At the end of about an hour I was in the midst of fields, absolutely
lost. Around me nothing but darkness, and the silence of a winter's
night. I wandered along muddy lanes; not a soul of whom I could ask the
way, not a hamlet, not a light. But always the dark silhouettes of
trees, and, at intervals, calvaries; some of these calvaries were very
large, and I had no recollection of having seen them in my walk during
the day.
I retraced my steps hurriedly. For a long time I tried different
directions, running. An icy rain began to fall, driven by the wind which
had risen suddenly. It did not distress me much that I had lost my way,
but I felt the need of seeing someone friendly, and I made haste in my
efforts to find Yves.
It must have been very late when I recognized ahead of me the chapel of
Plouherzel and the sea-water lake, on which the moonlight was now
falling, and the dark mass of the granite isle on the pale water, the
back of the great couchant beast.
Near the chapel I heard voices. In the darkness two men, one of athletic
build, holding each other by the hand and talking to each other very
affectionately, in the manner of men in the early stage of intoxication:
Yves and Jean; and I hastened to them.
They were greatly surprised and pleased to see me. And Jean, taking each
of us by the arm, insisted that we should both accompany him to his
home.
Jean's cottage, isolated also, was in the neighbourhood of Yves', but it
was much larger and better furnished.
You realized at once that you were in the home of people comfortably
off: the presses and the beds had clasps of figured steel which shone
like armour. At the farther end was a monumental fireplace, in which
blazed a large oak log.
Two women were sitting before this fire, Jeannie, the young wife, and
the old grandmother, in tall head-dress, busy at her spinning-wheel.
She would have made a fine study for an artist, this mother of Jean. She
had also, in some measure, brought up Yves, whom she called in Breton
"her other son," and whom she kissed very affectionately on both cheeks.
The women, for the past hour, had been sitting up anxiously for them.
They received them with indulgence, although they were tipsy (it was
what commonly happened when old friends met), scolded them just a
little, and then set to work to make pancakes and soup for the three of
us.
A wild wind, which had begun to blow from the sea, roared outside, in
the darkness of the deserted countryside. From time to time, it rushed
down the chimney, driving before it the bright flames of the fire; and
then little flakes of ash, very light, began to dance a round-dance
about the hearth, very low, skimming the floor, like those unhappy souls
of dwarfs which circle the whole night long about the Great Rocks.
We were very comfortable before this fire which dried our clothes soaked
with rain, and we waited eagerly for the hot soup which was being
prepared for us.