"And my husband also, Madame Quéméneur, when he is drunk, sleeps all
day long."
"So you have come out too, Madame Kervella?"
"Yes, I also am waiting for my husband, who arrived to-day on the
_Catinat._"
"And my man, Madame Kerdoncuff, the day he returned from China, slept
for two whole days; and I, you know, got drunk too, Madame Kerdoncuff.
Oh! and how ashamed of myself I was! And my daughter, also, she fell
down the stairs!"
And these things, spoken in the singing and musical accent of Brest, are
exchanged under old umbrellas straining in the wind, between women in
waterproofs and pointed muslin head-dresses, who are waiting above, at
the top of the wide granite steps.
Their husbands have come on that same boat which has brought Yves, and
their wives are waiting for them; fortified already by a little brandy,
they are on the watch, their eyes half merry and half tender.
These old sailors whom they await were once perhaps gallant topmen
inured to hardship; but demoralized by their sojourns in Brest and by
drunkenness, they have married these creatures and sunk into the sordid
slums of the town.
Behind these women there are other groups again on which the eye rests
with pleasure; young women of quiet mien, real sailors' wives these,
wrapt in the joy of seeing once more a sweetheart or a husband, and
gazing with anxiety into the great yawning cavern of the port, out of
which their beloved ones will come to them. And there are mothers, come
from the villages, wearing their pretty Breton festival dresses, the
wide coif and the gown of black silk embroidered cloth; the rain will
spoil them to be sure, these fine trappings, which are renewed perhaps
not more than twice in a lifetime; but it is necessary to do honour to
this son whom presently they will embrace before the others.
"See there! The men from the _Magicien_ are now entering the harbour,
Madame Kerdoncuff!"
"And those from the _Catinat_ also, do you see! They are following one
another, Madame Quéméneur!"
Below, deep down, the launches come alongside the black quay, and those
who are awaited are among the first to ascend.
First the husbands of these good ladies. Way for the seniors, let them
pass out first! Tar, and wind and sun and brandy have given them the
wrinkled physiognomies of monkeys. . . . And they go their way, arm in
arm, in the direction of Recouvrance, to some gloomy old street of tall
granite houses; presently they will climb to a damp room which smells of
gutters and the mustiness of poverty, where on the furniture are shell
ornaments covered with dust and bottles pell-mell with strange
knick-knacks. And thanks to the alcohol bought at the tavern below, they
will find oblivion of this cruel separation in a renewal of their youth.
Then come the others, the young men for whom sweethearts are waiting,
and wives and old mothers, and, at last, four by four, climbing the
granite steps, the whole band of wild lads, whom Yves is taking to
celebrate his stripes.
And those who are waiting for them, for this little band of hot-blooded
youth, are in the Rue de Sept Saints, already at their door and on the
watch: women whose hair is worn with a fringe combed down to the
eyebrows--with tipsy voices and horrible gestures.
Before the night is out, these women will have their strength, their
restrained passions--and their money. For your sailormen pay well on the
day of their return, and over and above what they give, there is what
one may take afterwards, when by good luck they are quite drunk.
They look about them undecided, almost bewildered, drunk already merely
from finding themselves on shore.
Where should they go? How should they begin their pleasures? This wind,
this cold rain of winter and this sinister fall of the night--for those
who have a home, a fireside, all that adds to the joy of the return. To
these poor fellows it brought the need for a shelter, for somewhere
where they could warm themselves; but they were without a home, these
returning exiles.
At first they wandered at hazard, linked arm in arm, laughing at
nothing, at everything, walking obliquely from right and left--with the
movements of captive beasts which have just been set free.
Then they entered _À la Descente des Navires_, presided over by Madame
Creachcadec.
_À la Descente des Navires_ was a low tavern in the Rue de Siam.
The warm atmosphere savoured of alcohol. There was a coal fire in a
brazier, and Yves sat down in front of it. This was the first time, for
two or three years past, that he had sat in a chair. And a real fire!
How he revelled in the quite unusual luxury of drying himself before
glowing coals. On board ship, there was never a chance of it; not even
in the great cold of Cape Horn or of Iceland; not even in the
persistent, penetrating rains of the high latitudes were they ever able
to dry themselves. For days and nights on end, they remained wet
through; doing their best to keep on the move, until the sun should
shine.
She was a real mother to the sailors, was this Madame Creachcadec; all
who knew her could vouch for it. And she was very exact, too, in the
prices she charged for their dinners and their feastings.
Besides, she knew them. Her large red face flushed already with alcohol,
she tried to repeat their names, which she heard them saying among
themselves; she remembered quite well having seen them when they were
boatmen on board the _Bretagne_; she even thought she could recall their
boyhood, when they were ship-boys on the _Inflexible._ But what tall,
fine fellows they had grown since those days! Truly it was only an eye
like hers that could recognize them, altered as they were. . . .
And, at the back of the tavern, the dinner was cooking, on stoves which
already sent out an appetising odour of soup.
From the street came sounds of a great uproar. A band of sailors was
approaching, singing, scanning at the top of their voices, to a
frivolous air, these words of the Church: '_Kyrie Christe, Dominum
nostrum; Kyrie eleison_. . . .
They entered, upsetting the chairs, and at the same time a gust of wind
laid low the flame of the lamps.
_Kyrie Christe, Dominum nostrum_. . . . The Bretons did not like this
kind of song, brought no doubt from the back streets of some great city.
But the discordance between the words and the music was so droll, it
made them laugh.
The newcomers, however, were from the _Gauloise_, and recognized, and
were recognized by, the others; they had all been ship-boys together.
One of them hastened to embrace Yves: it was Kerboul who had slept in
the next hammock to him on board the _Inflexible._ He, too, had become
tall and strong; he was on the flagship, and, as he was a steady sort of
fellow, he had for a long time worn red stripes on his sleeve.
The air in the tavern was oppressive and there was a great deal of
noise. Madame Creachcadec brought hot wine all steaming, the preliminary
to the dinner that had been ordered, and heads began to swim.
There was commotion this night in Brest: the patrols were kept busy.
In the Rue de Sept Saints and in the Rue de Saint Yves, singing and
shouting went on until the morning; it was as if barbarians had been
loosed there, bands escaped from ancient Gaul; there were scenes of
rejoicing that recalled the boisterousness of primitive times.
The sailors sang. And the women, their fingers itching for the pieces of
gold--agitated, dishevelled in this great excitation of the sailors'
homecoming--mingled their shrill voices with the deep voices of the men.
The latest arrivals from the sea might be recognized by their deeper
tint of bronze, by their freer carriage; and then they carried with them
objects of foreign origin; some of them passed with bedraggled parakeets
in cages; others with monkeys.
They sang, these sailors, at the top of their voices, with a kind of
naïve expression, things that made one shudder, or perhaps little airs
of the south, songs of the Basque country, and, above all, they sang
mournful Breton melodies which seemed like old bagpipe airs bequeathed
from Celtic antiquity.
The simple, the good, sang part songs together; they remained grouped by
village, and repeated in their native tongue the long laments of the
country, preserving even in their drunkenness their fine resonant young
voices. Others stuttered like little children and embraced one another;
unconscious of their strength they smashed doors and knocked down
passers-by.
The night was advancing; only places of ill-repute remained open; and in
the streets the rain continued to fall on the exuberance of these wild
rejoicings.