the weeds, but was perfumed with all theexquisite ripeness of September flowers.
　　Far away, all the bays and inlets of the coast were firmly outlined,rising one above another; the land of Brittany terminated in raggededges, which spread out far into the tranquil surface.
　　Near at hand the reefs were numerous, but out beyond nothing broke itspolished mirror, from which arose a soft, caressing ripple, light andintensified from the depths of its many bays. Its horizon seemed socalm, and its depths so soft! The great blue sepulchre of many Gaoseshid its inscrutable mystery, while the breezes, faint as human breath,wafted to and fro the perfume of the stunted gorse, which had bloomedagain in the lastest autumn sun.
　　At regular hours the sea retreated, and great spaces were leftuncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; thenwith the same lazy slowness, the waters rose again, and continuedtheir everlasting coming and going, without any heed of the dead.
　　At the foot of the cross, Gaud remained, surrounded by these tranquilmysteries, gazing ever before her, until the night fell and she couldsee no more.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 7
　　September had passed. The sorrowing wife took scarcely anynourishment, and could no longer sleep. She remained at home now,crouching low with her hands between her knees, her head thrown backand resting against the wall behind. What was the good of getting up orgoing to bed now? When she was thoroughly exhausted she threw herself,dressed, upon her bed. Otherwise she remained in the same position,chilled and benumbed; in her quiescent state, only her teeth chattered withthe cold; she had that continual impression of a band of iron round herbrows; her cheeks looked wasted; her mouth was dry, with a feverish taste,and at times a painful hoarse cry rose from her throat, and was repeated in spasms, while her head beat backward against the granite wall. Or else shecalled Yann by his name in a low, tender voice, as if he were quiet close toher, whispering words of love to her.
　　Sometimes she occupied her brain with thoughts of quite insignificantthings; for instance, she amused herself by watching the shadow of thechina Virgin lengthen slowly over the high woodwork of the bed, as thesun went down. And then the agonized thoughts returned more horrible,and her wailing cry broke out again as she beat her head against the wall.
　　All the hours of the day passed, and all the hours of evening, and ofnight, and then the hours of the morning. When she reckoned the time heought to have been back, she was seized with a still greater terror; shewished to forget all dates and the very names of the days.
　　Usually there is some information concerning the wrecks off Iceland;those who return have seen the tragedy from afar, or else have found somewreckage or bodies, or have an indication to guess the rest. But of the/Leopoldine/ nothing had been seen, and nothing was known. The /Marie-Jeanne/ men, the last to have seen her, on the 2d of August, said that shewas to have gone on fishing farther towards the north, and, beyond that,the secret was unfathomable.
　　Waiting, always waiting, and knowing nothing! When would the timecome when she need wait no longer? She did not even know that; and,now, she almost wished that it might be soon.
　　Oh! if he were dead; let them at least have pity enough to tell her so!
　　Oh! to see her darling, as he was at this very moment, that is, what wasleft him! If only the much-implored Virgin, or some other power, woulddo her the blessing to show her, by second-sight, her beloved! either livingand working hard to return a rich man, or else as a corpse, surrendered bythe sea, so that she might at least know a certainty.
　　Sometimes she was seized with the thought of a ship appearingsuddenly upon the horizon; the /Leopoldine/ hastening home. Then shewould suddenly make an irreflected movement to rise, and rush to lookout at the ocean, to see whether it were true.
　　But she would fall back. Alas! where was this /Leopoldine now?
　　Where could she be? Out afar, at that awful distance of Iceland, forsaken, crushed, and lost.
　　All ended by a never-fading vision appearing to her--an empty, sea-tossed wreck, slowly and gently rocked by the silent gray and rose-streaked sea; almost with soft mockery, in the midst of the vast calm ofdeadened waters.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 8
Two o'clock in the morning.
　　It was at night, especially, that she kept attentive to approachingfootsteps; at the slightest rumour or unaccustomed noise her templesvibrated; by dint of being strained to outward things, they had becomefearfully sensitive.
　　Two o'clock in the morning. On this night as on others, with her handsclasped and her eyes wide open in the dark, she listened to the wind,sweeping in never-ending tumult over the heath.
　　Suddenly a man's footsteps hurried along the path! At this hour whowould pass now? She drew herself up, stirred to the very soul, herheart ceasing to beat.
　　Some one stopped before the door, and came up the small stone steps.
　　He!--O God!--he! Some one had knocked--it could be no other than he!
　　She was up now, barefooted; she, so feeble for the last few days, hadsprung up as nimbly as a kitten, with her arms outstretched to windround her darling. Of course the /Leopoldine/ had arrived at night,and anchored in Pors-Even Bay, and he had rushed home; she arrangedall this in her mind with the swiftness of lightning. She tore theflesh off her fingers in her excitement to draw the bolt, which hadstuck.
　　"Eh?"She slowly moved backward, as if crushed, her head falling on herbosom. Her beautiful insane dream was over. She just could grasp thatit was not her husband, her Yann, and that nothing of him, substantialor spiritual, had passed through the air; she felt plunged again intoher deep abyss, to the lowest depths of her terrible despair.
　　Poor Fantec, for it was he, stammered many excuses, his wife was veryill, and their child was stifling in its cot, suddenly attacked with amalignant sore throat; so he had run over to beg for assistance on theroad to fetch the doctor from Paimpol.
　　What did all this matter to her? She had gone mad in her own distress,and could give no thoughts to the troubles of others. Huddled on abench, she remained before him with fixed, glazed eyes, like a deadwoman's; without listening to him or even answering at random orlooking at him. What to her was the speech the man was making?
　　He understood it all; and guessed why the door had been opened soquickly to him, and feeling pity for the pain he had unwittinglycaused, he stammered out an excuse.
　　"Just so; he never had ought to have disturbed her--her inparticular.""I!" ejaculated Gaud, quickly, "why should I not be disturbedparticularly, Fantec?"Life had suddenly come back to her; for she did not wish to appear indespair before others. Besides, she pitied him now; she dressed toaccompany him, and found the strength to go and see to his littlechild.
　　At four o'clock in the morning, when she returned to throw herself onthe bed, sleep subdued her, for she was tired out. But that moment ofexcessive joy had left an impression on her mind, which, in spite ofall, was permanent; she awoke soon with a shudder, rising a little andpartially recollecting--she knew not what. News had come to herconcerning her Yann. In the midst of her confusion of ideas, shesought rapidly in her mind what it could be, but there was nothingsave Fantec's interruption.
　　For the second time she fell back into her terrible abyss, nothingchanged in her morbid, hopeless waiting.
　　Yet in that short, hopeful moment she had felt him so near to her,that it was as if his spirit had floated over the sea unto her, whatis called a foretoken (/pressigne/) in Breton land; and she listenedstill more attentively to the steps outside, trusting that some onemight come to her to speak of him.
　　Just as the day broke Yann's father entered. He took off his cap, andpushed back his splendid white locks, which were in curls like Yann's,and sat down by Gaud's bedside.
　　His heart ached fully, too, for Yann, his tall, handsome Yann, was hisfirst-born, his favourite and his pride; but he did not despair yet.
　　He comforted Gaud in his own blunt, affectionate way; to begin with,those who had last returned from Iceland spoke of the increasing densefogs that might well have delayed the vessel; and then, too, an ideastruck him; they might possibly have stopped at the distant FaroeIslands on their homeward course, whence letters were so long intravelling. This had happened to him once forty years ago, and his ownpoor dead and gone mother had had a mass said for his soul. The/Leopoldine/ was such a good boat, next to new, and her crew were suchable-bodied seamen.
　　Granny Moan stood by them shaking her head; the distress of hergranddaughter had almost given her back her own strength and reason;she tidied up the place, glancing from time to time at the fadedportrait of Sylvestre, which hung upon the granite wall with itsanchor emblems and mourning-wreath of black bead-work. Ever since thesea had robbed her of her own last offspring she believed no longer insafe returns; she only prayed through fear, bearing Heaven a grudge inthe bottom of her heart.
　　But Gaud listened eagerly to these consoling reasonings; her largesunken eyes looked with deep tenderness out upon this old sire, who somuch resembled her beloved one; merely to have him near her was like ahostage against death having taken the younger Gaos; and she feltreassured, nearer to her Yann. Her tears fell softly and silently, andshe repeated again her passionate prayers to the "Star of the Sea."A delay out at those islands to repair damages was a very likelyevent. She rose and brushed her hair, and then dressed as if she mightfairly expect him. All then was not lost, if a seaman, his own father,did not yet despair. And for a few days, she resumed looking out forhim again.
　　Autumn at last arrived, a late autumn too, its gloomy evenings makingall things appear dark in the old cottage, and all the land lookedsombre, too.
　　The very daylight seemed crepuscular; immeasurable clouds, passingslowly overhead, darkened the whole country at broad noon. The windblew constantly with the sound of a great cathedral organ at adistance, but playing profane, despairing dirges; at other times thenoise came close to the door, like the howling of wild beasts.
　　She had grown pale, aye, blanched, and bent more than ever, as if oldage had already touched her with its featherless wing. Often did shefinger the wedding clothes of her Yann, folding and unfolding themagain and again like some maniac, especially one of his blue woolenjerseys, which still had preserved his shape; when she threw it gentlyon the table, it fell with the shoulders and chest well defined; soshe placed it by itself on a shelf of their wardrobe, and left itthere, so that it might for ever rest unaltered.
　　Every night the cold mists sank upon the land, as she gazed over thedepressing heath through her little window, and watched the paltrypuffs of white smoke arise from the chimneys of other cottagesscattered here and there on all sides. There the husbands hadreturned, like wandering birds driven home by the frost. Before theirblazing hearths the evenings passed, cosy and warm; for the spring-time of love had begun again in this land of North Sea fishermen.
　　Still clinging to the thought of those islands where he might perhapshave lingered, she was buoyed up by a kind hope and expected him homeany day.
Part 5 The Second Wedding Chapter 9
But he never returned. One August night, out off gloomy Iceland,mingled with the furious clamour of the sea, his wedding with the seawas performed. It had been his nurse; it had rocked him in hisbabyhood, and had afterward made him big and strong; then, in hissuperb manhood, it had taken him back again for itself alone.
　　Profoundest mystery had surrounded this unhallowed union. While itwent on, dark curtains hung pall-like over it as if to conceal theceremony, and the ghoul howled in an awful deafening voice to stiflehis cries. He, thinking of Gaud, his sole, darling wife, had battledwith giant strength against this deathly rival, until he at lastsurrendered, with a deep death-cry like the roar of a dying bull,through a mouth already filled with water; and his arms were stretchedapart and stiffened for ever.
　　All those he had invited in days of old were present at his wedding.
　　All except Sylvestre, who had gone to sleep in the enchanted gardensfar, far away, at the other side of the earth.
The End