The June night was falling slowly, bringing peace and silence over the
Breton countryside. In the sunken lanes it was becoming difficult to
see.
Old Corentin Keremenen had in fact returned from his work in the fields
and was waiting for us at his door. He had had time even to change his
clothes: he was wearing now his large silver-buckled hat and his
feast-day jacket of blue cloth ornamented with metal spangles and, on
the back, with an embroidery representing the Blessed Sacrament.
There is an air of joyous movement in the cottage, an air of
celebration. The copper candlesticks are on the table which has been
covered with a handsome cloth. The presses, the stools, the old oak
woodwork shine like mirrors. One guesses that Yves has been busy.
The candles illumine only the centre of the room, leaving the rest in
gloom. There are movements of large white things which are the
wide-winged coifs and pleated collarettes of the women; but otherwise
the backgrounds are dark; the light dies as it flickers on the granite
of the walls, on the irregular and time-blackened beams which support
the thatch of the roof. This thatch and this rough granite still
preserve in the Breton villages a note of the primitive epoch.
Supper is served and we take our places, Yves on my left, Anne on my
right.
It is a plenteous repast: chickens served with different sauces, wheaten
cakes, savoury and sweet omelettes; and wine and golden cider which
foams in our glasses.
Yves says to me aside in a low voice:
"He is a very good man, my father-in-law; and my mother-in-law Marianne,
you cannot imagine what a good woman she is! I am very fond of them
both."
During the evening a girl brings from the village clean starched things
of voluminous dimensions. Anne hastens to conceal them in a press, while
Yves, with a glance of intelligence, says:
"You see what preparations are being made in your honour!"
I had guessed what they were: the ceremonial head-dress and the immense,
embroidered, thousand-pleated collarette, with which she was going to
adorn herself for to-morrow's festival.
And I, on my side, have a number of little packets which I want to bring
out, unperceived, with Yves' help from my trunk: sweets, sugar-plums, a
gold cross for the godmother. But Anne has seen it all from the corner
of her eye and starts to laugh. So much the worse! After all it is
difficult to succeed in making mystery in a dwelling which has only one
door and only one room for everybody.
Little Pierre, round as ever, a little bronze baby, continues to sleep
in the same position, his closed fists under his chin. Never was a
new-born baby so beautiful and so good.
When I take my leave of them, Yves gets up also in order to accompany me
as far as the village, where I am going to sleep at the inn.
Outside, in the sunken lane, under the branches, it is now pitch dark;
we are enveloped by a double obscurity, that of the trees and that of
the night.
It is a kind of peace to which we are not accustomed, the peace of the
woods. And there is no sea; the country of Toulven is far away from it.
We listen; it seems to us still that we ought to hear in the distance
its familiar sound. But no; all about is silence. Nothing but scarcely
perceptible rustlings in the thick greenery, soft sounds of wings
opening, slight quiverings of birds dreaming in their sleep.
There is still the perfume of honeysuckle; but, with the night, have
come a penetrating freshness and odours of moss, of earth, of the
dampness of Brittany.
All this sleeping countryside, all these wooded hills which surround us,
all these slumbering trees, all these tranquillities oppress us. We feel
rather like strangers in the midst of it all, and we miss the sea, the
sea which, after all, is the great open space, the great unconfined
field over which we are accustomed to run.
Yves suffers these impressions and tells me of them in a naïve way, a
way peculiarly his own, which would scarcely be intelligible to anyone
but me. In the midst of his happiness, an uneasiness troubles him this
evening, almost a regret that he should unthinkingly have fixed his
destiny in this remote little cottage.
And presently we come upon a calvary, stretching out in the darkness its
two grey arms, and we think of all these old granite chapels which lie
here and there around us, isolated in the beech woods . . . in which the
souls of the dead keep vigil.