5_th July_, 1881.
_At Sea._--We are returning from the Channel. The _Sèvre_ is proceeding
very slowly in a thick fog, blowing every now and then its whistle which
sounds like a cry of distress in this damp shroud which envelops us. The
grey solitudes of the sea are all about us and we feel them without
seeing them. It seems as if we were dragging with us long veils of
darkness; we long to break through them; we are oppressed as it were to
feel that we have been so long enclosed within them, and the impression
grows that this curtain is immense, infinite, that it stretches for
league on league without end, in the same dull greyness, in the same
watery atmosphere. And then there is the endless roll of the waters,
slow, smooth, regular, patient, exasperating. It is as if great polished
and shining backs heaved and pushed us with their shoulders, raising us
up and letting us fall.
Suddenly in the evening the fog lifts and there appears before us a dark
thing, surprising, unexpected, like a tall phantom emerging from the
sea:
"Ar Men Du (the Black Rocks)!" says our old Breton pilot.
And, at the same time, the veil is rent all round us. Ushant appears:
all its dark rocks, all its reefs are outlined in dark grey, beaten by
high-flung showers of white foam, under a sky which seems as heavy as a
globe of lead.
Immediately we straighten our course, and taking advantage of the
clearing, the _Sèvre_ stands in for Brest, whistling no longer, but
hastening and with every hope of reaching port. But the curtain slowly
closes again and falls. We can see no longer, darkness comes, and we
have to stand out for the open sea.
And for three long days we continue thus, unable to see anything. Our
eyes are weary with watching.
This is my last voyage on the _Sèvre_, which I am due to leave as soon
as we reach Brest. Yves, with his Breton superstition, sees something
unnatural in this fog, which persists in midsummer as if to delay my
departure.
It seems to him a warning and a bad omen.