CHAPTER I--THE SKIRMISH

Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers

AN ICELAND FISHERMAN

By Pierre Loti

Translated by M. Jules Cambon

PIERRE LOTI

The first appearance of Pierre Loti's works, twenty years ago, caused

a sensation throughout those circles wherein the creations of intellect

and imagination are felt, studied, and discussed. The author was one

who, with a power which no one had wielded before him, carried off his

readers into exotic lands, and whose art, in appearance most simple,

proved a genuine enchantment for the imagination. It was the time when

M. Zola and his school stood at the head of the literary movement. There

breathed forth from Loti's writings an all-penetrating fragrance

of poesy, which liberated French literary ideals from the heavy

and oppressive yoke of the Naturalistic school. Truth now soared on

unhampered pinions, and the reading world was completely won by the

unsurpassed intensity and faithful accuracy with which he depicted the

alluring charms of far-off scenes, and painted the naive soul of the

races that seem to endure in the isles of the Pacific as surviving

representatives of the world's infancy.

It was then learned that this independent writer was named in real life

Louis Marie Julien Viaud, and that he was a naval officer. This very

fact, that he was not a writer by profession, added indeed to his

success. He actually had seen that which he was describing, he had lived

that which he was relating. What in any other man would have seemed

but research and oddity, remained natural in the case of a sailor 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 our Basque

mountaineers were not less foreign to the Parisian drawing-room than

was Aziyade or the little Rahahu. One claimed to have a knowledge

of Brittany, or of the Pyrenees, because one had visited Dinard or

Biarritz; while in reality neither Tahiti nor the Isle of Paques could

have remained more completely unknown to us.

The developments of human industry have brought the extremities of the

world nearer together; but the soul of each race continues to cloak

itself in its own individuality and to remain a mystery to the rest of

the world. One trait alone is common to all: the infinite sadness of

human destiny. This it was that Loti impressed so vividly on the reading

world.

His success was great. Though a young man as yet, Loti saw his work

crowned with what in France may be considered the supreme sanction: he

was elected to membership in the French Academy. His name became coupled

with those of Bernardin de St. Pierre and of Chateaubriand. With the

sole exception of the author of _Paul and Virginia_ and of the writer of

_Atala_, he seemed to be one without predecessor and without a master.

It may be well here to inquire how much reason there is for this

assertion, and what novel features are presented in his work.

It has become a trite saying that French genius lacks the sense of

Nature, that the French tongue is colourless, and therefore wants the

most striking feature of poetry. If we abandoned for one moment the

domain of letters and took a comprehensive view of the field of art, we

might be permitted to express astonishment at the passing of so summary

a judgment on the genius of a nation which has, in the real sense of the

term, produced two such painters of Nature as Claude Lorrain and Corot.

But even in the realm of letters it is easily seen that this mode of

thinking is due largely to insufficient knowledge of the language's

resources, and to a study of French literature which does not extend

beyond the seventeenth century. Without going back to the Duke of

Orleans and to Villon, one need only read a few of the poets of the

sixteenth century to be struck by the prominence given to Nature in

their writings. Nothing is more delightful than Ronsard's word-paintings

of his sweet country of Vendome. Until the day of Malherbe, the didactic

Regnier and the Calvinistic Marot are the only two who could be said to

give colour to the preconceived and prevalent notion as to the dryness

of French poetry. And even after Malherbe, in the seventeenth century,

we find that La Fontaine, the most truly French of French writers, was

a passionate lover of Nature. He who can see nothing in the latter's

fables beyond the little dramas which they unfold and the ordinary moral

which the poet draws therefrom, must confess that he fails to understand

him. His landscapes possess precision, accuracy, and life, while such is

the fragrance of his speech that it seems laden with the fresh perfume

of the fields and furrows.

Racine himself, the most penetrating and the most psychological of

poets, is too well versed in the human soul not to have felt its

intimate 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 heart

that is troubled and which oft has sought peace and alleviation amid the

cold indifference of inanimate things. The small place given to Nature

in the French literature of the seventeenth century is not to be

ascribed to the language nor explained by a lack of sensibility on the

part of the race. The true cause is to be found in the spirit of that

period; for investigation will disclose that the very same condition

then characterized the literatures of England, of Spain, and of Italy.

We must bear in mind that, owing to an almost unique combination of

circumstances, there never has been a period when man was more convinced

of the nobility and, I dare say it, of the sovereignty of man, or was

more inclined to look upon the latter as a being independent of the

external world. He did not suspect the intimately close bonds which

unite the creature to the medium in which it lives. A man of the world

in the seventeenth century was utterly without a notion of those truths

which in their ensemble constitute the natural sciences. He crossed

the threshold of life possessed of a deep classical instruction, and

all-imbued with stoical ideas of virtue. At the same time, he had

received the mould of a strong but narrow Christian education, in which

nothing figured save his relations with God. This twofold training

elevated his soul and fortified his will, but wrenched him violently

from all communion with Nature. This is the standpoint from which

we must view the heroes of Corneille, if we would understand those

extraordinary souls which, always at the highest degree of tension, deny

themselves, as a weakness, everything that resembles tenderness or pity.

Again, thus and thus alone can we explain how Descartes, and with him

all the philosophers of his century, ran counter to all common sense,

and refused to recognise that animals might possess a soul-like

principle which, however remotely, might link them to the human being.

When, in the eighteenth century, minds became emancipated from the

narrow restrictions of religious discipline, and when method was

introduced into the study of scientific problems, Nature took her

revenge as well in literature as in all other fields of human thought.

Rousseau it was who inaugurated the movement in France, and the whole of

Europe followed in the wake of France. It may even be declared that the

reaction against the seventeenth century was in many respects excessive,

for the eighteenth century gave itself up to a species of sentimental

debauch. It is none the less a fact that the author of _La Nouvelle

Heloise_ was the first to blend the moral life of man with his exterior

surroundings. He felt the savage beauty and grandeur of the mountains

of Switzerland, the grace of the Savoy horizons, and the more familiar

elegance of the Parisian suburbs. We may say that he opened the eye

of humanity to the spectacle which the world offered it. In Germany,

Lessing, Goethe, Hegel, Schelling have proclaimed him their 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 with Loti. Indeed,

the charming masterpiece of _Paul and Virginia_ was the first example

of exoticism in literature; and thereby it excited the curiosity of

our fathers at the same time that it dazzled them by the wealth and

brilliancy of its descriptions.

Then came Chateaubriand; but Nature with him was not a mere background.

He sought from it an accompaniment, in the musical sense of the term, to

the movements of his soul; and being somewhat prone to melancholy, his

taste seems to have favoured sombre landscapes, stormy and tragical. The

entire romantic school was born from him, Victor Hugo and George Sand,

Theophile Gautier who draws from the French tongue resources unequalled

in wealth and colour, and even M. Zola himself, whose naturalism, after

all, is but the last form and, as it were, the end of romanticism, since

it would be difficult to discover in him any characteristic that did not

exist, as a germ at least, in Balzac.

I have just said that Chateaubriand sought in Nature an accompaniment to

the movements of his soul: this was the case with all the romanticists.

We do not find Rene, Manfred, Indiana, living in the midst of a tranquil

and monotonous Nature. The storms of heaven must respond to the storms

of their soul; and it is a fact that all these great writers, Byron as

well as Victor Hugo, have not so much contemplated and seen Nature as

they have interpreted it through the medium of their own passions;

and it is in this sense that the keen Amiel could justly remark that a

landscape is a condition or a state of the soul.

M. Loti does not merely interpret a landscape; though perhaps, to begin

with, he is unconscious of doing more. With him, the human being is a

part of Nature, one of its very expressions, like animals and plants,

mountain forms and sky tints. His characters are what they are only

because they issue forth from the medium in which they live. They are

truly creatures, and not gods inhabiting the earth. Hence their profound

and striking reality.

Hence also one of the peculiar characteristics of Loti's workers. He

loves to paint simple souls, hearts close to Nature, whose primitive

passions are singularly similar to those of animals. He is happy in the

isles of the Pacific or on the borders of Senegal; and when he shifts

his scenes into old Europe it is never with men and women of the world

that he entertains us.

What we call a man of the world is the same everywhere; he is moulded

by the society of men, but Nature and the universe have no place in

his life and thought. M. Paul Bourget's heroes might live without

distinction in Newport or in Monte Carlo; they take root nowhere, but

live in the large cities, in winter resorts and in drawing-rooms as

transient visitors in temporary abiding-places.

Loti seeks his heroes and his heroines among those antique races of

Europe which have survived all conquests, and which have preserved,

with their native tongue, the individuality of their character. He met

Ramuntcho in the Basque country, but dearer than all to him is Brittany:

here it was that he met his Iceland fishermen.

The Breton soul bears an imprint of Armorica's primitive soil: it is

melancholy and noble. There is an undefinable charm about those arid

lands and those sod-flanked hills of granite, whose sole horizon is the

far-stretching sea. Europe ends here, and beyond remains only the broad

expanse of the ocean. The poor people who dwell here are silent and

tenacious: their heart is full of tenderness and of dreams. Yann, the

Iceland fisherman, and his sweetheart, Gaud of Paimpol, can only live

here, in the small houses of Brittany, where people huddle together in

a stand against the storms which come howling from the depths of the

Atlantic.

Loti's novels are never complicated with a mass of incidents. The

characters are of humble station and their life is as simple as their

soul. _Aziyade_, _The Romance of a Spahi_, _An Iceland Fisherman_,

_Ramuntcho_, all present the story of a love and a separation. A

departure, or death itself, intervenes to put an end to the romance.

But the cause matters little; the separation is the same; the hearts are

broken; Nature survives; it covers over and absorbs the miserable ruins

which we leave behind us. No one better than Loti has ever brought out

the frailty of all things pertaining to us, for no one better than he

has made us realize the persistency of life and the indifference of

Nature.

This circumstance imparts to the reading of M. Loti's works a character

of peculiar sadness. The trend of his novels is not one that incites

curiosity; his heroes are simple, and the atmosphere in which they

live is foreign to us. What saddens us is not their history, but the

undefinable impression that our pleasures are nothing and that we are

but an accident. This is a thought common to the degree of triteness

among moralists and theologians; but as they present it, it fails to

move us. It troubles us as presented by M. Loti, because he has 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 of

vague and indefinite expressions. And yet the wealth and precision of

Gautier's and Hugo's language fail to endow their landscapes with the

striking charm and intense life which are to be found in those of Loti.

I can find no other reason for this than that which I have suggested

above: the landscape, in Hugo's and in Gautier's scenes, is a background

and nothing more; while Loti makes it the predominating figure of his

drama. Our sensibilities are necessarily aroused before this apparition

of Nature, blind, inaccessible, and all-powerful as the Fates of old.

It may prove interesting to inquire how Loti contrived to sound such a

new note in art.

He boasted, on the day of his reception into the French Academy, that

he had never read. Many protested, some smiled, and a large number of

persons refused to believe the assertion. Yet the statement was actually

quite credible, for the foundation and basis of M. Loti rest on a naive

simplicity which makes him very sensitive to the things of the outside

world, and gives him a perfect comprehension of simple souls. He is not

a reader, for he is not imbued with book notions of things; his ideas

of them are direct, and everything with him is not memory, but reflected

sensation.

On the other hand, that sailor-life which had enabled him to see the

world, must have confirmed in him this mental attitude. The deck officer

who watches the vessel's course may do nothing which could distract his

attention; but while ever ready to act and always unoccupied, he thinks,

he dreams, he listens to the voices of the sea; and everything about him

is of interest to him, the shape of the clouds, the aspect of skies and

waters. He knows that a mere board's thickness is all that separates him

and defends him from death. Such is the habitual state of mind which M.

Loti has brought to the colouring of his books.

He has related to us how, when still a little child, he first beheld

the sea. He had escaped from the parental home, allured by the brisk and

pungent air and by the “peculiar noise, at once feeble and great,” which

could be heard beyond little hills of sand to which led a certain path.

He recognised the sea; “before me something appeared, something sombre

and noisy, which had loomed up from all sides at once, and which seemed

to have no end; a moving expanse which struck me with mortal vertigo;

. . . above was stretched out full a sky all of one piece, of a dark gray

colour like a heavy mantle; very, very far away, in unmeasurable depths

of horizon, could be seen a break, an opening between sea and sky,

a long empty crack, of a light pale yellow.” He felt a sadness

unspeakable, a sense of desolate solitude, of abandonment, of exile. He

ran back in haste to unburden his soul upon his mother's bosom, and,

as he says, “to seek consolation with her for a thousand anticipated,

indescribable pangs, which had wrung my 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 of

the shudder of fear experienced that evening by Pierre Loti the little

child.

Loti was born not far from the ocean, in Saintonge, of an old Huguenot

family which had numbered many sailors among its members. While yet

a mere child he thumbed the old Bible which formerly, in the days of

persecution, had been read only with cautious secrecy; and he perused

the vessel's ancient records wherein mariners long since gone had noted,

almost a century before, that “the weather was good,” that “the wind

was favourable,” and that “doradoes or gilt-heads were passing near the

ship.”

He was passionately fond of music. He had few comrades, and his

imagination was of the exalted kind. His first ambition was to be a

minister, then a missionary; and finally he decided to become a sailor.

He wanted to see the world, he had the curiosity of things; he was

inclined to search for the strange and the unknown; he must seek that

sensation, delightful and fascinating to complex souls, of betaking

himself off, of withdrawing from his own world, of breaking with his own

mode of life, and of creating for himself voluntary regrets.

He felt in the presence of Nature a species of disquietude, and

experienced therefrom sensations which might almost be expressed in

colours: his head, he himself states, “might be compared to a camera,

filled with sensitive plates.” This power of vision permitted him to

apprehend only the appearance of things, not their reality; he was

conscious of the nothingness of nothing, of the dust of dust. The

remnants of his religious education intensified still more this distaste

for the external world.

He was wont to spend his summer vacation in the south of France, and he

preserved its warm sunny impressions. It was only later that he became

acquainted with Brittany. She inspired him at first with a feeling of

oppression and of sadness, and it was long before he learned to love

her.

Thus was formed and developed, far from literary circles and from

Parisian coteries, one of the most original writers that had appeared

for a long time. He noted his impressions while touring the world; one

fine morning he published them, and from the very first the reading

public was won. He related his adventures and his own romance. The

question could then be raised whether his skill and art would prove as

consummate if he should deviate from his own personality to write what

might be termed impersonal poems; and it is precisely in this last

direction that he subsequently produced what are now considered his

masterpieces.

A strange writer assuredly is this, at once logical and illusive, who

makes us feel at the same time the sensation of things and that of their

nothingness. Amid so many works wherein the luxuries of the Orient, the

quasi animal life of the Pacific, the burning passions of Africa, are

painted with a vigour of imagination never witnessed before his advent,

_An Iceland Fisherman_ shines forth with incomparable brilliancy.

Something of the pure soul of Brittany is to be found in these

melancholy pages, which, so long as the French tongue endures, must

evoke the admiration of artists, and must arouse the pity and stir the

emotions of men.

JULES CAMBON.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The real name of PIERRE LOTI is LOUIS MARIE JULIEN VIAUD. He was born

of Protestant parents, in the old city of Rochefort, on the 14th of

January, 1850. In one of his pleasant volumes of autobiography,

“Le Roman d'un Enfant,” he has given a very pleasing account of his

childhood, which was most tenderly cared for and surrounded with

indulgences. At a very early age he began to develop that extreme

sensitiveness to external influences which has distinguished him ever

since. He was first taught at a school in Rochefort, but at the age

of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the great French

naval school, Le Borda, and has gradually risen in his profession.

His pseudonym is said to have had reference to his extreme shyness and

reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after “le Loti,”

an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. He was never given 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 not until his

thirtieth year that he was persuaded to write down and publish certain

curious experiences at Constantinople, in “Aziyade,” a book which,

like so many of Loti's, seems half a romance, half an autobiography.

He proceeded to the South Seas, and, on leaving Tahiti, published the

Polynesian idyl, originally called “Raharu,” which was reprinted as “Le

Mariage de Loti” (1880), and which first introduced to the wider public

an author of remarkable originality and charm. Loti now became extremely

prolific, and in a succession of volumes chronicled old exotic memories

or manipulated the journal of new travels. “Le Roman d'un Spahi,” a

record of the melancholy adventures of a soldier in Senegambia, belongs

to 1881. In 1882 Loti issued a collection of short studies under the

general title of “Fleurs d'Ennui.” In 1883 he achieved the widest

celebrity, for not only did he publish “Mon Frere Yves,” a novel

describing the life of a French bluejacket in all parts of the

world--perhaps, on the whole, to this day his most characteristic

production--but he was involved in a public discussion in a manner

which did him great credit. While taking part as a naval officer in

the Tonquin war, Loti had exposed in a Parisian newspaper a series of

scandals which succeeded on the capture of Hue, and, being recalled, he

was now suspended from the service for more than a year. He continued

for some time nearly silent, but in 1886, he published a novel of life

among the Breton fisher-folk, entitled “Pecheurs d'Islande”; this has

been the most popular of all his writings. In 1887 he brought out a

volume of extraordinary merit, which has never received the attention it

deserves; this is “Propos d'Exil,” a series of short studies of exotic

places, in Loti's peculiar semi-autobiographic style. The fantastic

romance of Japanese manners, “Madame Chrysantheme,” belongs to the same

year. Passing over one or two slighter productions, we come to 1890,

to “Au Maroc,” the record of a journey to Fez in company with a

French embassy. A collection of strangely confidential and sentimental

reminiscences, called “Le Livre de la Pitie et de la Mort,” belongs to

1891. Loti was on board his ship at the port of Algiers when news was

brought to him of his election, on the 21st of May, 1891, to the French

Academy. Since he has become an Immortal the literary activity of Pierre

Loti has somewhat declined. In 1892 he published “Fantome d'Orient,”

another dreamy study of life in Constantinople, a sort of continuation

of “Aziyade.” He has described a visit to the Holy Land in three

volumes, “Le Desert,” “Jerusalem,” “La Galilee” (1895-96), and he has

written one novel, “Ramentcho” (1897), a story of manners in the Basque

province, which is quite on a level with his best work. In 1898 he

collected his later essays as “Figures et Choses qui passaient.” In

1899-1900 Loti visited British India, and in the autumn of the latter

year China; and he has described what he saw there, after the seige, in

a charming volume, “Derniers Jours de Pekin,” 1902.

E. G.

AN ICELAND FISHERMAN

by Pierre Loti

PART 1 -- ON THE ICY SEA

CHAPTER I--THE FISHERMEN

There they were, five huge, square-built seamen, drinking away together

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, seen from within.

The whole rolled gently with a monotonous wail, inclining one slowly to

drowsiness.

Outside, beyond doubt, lay the sea and the night; but one could not be

quite sure of that, for a single opening in the deck was closed by

its weather-hatch, and the only light came from an old hanging-lamp,

swinging to and fro. A fire shone in the stove, at which their saturated

clothes were drying, and giving out steam that mingled with the smoke

from their clay pipes.

Their massive table, fitted exactly to its shape, occupied the whole

space; and there was just enough room for moving around and sitting upon

the narrow lockers fastened to the sides. Thick beams ran above them,

very nearly touching their heads, and behind them yawned the berths,

apparently hollowed out of the solid timbers, like recesses of a vault

wherein to place the dead. All the wainscoting was rough and worn,

impregnated with damp and salt, defaced and polished by the continual

rubbings of their hands.

They had been drinking wine and cider in their pannikins, and the sheer

enjoyment of life lit up their frank, honest faces. Now, they lingered

at table chatting, in Breton tongue, on women and marriage. A china

statuette of the Virgin Mary was fastened on a bracket against the

midship partition, in the place of honour. This patron saint of our

sailors was rather antiquated, and painted with very simple art; yet

these porcelain images live much longer than real men, and her red and

blue robe still seemed very fresh in the midst of the sombre greys of

the poor wooden box. She must have listened to many an ardent prayer in

deadly hours; at her feet were nailed two nosegays of artificial flowers

and a rosary.

These half-dozen men were dressed alike; a thick blue woollen jersey

clung to the body, drawn in by the waist-belt; on the head was worn the

waterproof helmet, known as the sou'-wester. These men were of different

ages. The skipper might have been about forty; the three others between

twenty-five and thirty. The youngest, whom they called Sylvestre or

“Lurlu,” was only seventeen, yet already a man for height and strength;

a fine curly black beard covered his cheeks; still he had childlike

eyes, bluish-grey in hue, and sweet and tender in expression.

Huddled against one another, for want of space, they seemed to feel

downright comfort, snugly packed in their dark home.

Outside spread the ocean and night--the infinite solitude of dark

fathomless waters. A brass watch, hung on the wall, pointed to eleven

o'clock--doubtless eleven at night--and upon the deck pattered the

drizzling rain.

Among themselves, they treated these questions of marriage very merrily;

but without saying anything indecent. No, indeed, they only sketched

plans for those who were still bachelors, or related funny stories

happening at home at wedding-feasts. Sometimes with a happy laugh they

made some rather too free remarks about the fun in love-making. But

love-making, as these men understand it, is always a healthy sensation,

and for all its coarseness remains tolerably chaste.

But Sylvestre was worried, because a mate called Jean (which Bretons

pronounce “Yann”) did not come down below. Where could Yann be, by the

way? was he lashed to his work on deck? Why did he not come below to

take his share in their feast?

“It's close on midnight, hows'ever,” observed the captain; and drawing

himself up he raised the scuttle with his head, so as to call Yann that

way.

Then a weird glimmer fell from above.

“Yann! Yann! Look alive, matey!”

“Matey” answered roughly from outside while through the half-opened

hatchway the faint light kept entering like that of dawn. Nearly

midnight, yet it looked like a peep of day, or the light of the starry

gloaming, sent from afar through mystic lenses of magicians.

When the aperture closed, night reigned again, save for the small lamp,

“sended” now and again aside, which shed its yellow light. A man in

clogs was heard coming down the wooden steps.

He entered bent in two like a big bear, for he was a giant. At first

he made a wry face, holding his nose, because of the acrid smell of the

souse.

He exceeded a little too much the ordinary proportions of man,

especially in breadth, though he was straight as a poplar. When he faced

you the muscles of his shoulders, moulded under his blue jersey, stood

out like great globes at the tops of his arms. His large brown eyes were

very mobile, with a grand, wild expression.

Sylvestre threw his arms round Yann, and drew him towards him tenderly,

after the fashion of children. Sylvestre was betrothed to Yann's sister,

and he treated him as an elder brother, of course. And Yann allowed

himself to be pulled about like a young lion, answering by a kind smile

that showed his white teeth. These were somewhat far apart, and appeared

quite small. His fair moustache was rather short, although never cut.

It was tightly curled in small rolls above his lips, which were most

exquisitely and delicately modelled, and then frizzed off at the ends on

either side of the deep corners of his mouth. The remainder of his beard

was shaven, and his highly coloured cheeks 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 smoke

a 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 one another

as they were; otherwise his work had been hard enough for the darling of

the crew. Yann let him drink out of his own glass before he was sent to

bed. Thereupon the important topic of marriage was revived.

“But I say, Yann,” asked Sylvestre, “when are we going to celebrate your

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 the lasses

think of you when they see you roll by?”

Yann answered by snapping his thick fingers with a contemptuous look for

the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' government naval

service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he had learned to

speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmed and hawed

and then rattled off his latest love adventure, which had lasted a

fortnight.

It happened in Nantes, a Free-and-Easy singer for the heroine. One

evening, returning from the waterside, being slightly tipsy, he had

entered the music hall. At the door stood a woman selling big bouquets

at twenty francs apiece. He had bought one without quite knowing what

he should do with it, and before he was much more than in had thrown it

with great force at the vocalist upon the stage, striking her full in

the face, partly as a rough declaration of love, partly through disgust

for the painted doll that was too pink for his taste. The blow had

felled the woman to the boards, and--she worshipped him during the three

following weeks.

“Why, bless ye, lads, when I left she made me this here present of a

real gold watch.”

The better to show it them he threw it upon the table like a worthless

toy.

This was told with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own.

Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such

simple men, with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them; in the

glimmering of midnight, falling from above, was an impression of the

fleeting summers of the far north country.

These ways of Yann greatly pained and surprised Sylvestre. He was

a girlish boy, brought up in respect for holy things, by an old

grandmother, 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 his

beads over his mother's grave. From the churchyard on the cliff the

grey waters of the Channel, wherein his father had disappeared in a

shipwreck, could be seen in the far distance.

As his grandmother and himself were poor he had to take to fishing in

his early youth, and his childhood had been spent out on the open water.

Every night he said his prayers, and his eyes still wore their religious

purity. He was captivating though, and next to Yann the finest-built lad

of the crew. His voice was very soft, and its boyish tones contrasted

markedly with his tall height and black beard; as he had shot up very

rapidly he was almost puzzled to find himself grown suddenly so tall and

big. He expected to marry Yann's sister soon, but never 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 of their

patron saint, it was a little past midnight. Three of them crept away

to bed in the small dark recesses that resembled coffin-shelves; and

the three others went up on deck to get on with their often interrupted,

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, dim

light, resembling no other--bathing all things, like the gleams of a

setting sun. Around them stretched an immense colourless waste, and

excepting 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 to reflect;

and in the distance it became a desert of vapour; and beyond that a

void, having neither horizon nor limits.

The damp freshness of the air was more intensely penetrating than dry

frost; and when breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine. All was

calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or

colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained;

the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night;

this dimness was all of an indefinable hue.

The three men on deck had lived since their childhood upon the frigid

seas, in the very midst of their mists, which are vague and troubled

as the background of dreams. They were accustomed to see this varying

infinitude play about their paltry ark of planks, and their eyes were as

used to it as those of the great free ocean-birds.

The boat rolled gently with its everlasting wail, as monotonous as a

Breton song moaned by a sleeper. Yann and Sylvestre had got their bait

and lines ready, while their mate opened a barrel of salt, and whetting

his long knife went and sat behind them, waiting.

He did not have long to wait, or they either. They scarcely had thrown

their lines into the calm, cold water in fact, before they drew in huge

heavy fish, of a steel-grey sheen. And time after time the codfish let

themselves be hooked in a rapid and unceasing silent series. The third

man ripped them open with his long knife, spread them flat, salted

and counted them, and piled up the lot--which upon their return would

constitute their fortune--behind them, all still redly streaming and

still sweet and fresh.

The hours passed monotonously, while in the immeasurably empty regions

beyond the light slowly changed till it grew less unreal. What at first

had appeared a livid gloaming, like a northern summer's eve, became

now, without any intervening “dark hour before dawn,” something like

a smiling morn, reflected by all the facets of the oceans in fading,

roseate-edged streaks.

“You really ought to marry, Yann,” said Sylvestre, suddenly and very

seriously this time, still looking into the water. (He seemed to know

somebody in Brittany, who had allowed herself to be captivated by

the brown eyes of his “big brother,” but he felt shy upon so solemn a

subject.)

“Me! Lor', yes, some day I will marry.” He smiled, did the always

contemptuous Yann, rolling his passionate eyes. “But I'll have none of

the lasses at home; no, I'll wed the sea, and I invite ye all in the

barkey 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 had not

ceased passing for the last two days.

They had been up all night, and in thirty hours had caught more than a

thousand prime cods; so that even their strong arms were tired and they

were half asleep. But their bodies remained active and they continued

their toil, though occasionally their minds floated off into regions of

profound sleep. But the free air they breathed was as pure as that of

the first young days of the world, and so bracing, that notwithstanding

their weariness they felt their chests expand and their cheeks glow as

at arising.

Morning, the true morning light, at length came; as in the days of

Genesis, it had “divided from the darkness,” which had settled upon the

horizon and rested there in great heavy masses; and by the clearness

of vision now, it was seen night had passed, and that that first vague

strange glimmer was only a forerunner. In the thickly-veiled heavens,

broke out rents here and there, like side skylights in a 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 veiling the infinite, or

as draperies drawn to hide the too majestic mysteries, which would have

perturbed the imagination of mortals.

On this special morning, around the small plank platform occupied by

Yann and Sylvestre, the shifting outer world had an appearance of

deep meditation, as though this were an altar recently raised; and the

sheaves of sun-rays, which darted like arrows under the sacred arch,

spread in a long glimmering stream over the motionless waves, as over

a marble floor. Then, slowly and more slowly yet loomed still another

wonder; a high, majestic, pink profile--it was a promontory of gloomy

Iceland.

Yann's wedding with the sea? Sylvestre was still thinking of it--after

resuming his fishing without daring to say anything more. He had felt

quite sad when his big brother had so turned the holy sacrament of

marriage into ridicule; and it particularly had frightened him, as he

was superstitious.

For so long, too, he had mused on Yann's marriage! He had thought that

it might take place with Gaud Mevel, a blonde lass from Paimpol; and

that he would have the happiness of being present at the marriage-feast

before starting for the navy, that long five years' exile, with

its 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 of the

fresh, chill air, they stepped up, drawing their long sea-boots higher,

and having to shut their eyes, dazzled at first by a light so pale, yet

in such abundance.

Yann and Sylvestre took their breakfast of biscuits, which they had to

break with a mallet, and began to munch noisily, laughing at their being

so very hard. They had become quite merry again at the idea of going

down to sleep, snugly and warmly in their berths; and clasping

each other round the waist they danced up to the hatchway to an old

song-tune.

Before disappearing through the aperture they stopped to play with

Turc, 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 and anger

in his quick-changing eyes, pushed him aside with an impatient blow that

sent him flying and made him howl. Yann had a kind heart enough, but his

nature remained rather untamed, and when his physical being was touched,

a tender caress was often more like a manifestation of brutal violence.

CHAPTER II--ICELANDERS

Their smack was named _La Marie_, and her master was Captain Guermeur.

Every year she set sail for the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigid

regions where the summers have no night. She was a very old ship, as

old as the statuette of her patron saint itself. Her heavy, oaken planks

were rough and worn, impregnated with ooze and brine, but still strong

and stout, and smelling strongly of tar. At anchor she looked an old

unwieldy tub from her so massive build, but when blew the mighty western

gales, her lightness returned, like a sea-gull awakened by the wind.

Then she had her own style of tumbling over the rollers, and rebounding

more lightly than many newer ones, launched with all your new fangles.

As for the crew of six men and the boy, they were “Icelanders,” the

valiant race of seafarers whose homes are at Paimpol and Treguier, and

who from father to son are destined for the cod fisheries.

They hardly ever had seen a summer in France. At the end of each winter

they, with other fishers, received the parting blessing in the harbour

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, in the

midst of anchors, oars and nets, was enthroned the Virgin Mary, calm,

and beaming with affection, the patroness of sailors; she would be

brought from her chapel for the occasion, and had looked upon generation

after generation with her same lifeless eyes, blessing the happy for

whom the season would be lucky, and the others who never more would

return.

The Host, followed by a slow procession of wives, mothers, sweethearts,

and sisters, was borne round the harbour, where the boats bound for

Iceland, bedecked in all colours, saluted it on its way. The priest

halted before each, giving them his holy blessing; and then the fleet

started, leaving the country desolate of husbands, lovers, and sons;

and as the shores faded from their view, the crews sang together in low,

full voices, the hymns sacred to “the Star of the Ocean.” And every 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 or

four rough companions, on the moving thin planks in the midst of the

seething waters of the northern seas.

Until now _La Marie_ followed the custom of many Icelanders, which

is merely to touch at Paimpol, and then to sail down to the Gulf of

Gascony, where fish fetches high prices, or farther on to the Sandy

Isles, with their salty swamps, where they buy the salt for the next

expedition. The crews of lusty fellows stay a few days in the southern,

sun-kissed harbour-towns, intoxicated by the last rays of summer, by the

sweetness of the balmy air, and by the downright jollity of youth.

With the mists of autumn they return home to Paimpol, or to the

scattered huts of the land of Goelo, to remain some time in their

families, in the midst of love, marriages, and births. Very often they

find unseen babies upon their return, waiting for godfathers ere they

can be baptized, for many children are needed to keep up this race of

fishermen, which the Icelandic Moloch devours.

CHAPTER III--THE WOMEN AT HOME

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 before

a large open window, with a row of flowerpots on its heavy old granite

sill.

As well as could be seen from their bending over the table, both were

young. Once wore a very large old-fashioned cap; the other quite a small

one, in the new style adopted by the women of Paimpol. They might

have been taken for two loving lasses writing a tender missive to some

handsome Icelander.

The one who dictated--the one with the large head-dress--drew up her

head, wool-gathering. Oh, she was old, very old, notwithstanding her

look from behind, in her small brown shawl--we mean downright old.

A sweet old granny, seventy at least. Very pretty, though, and still

fresh-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 to telescope

out of one another, and fell on to the nape. Her venerable face, framed

in the pure white pleats, had almost a man's look, while her soft,

tender eyes wore a kindly expression. She had not the vestige of a tooth

left, and when she laughed she showed her round gums, which had still

the freshness of youth.

Although her chin had become as pointed “as the toe of a _sabot_” (as

she 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 and

pure, like the saints' adorning a church.

She looked through the window, trying to think of news that might amuse

her grandson at sea. There existed not in the whole country of Paimpol

another dear old body like her, to invent such funny stories upon

everybody, and even upon nothing. Already in this letter there were

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 to

write the address carefully:

“TO MONSIEUR MOAN, SYLVESTRE, ABOARD THE _MARIE_, co 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; very

fair--a rare complexion in this corner of Brittany, where the race runs

swarthy--very fair, we say, with great grey eyes between almost black

lashes; her brows, as fair as the hair, seemed as if they had a darker

streak in their midst, which gave a wonderful expression of strength and

will to the beautiful face. The rather short profile was very dignified,

the nose continuing the line of the brow with absolute rectitude, as

in a Greek statue. A deep dimple under the lower lip foiled it up

delightfully; and from time to time, when she was absorbed by a

particular idea, she bit this lower lip with her white upper teeth,

making the blood run in tiny red veins under the delicate skin. 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, and

drawn back on either side, showing thick tresses of hair about the ears,

a head-dress that has remained from remote times and gives quite an

olden look to the women of Paimpol.

One felt instinctively that she had been reared differently than the

poor old woman to whom she gave the name of grandmother, but who is

reality was but a distant great-aunt.

She was the daughter of M. Mevel, a former Icelander, a bit of a

freebooter, who had made a fortune by bold undertakings out at sea.

The fine room where the letter had been just written was hers; a new

bed, such as townspeople have, with muslin lace-edged curtains, and on

the stone walls a light-coloured paper, toning down the irregularities

of the granite; overhead a coating of whitewash covered the great beams

that revealed the antiquity of the abode; it was the home of well-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 young

Gaos.”

“Young Gaos” was otherwise called Yann. The proud beautiful girl had

blushed very red when she wrote those words. And as soon as they were

added at the bottom of the page, in a running hand, she rose and turned

her head aside as if to look at some very interesting object out on the

market-place.

Standing, she was rather tall; her waist was modelled in a clinging

bodice, as perfectly fitting as that of a fashionable dame. In spite

of her cap, she looked like a real lady. Even her hands, without being

conventionally small, were white and delicate, never having touched

rough work.

True, she had been at first little _Gaud_ (Daisy), paddling bare-footed

in the water, motherless, almost wholly neglected during the season

of the fisheries, which her father spent in Iceland; a pretty,

untidy, obstinate girl, but growing vigorous and strong in the bracing

sea-breeze. In those days she had been sheltered, during the fine

summers, by poor Granny Moan, who used to give her Sylvestre to mind

during her days of hard work in Paimpol. Gaud felt the adoration of

a young mother for the child confided to her tender care. She was his

elder by about eighteen months. He was as dark as she was fair, as

obedient and caressing as she was hasty and capricious. She well

remembered that part of her life; neither wealth nor town life had

altered it; and like a far-off dream of wild freedom it came back to

her, or as the remembrance of an undefined and mysterious previous

existence, where the sandy shores seemed longer, and the cliffs higher

and nobler.

Towards the age of five or six, which seemed long ago to her, wealth had

befallen her father, who began to buy and sell the cargoes of ships. She

had been taken to Saint-Brieuc, and later to Paris. And from _la petite

Gaud_ she had become Mademoiselle Marguerite, tall and serious, with

earnest eyes. Always left to herself, in another kind of solitude than

that of the Breton coast, she still retained the obstinate nature of her

childhood.

Living in large towns, her dress had become more modified than herself.

Although she still wore the _coiffe_ that Breton women discard so

seldom, she had learned to dress herself in another way.

Every year she had returned to Brittany with her father--in the summer

only, like a fashionable, coming to bathe in the sea--and lived again in

the midst of old memories, delighted to hear herself called Gaud, rather

curious to see the Icelanders of whom so much was said, who were never

at home, and of whom, each year, some were missing; on all sides she

heard the name of Iceland, which appeared to her as a distant 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 as soon

as the letter had been read again and the envelope closed. She lived

rather far away, at the other end of Ploubazlanec, in a hamlet on the

coast, in the same cottage where she first had seen the light of 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 of the oldest

inhabitants of the country, the last of a worthy and highly esteemed

family.

With great care and good management she managed to appear pretty well

dressed, although her gowns were much darned, and hardly held together.

She always wore the tiny brown Paimpol shawl, which was for best, and

upon which the long muslin rolls of her white caps had fallen for past

sixty years; her own marriage shawl, formerly blue, had been dyed for

the wedding of her son Pierre, and since then worn only 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

profile made 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 sweetheart of

former days, a carpenter by trade; now an octogenarian, who sat outside

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 for her 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 comical spite, half

friendly and half mischievous, and he always called out to her:

“Aha, _la belle_, when must I call to take your measure?”

But she declined with thanks; she had not yet quite decided to have that

dress made. The truth is, that the old man, with rather questionable

taste, spoke of the suit in deal planks, which is the last 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 scarcely

take it good-naturedly. She felt more tired than ever of her

hard-working life, and her thoughts flew back to her dear grandson--the

last of them all, who, upon his return from Iceland, was to enter the

navy 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 agony

to her. No, she was surely not so happy as she looked, poor old granny!

And was it really possible and true, that her last darling was to be

torn from her? She, perhaps, might die alone, without seeing him again!

Certainly, some gentlemen of the town, whom she knew, had done all they

could to keep him from having to start, urging that he was the sole

support of an old and almost destitute grandmother, who could no longer

work. But they had not succeeded--because of Jean Moan, the deserter, an

elder brother of Sylvestre's, whom no one in the family ever 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, allowed to the widows of

sailors, and the Admiralty could not deem her poor enough.

When she returned home, she said her prayers at length for all her dead

ones, sons and grandsons; then she prayed again with renewed strength

and confidence for her Sylvestre, and tried to sleep--thinking of the

“suit of wood,” her heart sadly aching at the thought of being so old,

when this new parting was imminent.

Meanwhile, the other victim of separation, the girl, had remained seated

at her window, gazing upon the golden rays of the setting sun, reflected

on the granite walls, and the black swallows wheeling across the 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 to them,

sauntered along, in couples or three together, brooding of their lovers

in Iceland.

“A word of greeting to young Gaos!” She had been greatly affected in

writing 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 her age,

who had been her early playmates. And as he left the cafe, and walked up

and down, smoking his pipe with old seamen like himself, he was happy to

look up at his daughter among her flowers, in his grand house.

“Young Gaos!” Against her will she gazed seaward; it could not be seen,

but she felt it was nigh, at the end of the tiny street crowded

with fishermen. And her thoughts travelled through a fascinating and

delightful infinite, far, far away to the northern seas, where “_La

Marie_, Captain Guermeur,” was sailing. A strange man was young Gaos!

retiring and almost incomprehensible now, after having come forward so

audaciously, yet so lovingly.

In her long reverie, she remembered her return to Brittany, which had

taken place the year before. One December morning after a night of

travelling, the train from Paris had deposited her father and herself

at Guingamp. It was a damp, foggy morning, cold and almost dark. She

had been seized with a previously unknown feeling; she could scarcely

recognise the quaint little town, which she had only seen during the

summer--oh, that glad old time, the dear old times of the past! This

silence, after Paris! This quiet life of people, who seemed of another

world, going about their simple business in the misty morning. But the

sombre granite houses, with their dark, damp walls, and the Breton

charm upon all things, which fascinated her now that she loved Yann, had

seemed particularly saddening upon that morning. Early housewives were

already opening their doors, and as she passed she could glance into the

old-fashioned houses, with their tall chimney-pieces, where sat the

old grandmothers, in their white caps, quiet and dignified. As soon

as daylight had begun to appear, she had entered the church to say her

prayers, and the grand old aisle had appeared immense and shadowy to

her--quite different from all the Parisian churches--with its rough

pillars worn at the base by the chafing of centuries, and its damp,

earthy smell of age and saltpetre.

In a damp recess, behind the columns, a taper was burning, before which

knelt a woman, making a vow; the dim flame seemed lost in the vagueness

of the arches. Gaud experienced there the feeling of a long-forgotten

impression: that kind of sadness and fear that she had felt when quite

young at being taken to mass at Paimpol Church on raw, wintry mornings.

But she hardly regretted Paris, although there were many splendid and

amusing sights there. In the first place she felt almost cramped from

having the blood of the vikings in her veins. And then, in Paris,

she felt like a stranger and an intruder. The _Parisiennes_ were

tight-laced, artificial women, who had a peculiar way of walking; and

Gaud was too intelligent even to have attempted to imitate them. In her

head-dress, ordered every year from the maker in Paimpol, she felt

out of her element in the capital; and did not understand that if the

wayfarers turned round to look at her, it was only because she made a

very charming picture.

Some of these Parisian ladies quite won her by their high-bred and

distinguished manners, but she knew them to be inaccessible to her,

while from others of a lower caste who would have been glad to make

friends with her, she kept proudly aloof, judging them unworthy of her

attention. Thus she had lived almost without friends, without other

society 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 painfully

surprised by the bitterness of this Brittany, seen in full winter. And

her heart sickened at the thought of having to travel another five or

six 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 and

herself had journeyed in a little old ramshackle vehicle, open to all

the winds; passing, with the falling night, through dull villages, under

ghostly trees, black-pearled with mist in drops. And ere long lanterns

had to be lit, and she could perceive nothing else but what seemed two

trails of green Bengal lights, running on each side before the horses,

and which were merely the beams that the two lanterns projected on the

never-ending hedges of the roadway. But how was it that trees were so

green in the month of December? Astonished at first, she bent to look

out, and then she remembered how the gorse, the evergreen gorse of the

paths and the cliffs, never fades in the country 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 amused by

the new notion that struck her, namely: “As this is winter, I shall see

the famous fishermen of Iceland.”

For in December they were to return, the brothers, cousins, and lovers

of whom all her friends, great and small, had spoken to her during the

long summer evening walks in her holiday trips. And the thought had

haunted her, though she felt chilled in the slow-going vehicle.

Now she had seen them, and her heart had been captured by one of them

too.

CHAPTER IV--FIRST LOVE

The first day she had seen him, this Yann, was the day after his

arrival, at the “_Pardon des Islandais_,” which is on the eighth of

December, the fete-day of Our Lady of Bonne-Nouvelle, the patroness of

fishers--a little before the procession, with the gray streets, still

draped in white sheets, on which were strewn ivy and holly and wintry

blossoms 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 disguised than

elsewhere, the universal warning of death.

A great clamour in Paimpol; sounds of bells mingled with the chants

of the priests. Rough and monotonous songs in the taverns--old sailor

lullabies--songs of woe, arisen from the sea, drawn from the deep night

of bygone ages. Groups of sailors, arm-in-arm, zigzagging through the

streets, from their habit of rolling, and because they were half-drunk.

Groups of girls in their nun-like white caps. Old granite houses

sheltering these seething crowds; antiquated roofs telling of their

struggles, through many centuries, against the western winds, the mist,

and the rain; and relating, too, many stories of love and adventure that

had passed under their protection.

And floating over all was a deep religious sentiment, a feeling of

bygone days, with respect for ancient veneration and the symbols that

protect it, and for the white, immaculate Virgin. Side by side with the

taverns rose the church, its deep sombre portals thrown open, and steps

strewn with flowers, with its perfume of incense, its lighted tapers,

and the votive offerings of sailors hung all over the sacred arch. And

side by side also with the happy girls were the sweethearts of dead

sailors, and the widows of the shipwrecked fishers, quitting the

chapel of the dead in their long mourning shawls and their smooth tiny

_coiffes_; with eyes downward bent, noiselessly they passed through the

midst of this clamouring life, like a sombre warning. And close to all

was the everlasting sea, the huge nurse and devourer of these vigorous

generations, become fierce and agitated as if to take part 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 of anguish seize

her at the idea that this country had now become her own again. On the

market-place, where there were games and acrobats, she walked up and

down with her friends, who named and pointed out to her from time

to time the young men of Paimpol or Ploubazlanec. A group of these

“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, with huge shoulders almost too

broad; but she had simply said, perhaps with a touch of mockery: “There

is one who is tall, to say the least!” And the sentence implied beneath

this was: “What an incumbrance he'll be to the woman he marries, a

husband of that size!”

He had turned round as if he had heard her, and had given her a quick

glance from top to toe, seeming to say: “Who is this girl who wears

the _coiffe_ of Paimpol, who is so elegant, and whom I never have seen

before?”

And he quickly bent his eyes to the ground for politeness' sake, and

had appeared to take a renewed interest in the singers, only showing the

back of his head and his black hair that fell in rather long curls upon

his neck. And although she had asked the names of several others, she

had not dared ask his. The fine profile, the grand half-savage look,

the brown, almost tawny pupils moving rapidly on the bluish opal of 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 the

Moans speak as a great friend of Sylvestre's. On the evening of this

same _Pardon_, Sylvestre and he, walking arm-in-arm, had crossed her

father and herself, and had stopped to wish them good-day.

And young Sylvestre had become again to her as a sort of brother. As

they were cousins they had continued to _tutoyer_ (using thou for you, a

sign of familiarity) each other; true, she had at first hesitated doing

so to this great boy of seventeen, who already wore a black beard,

but as his kind, soft, childish eyes had hardly changed at all, she

recognized him soon enough to imagine that she had never lost sight of

him.

When he used to come into Paimpol, she kept him to dinner of an evening;

it was without consequence to her, and he always had a very good

appetite, being on rather short rations at home.

To speak truly, Yann had not been very polite to her at this first

meeting, which took place at the corner of a tiny gray street, strewn

with green branches. He had raised his hat to her, with a noble though

timid gesture; and after having given her an ever-rapid glance, turned

his eyes away, as if he were vexed with this meeting and in a hurry to

go. A strong western breeze that had arisen during the procession, had

scattered branches of box everywhere and loaded the sky with dark gray

draperies.

Gaud, in her dreamland of remembrances, saw all this clearly again; the

sad gloaming falling upon the remains of the _Pardon_; the sheets strewn

with white flowers floating in the wind along the walls; the noisy

groups of Icelanders, other waifs of the gales and tempests flocking

into the taverns, singing to cheer themselves under the gloom of the

coming rain; and above all, Gaud remembered the giant standing in front

of her, turning aside as if annoyed, and troubled at having met her.

What a wonderful change had come over her since then; and what a

difference there was between that hubbub and the present tranquility!

How quiet and empty Paimpol seemed to-night in the warm long twilight

of May, which kept her still at her window alone, lulled in her love's

young dream!

CHAPTER V--THE SECOND MEETING

Their second meeting was at a wedding-feast. Young Gaos had been chosen

to offer her his arm. At first she had been rather vexed, not liking

the idea of strolling through the streets with this tall fellow, whom

everybody would stare at, on account of his excessive height, and who,

most probably, would not know what to speak to her about. Besides, he

really frightened her with his wild, lofty look.

At the appointed hour all were assembled for the wedding procession save

Yann, who had not appeared. Time passed, yet he did not come, and

they talked of giving up any further waiting for him. Then it was she

discovered that it was for his pleasure, and his alone, that she had

donned her best dress; with any other of the young men present at the

ball, the evening's enjoyment would be spoiled.

At last he arrived, in his best clothes also, apologizing, without any

embarrassment, to the bride's party. The excuse was, that some important

shoals of fish, not at all expected, had been telegraphed from England,

as bound to pass that night a little off Aurigny; and so all the boats

of Ploubazlanec hastily had set sail. There was great excitement in the

villages, women rushing about to find their husbands and urging them to

put off quickly, and struggling hard themselves to hoist the sails

and help in the launching; in fact, a regular “turnout” throughout

the places, though in the midst of the company Yann related this very

simply; he had been obliged to look out for a substitute and warrant him

to the owner of the boat to which he belonged for the winter season. It

was this that had caused him to be late, and in order not to miss the

wedding, he had “turned up” (abandoned) his share in the profits of the

catch. His plea was perfectly well understood by his hearers, no one

thinking of blaming him; for well all know that, in this coast life, all

are more or less dependent upon the unforeseen events at sea, and the

mysterious migrations of the fishy regions. The other Icelandes present

were disappointed at not having been warned in time, like the fishers of

Ploubazlanec, of the fortune that was skirting their very shores.

But it was too late now, worse luck! So they gave their arms to the

lasses, the violins began to play, and joyously they all tramped out.

At first Yann had only paid her a few innocent compliments, such as fall

to a chance partner met at a wedding, and of whom one knows but little.

Amidst all the couples in the procession, they formed the only one of

strangers, the others were all relatives or sweethearts.

But during the evening while the dancing was going on, the talk between

them had again turned to the subject of the fish, and looking her

straight in the eyes, he roughly said to her:

“You are the only person about Paimpol, and even in the world, for whom

I would have missed a windfall; truly, for nobody else would I have come

back from my fishing, Mademoiselle Gaud.”

At first she was rather astonished that this fisherman should dare so

to 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 than

with anybody else.”

That was all. But from that moment until the end of the dancing, they

kept 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 same

couples almost always together. When Yann returned to invite her

again, after having danced with another girl for politeness' sake,

they exchanged a smile, like friends meeting anew, and continued their

interrupted conversation, which had become very close. Simply enough,

Yann spoke of his fisher life, its hardships, its wage, and of his

parents' difficulties in former years, when they had fourteen little

Gaoses to bring up, he being the eldest. Now, the old folks were out of

the reach of need, because of a wreck that their father had found in the

Channel, the sale of which had brought in 10,000 francs, omitting the

share claimed by the Treasury. With the money they built an upper story

to their house, which was situated at the point of Ploubazlanec, 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 an Icelander,

having to start in February for such a country, where it is awful cold

and bleak, with a raging, foaming sea.”

Gaud remembered every phrase of their conversation at the ball, as if it

had all happened yesterday, and details came regularly back to her mind,

as she looked upon the night falling over Paimpol. If Yann had had no

idea of marriage, why had he told her all the items of his existence, to

which she had listened, as only an engaged sweetheart would have done;

he did not seem a commonplace young man, prone to babbling his business

to everybody who came along.

“The occupation is pretty good, nevertheless,” he said, “and I shall

never change my career. Some years we make eight hundred francs, and

others twelve hundred, which I get upon my return, and hand over to the

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 natural

course.

“Perhaps you'll hardly believe it, but I scarcely ever have any

pocket-money. Of a Sunday mother gives me a little when I come into

Paimpol. And so it goes all the time. Why, look 'ee here, this year my

father had these clothes made for me, without which treat I never could

have come to the wedding; certain sure, for I never should have dared

offer you my arm in my old duds of last year.”

For one like her, accustomed to seeing Parisians, Yann's habiliments

were, perhaps, not very stylish; a short jacket open over the

old-fashioned waistcoat; but the build of their wearer was

irreproachably handsome, so that he had a noble look withal.

Smiling, he looked at her straight in the depths of her eyes each time

he spoke to her, so as to divine her opinion. And how good and honest

was his look, as he told her all these short-comings, so that she might

well understand that he was not rich!

And she smiled also, as she gazed at him full in the face; answering

seldom, but listening with her whole soul, more and more astonished and

more and more drawn towards him. What a mixture of untamed roughness

and caressing childishness he was! His earnest voice, short and blunt

towards others, became softer and more and more tender as he spoke

to her; and for her alone he knew how to make it trill with extreme

sweetness, like the music of a stringed instrument with the mute 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 family

like a child, and deeming it quite natural; having travelled over all

the earth, met with all sorts of adventures, incurred all dangers, and

yet 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 their attentions,

for the sake of her money. He seemed to be the best, as well as the most

handsome, man she had ever met.

To put herself more on an equality with him she related how, in her own

home, she had not always been so well-off as at present; that her

father had begun life as a fisherman off Iceland, and always held the

Icelanders in great esteem; and that she herself could clearly remember

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 seemed far

away now, for it dated back to December, and May had already returned.

All the sturdy partners of that evening were out fishing yonder now,

scattered over the far northern seas, in the clear pale sun, in intense

loneliness, while the dust thickened silently on the land of Brittany.

Still Gaud remained at her window. The market-place of Paimpol, hedged

in on all sides by the old-fashioned houses, became sadder and sadder

with the darkling; everywhere reigned silence. Above the housetops the

still brilliant space of the heavens seemed to grow more hollow, to

raise itself up and finally separate itself from all terrestrial things:

these, in the last hour of day, were entirely blended into the single

dark outline of the gables of olden roofs.

From time to time a window or door would be suddenly closed; some old

sailor, shaky upon his legs, would blunder out of the tavern and plunge

into the small dark streets; or girls passed by, returning home late

after their walk and carrying nosegays of May-flowers. One of them who

knew Gaud, calling out good-evening to her, held up a branch of hawthorn

high towards her as if to offer it her to smell; in the transparent

darkness she could distinguish the airy tufts of its white blossoms.

From the gardens and courts floated another soft perfume, that of the

flowering honeysuckle along the granite walls, mingled with a vague

smell of seaweed in the harbour.

Bats flew silently through the air above, like hideous creatures in a

dream.

Many and many an evening had Gaud passed at her window, gazing upon the

melancholy market-place, thinking of the Icelanders who were far away,

and always of that same ball.

Yann was a capital waltzer, as straight as a young oak, moving with a

graceful yet dignified bearing, his head thrown well back, his brown,

curled locks falling upon his brow, and floating with the motion of the

dance. Gaud, who was rather tall herself, felt their contact upon her

cap, as he bent towards her to grasp her more tightly during the swift

movements.

Now and then he pointed out to her his little sister Marie, dancing with

Sylvestre, who was her _fiance_. He smiled with a very tender look

at seeing them both so young and yet so reserved towards one another,

bowing gravely, and putting on very timid airs as they communed lowly,

on most amiable subjects, no doubt.

Of course, Yann would never have allowed it to be otherwise; yet it

amused him, venturesome and bold as he was, to find them so coy; and

he and Gaud exchanged one of their confidential smiles, seeming to say:

“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, honest way,

before everybody. But, of course, Yann had not kissed Gaud; none might

take that liberty with the daughter of M. Mevel; but he seemed to 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 attraction that bound her to

him.

“Did you see the saucy minx, what eyes she made at him?” queried two

or three girls, with their own eyes timidly bent under their golden or

black brows, though they had among the dancers one or two lovers, to say

the least. And truly Gaud did look at Yann very hard, only she had

the excuse that he was the first and only young man whom she ever had

noticed in her life.

At dawn, when the party broke up and left in confusion, they had taken

leave of one another, like betrothed ones, who are sure to meet the

following day. To return home, she had crossed this same market-place

with her father, little fatigued, feeling light and gay, happy to

breathe the frosty fog, and loving the sad dawn itself, so sweet and

enjoyable seemed bare life.

The May night had long since fallen; nearly all the windows had closed

with a grating of their iron fittings, but Gaud remained at her place,

leaving hers open. The last passers-by, who could distinguish the white

cap in the darkness, might say to themselves, “That's surely some girl,

dreaming of her sweetheart.” It was true, for she was dreaming of hers,

with a wild desire to weep; her tiny teeth bit her lips and continually

opened and pursed up the deep dimple that outlined the under lip of

her fresh, pure mouth. Her eyes remained fixed on the darkness, seeing

nothing of tangible things.

But, after the ball, why had he not returned? What change had come over

him? Meeting him by chance, he seemed to avoid her, turning aside his

look, which was always fleeting, by the way. She had often debated this

with Sylvestre, who could not understand either.

“But still, he's the lad for you to marry, Gaud,” said Sylvestre, “if

your father allowed ye. In the whole country round you'd not find his

like. First, let me tell 'ee, he's a rare good one, though he mayn't

look it. He seldom gets tipsy. He sometimes is stubborn, but is very

pliable for all that. No, I can't tell 'ee how good he is! And such an

A.B. seaman! Every new fishing season the skippers regularly fight to

have him.”

She was quite sure of her father's permission, for she never had been

thwarted in any of her whims. And it mattered little to her whether

Yann were rich or not. To begin with, a sailor like him would need but

a little money in advance to attend the classes of the coast navigation

school, and might shortly become a captain whom all shipowners would

gladly intrust with their vessels. It also mattered little to her that

he was such a giant; great strength may become a defect in a woman, but

in a man is not prejudicial to good looks.

Without seeming to care much, she had questioned the girls of the

country round about, who knew all the love stories going; but he had

no recognized engagement with any one, he paid no more attention to one

than another, but roved from right to left, to Lezardrieux as well as to

Paimpol, to all the beauties who cared to receive his address.

One Sunday evening, very late, she had seen him pass under her windows,

in company with one Jeannie Caroff, whom he tucked under his wing very

closely; she was pretty, certainly, but had a very bad reputation. This

had pained Gaud very much indeed. She had been told that he was very

quick-tempered: one night being rather tipsy in a tavern of Paimpol,

where the Icelanders held their revels, he had thrown a great marble

table through a door that they would not open to him. But she forgave

him all that; we all know what sailors are sometimes when the fit takes

them. But if his heart were good, why had he sought one out who never

had thought of him, to leave her afterward; what reason had he had to

look at her for a whole evening with his fair, open smile, and to use

his softest, tenderest voice to speak to her of his affairs as to a

betrothed? Now, it was impossible for her to become attached to another,

or to change. In this same country, when quite a child, she was used to

being scolded when naughty and called more stubborn than any other child

in her ideas; and she had not altered. Fine lady as she was now,

rather serious and proud in her ways, none had refashioned her, and she

remained always the same.

After this ball, the past winter had been spent in waiting to see him

again, but he had not even come to say good-bye before his departure for

Iceland. Since he was no longer by, nothing else existed in her eyes;

slowly time seemed to drag until the return in autumn, when she had made

up her mind to put an end to her doubts.

The town-hall clock struck eleven, with that peculiar resonance that

bells have during the quiet spring nights. At Paimpol eleven o'clock is

very late; so Gaud closed her window and lit her lamp, to go to bed.

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? She wanted

to ask him this herself straightforwardly, but Sylvestre thought that

it would not be the right thing, and it would not look well for her

to appear so bold. In Paimpol already her manners and dress were

sufficiently criticised.

She undressed slowly as if in a dream; first her muslin cap, then her

town-cut dress, which she threw carelessly on a chair. The little lamp,

alone to burn at this late hour, bathed her shoulders and bosom in its

mysterious light, her perfect form, which no eye ever had contemplated,

and never could contemplate if Yann did not marry her. She knew her face

was beautiful, but she was unconscious of the beauty of her figure. In

this remote land, among daughters of fishers, beauty of shape is almost

part of the race; it is scarcely ever noticed, and even 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 her shoulders

like weighty serpents. She drew them up into a crown on the top of

her head--this was comfortable for sleeping--so that, by reason of her

straight profile, she looked like a Roman vestal.

She still held up her arms, and biting her lip, she slowly ran her

fingers through the golden mass, like a child playing with a toy, while

thinking of something else; and again letting it fall, she quickly

unplaited it to spread it out; soon she was covered with her own 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 silken masses

floating round her outspread like a veil.

In her hut in Ploubazlanec, Granny Moan, who was on the other and darker

side of her life, had also fallen to sleep--the frozen sleep of old

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 on gaily with

their fishing in the everlasting daylight.

CHAPTER VI--NEWS FROM HOME

About a month later, around Iceland, the weather was of that rare kind

that the sailors call a dead calm; in other words, in the air nothing

moved, as if all the breezes were exhausted and their task done.

The sky was covered with a white veil, which darkened towards its lower

border near the horizon, and gradually passed into dull gray leaden

tints; over this the still waters threw a pale light, which fatigued

the eyes and chilled the gazer through and through. All at once, liquid

designs played over the surface, such light evanescent rings as one

forms by breathing on a mirror. The sheen of the waters seemed covered

with a net of faint patterns, which intermingled and reformed, rapidly

disappearing. Everlasting night or everlasting day, one could scarcely

say what it was; the sun, which pointed to no special hour, remained

fixed, as if presiding over the fading glory of dead things; it appeared

but as a mere ring, being almost without substance, and magnified

enormously by a shifting halo.

Yann and Sylvestre, leaning against one another, sang “Jean-Francois de

Nantes,” the song without an end; amused by its very monotony, looking

at one another from the corner of their eyes as if laughing at the

childish fun, with which they began the verses over and over again,

trying to put fresh spirit into them each time. Their cheeks were rosy

under the sharp freshness of the morning: the pure air they breathed was

strengthening, and they inhaled it deep down in their chests, the

very fountain of all vigorous existence. And yet, around them, was

a semblance of non-existence, of a world either finished or not yet

created; the light itself had no warmth; all things seemed without

motion, and as if chilled for eternity under the great ghostly eye 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 the transparency,

myriads upon myriads of fish, all alike, gliding slowly in the same

direction, as if bent towards the goal of their perpetual travels. They

were cod, performing their evolutions all as parts of a single body,

stretched full length in the same direction, exactly parallel, offering

the effect of gray streaks, unceasingly agitated by a 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 round at the same time,

showing the sheen of their silvered sides; and the same movement was

repeated throughout the entire shoal by slow undulations, as if a

thousand metal blades had each thrown a tiny flash of lightning from

under the surface.

The sun, already very low, lowered further; so night had decidedly come.

As the great ball of flame descended into the leaden-coloured zones that

surrounded the sea, it grew yellow, and its outer rim became more clear

and solid. Now it could be looked straight at, as if it were but

the moon. Yet it still gave out light and looked quite near in the

immensity; it seemed that by going in a ship, only so far as the edge of

the horizon, one might collide with the great mournful globe, floating

in the air just a few yards above the water.

Fishing was going on well; looking into the calm water, one could see

exactly what took place; how the cod came to bite, with a greedy

spring; then, feeling themselves hooked, wriggled about, as if to

hook themselves still firmer. And every moment, with rapid action, the

fishermen hauled in their lines, hand overhand, throwing the fish to the

man who was to clean them and flatten them out.

The Paimpol fleet were scattered over the quiet mirror, animating the

desert. Here and there appeared distant sails, unfurled for mere form's

sake, considering there was no breeze. They were like clear white

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 with no

other; on the contrary, he was rather distant with the others and proud

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 steps

off, singing another, a dirge--a clashing of sleepiness, health, and

vague 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 the

hatch was kept shut, so as to give the appearance of night there for

those who needed sleep. They required but little air to sleep; indeed,

less robust fellows, brought up in towns, would have wanted more. They

used to go to bed after the watch at irregular times, just when they

felt inclined, hours counting for little in this never-fading light.

And they always slept soundly and peacefully without restlessness or bad

dreams.

“Jean Francois de Nantes; Jean Francois, Jean Francois!”

They looked attentively at some almost imperceptible object, far off on

the horizon, some faint smoke rising from the waters like a tiny jot of

another gray tint slightly darker than the sky's. Their eyes were 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 a

government cruiser coming on her inspection-round.”

This faint smoke brought news of home to the sailors, and among others,

a letter we wrote of, from an old grandam, written by the hand of a

beautiful girl. Slowly the steamer approached till they perceived her

black hull. Yes, it was the cruiser, making the inspection in these

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; it traced

designs in a bluish green tint over the shining mirror, and scattering

in trails, these fanned out or branched off like a coral tree; all very

rapidly with a low murmur; it was like a signal of awakening foretelling

the end of this intense torpor. The sky, its veil being rent asunder,

grew clear; the vapours fell down on the horizon, massing in heaps like

slate-coloured wadding, as if to form a soft bank to the sea. The two

ever-during mirrors between which the fishermen lived, the one on high

and the one beneath, recovered their deep lucidity, as if the mists

tarnishing them had been brushed away.

The weather was changing in a rapid way that foretold no good. Smacks

began to arrive from all points of the immense plane; first, all the

French smacks in the vicinity, from Brittany, Normandy, Boulogne,

or Dunkirk. Like birds flocking to a call, they assembled round the

cruiser; from the apparently empty corners of the horizon, others

appeared on every side; their tiny gray wings were seen till they

peopled the pallid waste.

No longer slowly drifting, for they had spread out their sails to the

new and cool breeze, and cracked on all to approach.

Far-off Iceland also reappeared, as if she would fain come near them

also; showing her great mountains of bare stones more distinctly than

ever.

And there arose a new Iceland of similar colour, which little by little

took a more definite form, and none the less was purely illusive, its

gigantic mountains merely a condensation of mists. The sun, sinking low,

seemed incapable of ever rising over all things, though glowing through

this phantom island so tangible that it seemed placed in front of it.

Incomprehensible sight! no longer was it surrounded by a halo, but its

disc had become firmly spread, rather like some faded yellow planet

slowly decaying and suddenly checked there in the heart of chaos.

The cruiser, which had stopped, was fully surrounded by the fleet of

Icelanders. From all boats were lowered, like so many nut-shells, and

conveyed their strong, long-bearded men, in barbaric-looking dresses, to

the steamer.

Like children, all had something to beg for; remedies for petty

ailments, materials for repairs, change of diet, and home letters.

Others came, sent by their captains, to be clapped in irons, to expiate

some fault; as they had all been in the navy, they took this as a matter

of course. When the narrow deck of the cruiser was blocked-up by four

or five of these hulking fellows, stretched out with the bilboes round

their feet, the old sailor who had just chained them up called out to

them, “Roll o' one side, my lads, to let us work, d'ye hear?” which they

obediently did with a grin.

There were a great many letters this time for the Iceland fleet. Among

the rest, two for “_La Marie_, Captain Guermeur”; one addressed to

“Monsieur Gaos, Yann,” the other to “Monsieur Moan, Sylvestre.” The

latter had come by way of Rykavyk, where the cruiser had taken it on.

The purser, diving into his post-bags of sailcloth, distributed them

all round, often finding it hard to read the addresses, which were not

always written very skilfully, while the captain kept on saying: “Look

alive there, look alive! the barometer is falling.”

He was rather anxious to see all the tiny yawls afloat, and so many

vessels assembled in that dangerous region.

Yann and Sylvestre used to read their letters together. This time they

read them by the light of the midnight sun, shining above the horizon,

still like a dead luminary. Sitting together, a little to one side, in a

retired nook of the deck, their arms about each other's shoulders, they

very slowly read, as if to enjoy more thoroughly the news sent them from

home.

In Yann's letter Sylvestre got news of Marie Gaos, his little

sweetheart; in Sylvestre's, Yann read all Granny Moan's funny stories,

for she had not her like for amusing the absent ones you will remember;

and the last paragraph concerning him came up: the “word of greeting to

young Gaos.”

When the letters were got through, Sylvestre timidly showed his to his

big 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 too often

about this Gaud girl.

So Sylvestre carefully folded up the poor, rejected paper, put it into

its envelope and all in his jersey, next his breast, saying to himself

sadly: “For sure, they'll never marry. But what on earth can he have to

say against her?”

Midnight was struck on the cruiser's bell. And yet our couple remained

sitting there, thinking of home, the absent ones, a thousand things in

reverie. At this same moment the everlasting sun, which had dipped its

lower edge into the waters, began slowly to reascend, and lo! this was

morning.

PART II -- IN THE BRETON LAND

CHAPTER I--THE PLAYTHING OF THE STORM

The 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 too fine

to last. The winds blew upon that swarm of boats, as if to clear the sea

of them; and they began to disperse and flee, like an army put to rout,

before the warning written in the air, beyond possibility to misread.

Harder and harder it blew, making men and ships quake alike.

And the still tiny waves began to run one after another and to melt

together; at first they were frosted over with white foam spread out

in patches; and then, with a whizzing sound, arose smoke as though

they burned and scorched, and the whistling grew louder every moment.

Fish-catching was no longer thought of; it was their work on deck. The

fishing lines had been drawn in, and all hurried to make sail and some

to seek for shelter in the fjords, while yet others preferred to round

the southern point of Iceland, finding it safer to stand for the open

sea, with the free space about them, and run before the stern wind. They

could still see each other a while: here and there, above the trough of

the sea, sails wagged as poor wearied birds fleeing; the masts tipped,

but ever and anon righted, like the weighted pith figures that similarly

resume an erect attitude when released after being blown down.

The illimitable cloudy roof, erstwhile compacted towards the western

horizon, in an island form, began to break up on high and send its

fragments over the surface. It seemed indestructible, for vainly did

the winds stretch it, pull and toss it asunder, continually tearing

away dark strips, which they waved over the pale yellow sky, gradually

becoming intensely and icily livid. Ever more strongly grew the wind

that threw all things in turmoil.

The cruiser had departed for shelter at Iceland; some fishers alone

remained upon the seething sea, which now took an ill-boding look and a

dreadful colour. All hastily made preparations for bad weather. Between

one and another the distance grew greater, till some were lost sight of.

The waves, curling up in scrolls, continued to run after each other,

to reassemble and climb on one another, and between them the hollows

deepened.

In a few hours, everything was belaboured and overthrown in these

regions that had been so calm the day before, and instead of the

past silence, the uproar was deafening. The present agitation was a

dissolving view, unconscientious and useless, and quickly accomplished.

What was the object of it all? What a mystery of blind destruction it

was!

The clouds continued to stream out on high, out of the west continually,

racing and darkening all. A few yellow clefts remained, through which

the sun shot its rays in volleys. And the now greenish water was striped

more thickly with snowy froth.

By midday the _Marie_ was made completely snug for dirty weather: her

hatches battened down, and her sails storm-reefed; she bounded lightly

and elastic; for all the horrid confusion, she seemed to be playing like

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 heavily crushing

vault. Studded with shapeless gloomy spots, it appeared a set dome,

unless a steadier gaze ascertained that everything was in the full rush

of motion; endless gray veils were drawn along, unceasingly followed by

others, from the profundities of the sky-line--draperies of 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 of hasty

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 waves tracked her down

with their white crests, tumbling onward in continual motion, and

she--though always being caught up to and outrun--still managed to elude

them by means of the eddying waters she spurned in her wake, upon which

they vented their fury. In this similitude of flight the sensation

particularly experienced was of buoyancy, the delight of being carried

along without effort or trouble, in a springy sort of way. The _Marie_

mounted over the waves without any shaking, as if the wind had lifted

her clean up; and her subsequent descent was a slide. She almost slid

backward, though, at times, the mountains lowering before her as if

continuing to run, and then she suddenly found herself dropped into

one of the measureless hollows that evaded her also; without injury she

sounded its horrible depths, amid a loud splashing of water, which did

not even sprinkle her decks, but was blown on and on like everything

else, evaporating in finer and finer spray until it was thinned away to

nothing. In the trough it was darker, and when each wave had passed the

men looked behind them to see if the next to appear were higher; it

came upon them with furious contortions, and curling crests, over its

transparent emerald body, seeming to shriek: “Only let me catch you, and

I'll swallow you whole!”

But this never came to pass, for, as a feather, the billows softly bore

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 the waves, more

and more gigantic, like a long chain of mountains, with yawning 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 de

Nantes”; intoxicated with the quiver of speed, they sang out loudly,

laughing at their inability to hear themselves in this prodigious wrath

of the wind.

“I say, lads, does it smell musty up here too?” called out Guermeur to

them, passing his bearded face up through the half-open hatchway, like

Jack-in-the-box.

Oh, no! it certainly did not smell musty on deck. They were not at all

frightened, being quite conscious of what men can cope with, having

faith in the strength of their barkey and their arms. And they

furthermore relied upon the protection of that china Virgin, which had

voyaged forty years to Iceland, and so often had danced the dance

of this day, smiling perpetually between her branches of artificial

flowers.

Generally speaking, they could not see far around them; a few hundred

yards off, all seemed entombed in the fearfully big billows, with their

frothing crests shutting out the view. They felt as if in an enclosure,

continually altering shape; and, besides, all things seemed drowned in

the aqueous smoke, which fled before them like a cloud with the greatest

rapidity over the heaving surface. But from time to time a gleam of

sunlight pierced through the north-west sky, through which a squall

threatened; a shuddering light would appear from above, a rather

spun-out dimness, making the dome of the heavens denser than before, and

feebly lighting up the surge. This new light was sad to behold; far-off

glimpses as they were, that gave too strong an understanding that the

same chaos and the same fury lay on all sides, even far, far behind the

seemingly void horizon; there was no limit to its expanse of storm, and

they stood alone in its midst!

A tremendous tumult arose all about, like the prelude of an apocalypse,

spreading the terror of the ultimate end of the earth. And amidst 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 the invisible power ruling all. Then

came other voices, nearer and less indefinite, threatening destruction,

and making the water shudder and hiss as if on burning coals; the

disturbance increased in terror.

Notwithstanding their flight, the sea began to gain on them, to “bury

them up,” as they phrased it: first the spray fell down on them from

behind, and masses of water thrown with such violence as to break

everything in their course. The waves were ever increasing, and the

tempest tore off their ridges and hurled them, too, upon the poop, like

a demon's game of snowballing, till dashed to atoms on the bulwarks.

Heavier masses fell on the planks with a hammering sound, till

the _Marie_ shivered throughout, as if in pain. Nothing could be

distinguished over the side, because of the screen of creamy foam;

and when the winds soughed more loudly, this foam formed into whirling

spouts, like the dust of the way in summer time. At length a heavy

rain fell crossways, and soon straight up and down, and how all these

elements of destruction yelled together, clashed and interlocked, no

tongue can tell.

Yann and Sylvestre stuck staunchly to the helm, covered with their

waterproofs, hard and shiny as sharkskin; they had firmly secured them

at the throat by tarred strings, and likewise at wrists and ankles to

prevent the water from running in, and the rain only poured off them;

when it fell too heavily, they arched their backs, and held all the more

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, which

always promised a worse visitation. The fury of men and beasts soon

falls and dies away; but the fury of lifeless things, without cause or

object, is as mysterious as life and death, and has to be borne for very

long.

“Jean Francois de Nantes;

Jean Francois,

Jean Francois!”

Through their pale lips still came the refrain of the old song, but as

from a speaking automaton, unconsciously taken up from time to time. The

excess of motion and uproar had made them dumb, and despite their youth

their smiles were insincere, and their teeth chattered with cold; 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, by sheer muscular

habit. With their hair streaming and mouths contracted, they had become

changed, all the primitive wildness in man appearing again. They could

not see one another truly, but still were aware of being companioned.

In the instants of greatest danger, each time that a fresh mountain

of water rose behind them, came to overtower them, and crash horribly

against their boat, one of their hands would move as if involuntarily,

to form the sign of the cross. They no more thought of Gaud than of any

other woman, or any marrying. The travail was lasting too long, and

they had no thoughts left. The intoxication of noise, cold, and fatigue

drowned all in their brain. They were merely two pillars of stiffened

human flesh, held up by the helm; two strong beasts, cowering, but

determined they would not be overwhelmed.

CHAPTER II--A PARDONABLE RUSE

In Brittany, towards the end of September, on an already chilly day,

Gaud was walking alone across the common of Ploubazlanec, in the

direction of Pors-Even.

The Icelanders had returned a month back, except two, which had perished

in that June gale. But the _Marie_ had held her own, and Yann and all

her crew were peacefully at home.

Gaud felt very troubled at the idea of going to Yann's house. She had

seen him once since the return from Iceland, when they had all gone

together to see poor little Sylvestre off to the navy. They accompanied

him to the coaching-house, he blubbering a little and his grandmother

weeping, and he had started to join the fleet at Brest.

Yann, who had come also to bid good-bye to his little friend, had

feigned to look aside when Gaud looked at him, and as there were

many people round the coach to see the other sailors off, and parents

assembled to say good-bye, the pair had not a chance to speak. So, at

last, she had formed a strong resolution, and rather timidly wended her

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, seems to

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.

“I shall be pleased to see Marie Gaos. I never have been so far in

Ploubazlanec, 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 house and

village.

In one of their last chats, before his departure, Sylvestre had

explained 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 his

idea; he only loves the sea, and one day even, in fun, he said he had

promised to be wedded to it.”

Whereupon, she forgave him all his peculiar ways, and remembered only

his beautiful open smile on the night of the ball, and she hoped on and

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 closely again,

perhaps he might speak.

CHAPTER III--OF SINISTER PORTENT

She had been walking for the last hour, lightly yet oppressed, inhaling

the healthy open breeze whistling up the roads to where they crossed and

_Calvaires_ were erected, ghastly highway ornaments of our Saviour on

His cross, to which Bretons are given.

From time to time she passed through small fishing villages, which are

beaten about by the winds the whole year through till of the colour

of the rocks. In one of these hamlets, where the path narrows suddenly

between dark walls, and between the whitewashed roofs, high and pointed

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. No doubt

the whim of some old sailor who had been in China. She saw all on her

way; people who are greatly engrossed in the object of a journey always

find more amusement than others in its thousand details.

The tiny village was far behind her now, and as she advanced in this

last promontory of the Breton land, the trees around her became more

scarce, and the country more mournful.

The ground was undulating and rocky, and from all the heights the open

sea could be seen. No more trees now; nothing but the shorn heaths with

their green reeds, and here and there the consecrated crosses rose,

their outstretched arms outlined against the sky, giving the whole

country the aspect of a cemetery.

At one of the cross-ways, guarded by a colossal image of Christ, she

hesitated between two roads running among thorny slopes.

A child happening to pass, came to her rescue: “Good-day, Mademoiselle

Gaud!”

It was one of the little Gaoses, one of Yann's wee sisters. Gaud kissed

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 think he'll

be very late home again.”

So he was not there? Again destiny was between them, everywhere and

always. 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 would

they think at Pors-Even? So she decided to go on, but loitering so as to

give Yann time to return.

As she neared his village, in this lost country, all things seemed

rougher and more desolate. Sea breezes that made men stronger, made

shorter and more stubbly plants. Seaweeds of all kinds were scattered

over the paths, leaves from growths in another element, proving the

existence of a neighbouring world; their briny odour mingled with the

perfume of the heather.

Now and again Gaud met passers-by, sea-folk, who could be seen a long

way off, over the bare country, outlined and magnified against the high

sea-line. Pilots or fishers, seeming to watch the great sea, in passing

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 do

to lengthen the way; these people seemed surprised at seeing her walk so

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, who was

the only one in the country knowing how to weave lobster pots. His mind

was very free from love just now.

She passed a chapel, at such a height it could be seen remotely. It was

a little gray old chapel in the midst of the barren. A clump of trees,

gray too, and almost leafless, seemed like hair to it, pushed by some

invisible hand all on one side.

It was that same hand that had wrecked the fishers' boats, the eternal

hand of the western winds, and had twisted all the branches of the coast

trees in the direction of the waves and of the off-sea breezes. The

old trees had grown awry and dishevelled, bending their backs under the

time-honoured strength of that hand.

Gaud was almost at the end of her walk, as the chapel in sight was that

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; the whole

spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the

knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, 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 not

wanted this old sailor. And many of Yann's relatives, besides, slept

here; 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 old

cramped porch, worn away and daubed over with whitewash. But she stopped

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 at sea.

She read this inscription:

“To the Memory of GAOS, 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 bearing

the names of dead sailors. It was the place reserved for the shipwrecked

of Pors-Even. Filled with a dark foreboding she was sorry to have gone

there.

In Paimpol church she had seen many such inscriptions; but in this

village the empty tomb of the Iceland fishers seemed more sad because so

lone and humble. On each side of the doorway was a granite seat for

the widows and mothers; and this shady spot, irregularly shaped like a

grotto, was guarded by an old image of the Virgin, coloured red, with

large staring eyes, looking most like Cybele--the first goddess of the

earth.

“Gaos!” Again!

“To the Memory of GAOS, 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 green

eyes, a simple but ghastly emblem, reminding one of all the barbarism of

a bygone age.

“Gaos, Gaos!” The name was everywhere. As she read, thrills of sweet

tenderness came over her for this Yann of her choice, damped by a

feeling of hopelessness. Nay, he would never be hers! How could she tear

him from the sea where so many other Gaoses had gone down, ancestors and

brothers, who must have loved the sea like he! She entered the chapel.

It was almost dark, badly lit by low windows with heavy frames. And

there, her heart full of tears that would better have fallen, she

knelt to pray before the colossal saints, surrounded by common flowers,

touching the vaulted roof with their massive heads. Outside, the rising

wind began to sob as if it brought the death-gasps of the drowned men

back to their Fatherland.

Night drew near; she rose and went on her way. After having asked in

the village, she found the home of the Gaos family, which was built up

against a high cliff. A dozen granite steps led up to it. Trembling a

little at the thought that Yann might have returned, she crossed the

small garden where chrysanthemums and veronicas grew.

When she was indoors, she explained she had come to bring the money for

the boat, and they very politely asked her to sit down, to await the

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 new

waterproof cloth on the clean white table, and getting it ready for the

approaching Iceland season.

“You see, Mademoiselle Gaud, it's like this: every man wants two new

suits.”

They explained to her how they set to work to make them, and to render

their seams waterproof with tar, for they were for wet weather wear.

And while they worked, Gaud looked attentively around the home of these

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 of the

walls the Breton beds, bunks, as on shipboard, were placed one above

another. But it was not so sombre and sad as the cabins of other

peasants, which are generally half-hidden by the wayside; it was all

fresh and clean, as the homes of seamen usually are. Several little

Gaoses 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 the others.

“We adopted her last year,” explained the mother; “we had enough

children as it was, of course, but what else could we do, Mademoiselle

Gaud, for her daddy belonged to the _Maria-Dieu-t'aime_, lost last

season off Iceland, as you know; so the neighbours divided the little

ones between them, and this one fell to our lot.”

Hearing herself spoken of, the adopted child hung her pretty head and

smiled, hiding herself behind little Laumec Gaos, her favourite.

There was a look of comfort all over the place, and radiant health

bloomed on all the children's rosy cheeks.

They received Gaud very profusely, like a great lady whose visit was an

honour to the family. She was taken upstairs, up a newly-built wooden

staircase, to see the room above, which was the glory of the home. She

remembered the history of its construction; it was after the finding of

a derelict vessel in the channel, which luck had befallen Yann's father

and his cousin the pilot.

The room was very gay and pretty in its whiteness; there were two town

beds in it, with pink chintz curtains, and a large table in the

middle. Through the window the whole of Paimpol could be seen, with

the Icelanders at anchor off shore, and the channel through which they

passed.

She did not dare question, but she would have liked to have known where

Yann slept; probably as a child he had slept downstairs in one of

the antique cupboard-beds. But perhaps now he slept under those pink

draperies. She would have loved to have known all the details of his

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 tall and

as straight. It was old father Gaos returning from fishing.

After he had saluted her and asked her the object of her visit, he

signed her receipt for her which was rather a long operation, as his

hand was not very steady, he explained.

But he would not accept the hundred francs as a final payment, but only

as an instalment; he would speak to M. Mevel again about it. Whereupon

Gaud, to whom money was nothing, smiled imperceptibly; she had fancied

the business was not quite terminated, and this just suited her.

They made something like excuses for Yann's absence; as if they found it

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 he rather insisted

upon talking about him.

“It's very queer,” said he, “the boy's never so late out. He went over

to Loguivy, Mademoiselle Gaud, to buy some lobster baskets; as you know,

lobster-catching is our main winter fishery.”

She dreamily lengthened out her call, although conscious that it was too

long already, and feeling a tug at her heart at the idea that she would

not see him after all.

“A well-conducted young man like Yann--what can he be doing? Surely he's

not at the inn. We don't fear that for our lad. I don't say that now and

then, of a Sunday, with his mates----You know, Mademoiselle Gaud, what

them sailors are. Eh! ye know, he's but a young chap, and must have some

liberty now and again. But it's very rare with him to break out, for

he's a straight-goer; we can say that.”

But night was falling, and the work had been folded up. The little ones

on the benches around drew closer to one another, saddened by the grey

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 falling

shadows.

“You ought to stay and have a bit o' supper with us, Mademoiselle Gaud.”

“Oh, no! I couldn't think of it!” The blood rushed to her face at the

idea 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 as far

as a lonely nook where the old trees make a dark lane.

As they walked along together, she felt a sudden sympathy of respect

and tenderness towards him; she would have liked to have spoken as to a

father in the sudden gushes of feeling that came over her; but the words

were stifled in her throat, and she said not a word.

And so they went their way, in the cold evening wind, full of the odour

of the sea, passing here and there, on the barren heath, some poor

hovels, where beach-combers dwelt and had already sealed themselves up

for the night; dark and neglected they looked under the weather-beaten

roofs; these crosses, clumps of reeds, and boulders they 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 as

she 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 she was

quickly undeceived. Every moment her feet caught in the brown trailing

plants, tangled like hair, which were sea-weeds littering the pathway.

At the Cross of Plouezoc'h she bade good-bye to the old man, and begged

him to return. The lights of Paimpol were already in view, and there was

no more occasion to be afraid.

So hope was over for this time. Who could tell her when she might see

Yann again?

An excuse to return to Pors-Even would have been easy; but it would

really look too bad to begin her quest all over again. She would have to

be braver and prouder than that. If only her little confidant Sylvestre

had been there, she might have asked him to go and fetch Yann, so that

there could be some explanation. But he was gone now, and for how many

years?

CHAPTER IV--HIS RELUCTANCE

“Me get married?” said Yann to his parents that same evening. “Me get

married? Good heavens, why should I? Shall I ever be as happy as here

with ye? no troubles, no tiffs with any one, and warm soup ready for me

every night when I come home from sea. Oh! I quite understand that you

mean the girl that came here to-day, but what's such a rich girl to 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 my liking.”

The two old Gaoses looked at one another in silence, deeply

disappointed, for, after having talked it over together, they were

pretty well sure that this young lady would not refuse their handsome

Yann. But they did not try to argue, knowing how useless that would be.

The mother lowered her head, and said no more; she respected the will

of her son, her eldest born, who was all but the head of the family;

although he was always tender and gentle with her, more obedient than

a child in the petty things of life, he long ago had been her absolute

master for the great ones, eluding all restraint with a quiet though

savage independence. He never sat up late, being in the habit, like

other fishermen, of rising before break of day. And after supper at

eight o'clock, he had given another satisfactory look to his baskets and

new nets from Loguivy, and began to undress--calm to all appearances,

and went up to sleep in the pink-curtained bed, which he shared with his

little brother Laumec.

CHAPTER V--SAILORS AT THE PLAY

For the last fortnight Gaud's little confidant, Sylvestre, had been

quartered in Brest; very much out of his element, but very quiet

and obedient to discipline. He wore his open blue sailor-collar and

red-balled, flat, woollen cap, with a frank, fearless look, and was

noble and 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 as ever, 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 the

barracks together arm-in-arm, singing out as lustily as they could.

And one Sunday, too, they had all gone to the theatre, in the upper

galleries. A melodrama was being played, and the sailors, exasperated

against the villain, greeted him with a howl, which they all roared

together, like a blast of the Atlantic cyclones.

CHAPTER VI--ORDERED ON FOREIGN SERVICE

One day Sylvestre was summoned before the officer of his company; and

they told him he was among those ordered out to China--in the squadron

for Formosa. He had been pretty well expecting it for some time, as he

had heard those who read the papers say that out there the war seemed

never-ending.

And because of the urgency of the departure, he was informed at the same

time that he would not be able to have the customary leave for his home

farewells; in five days' time he would have to pack up and be off.

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 at the

thought of leaving all he knew and loved, with the vague apprehension

that he might never more return.

A thousand noises rang in his head. Around was the bustle of the

barrack-rooms, where hundreds of others were called up, like himself,

chosen for the Chinese squadron. And rapidly he wrote to his old

grandmother, with a stump of pencil, crouching on the floor, alone in

his own feverish dream, though in the thick of the continual hurry and

hubbub amidst all the young sailors hurried away like himself.

CHAPTER VII--MOAN'S SWEETHEART

“His sweetheart's a trifle old!” said the others, a couple of days

later, as they laughed after Sylvestre and his grandmother, “but they

seem to get on fine together all the same.”

It amused them to see the boy, for the first time, walk through the

streets 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

very soft nothings.

She was a very quick, diminutive person seen from behind, with rather

short skirts for the fashion of the day; and a scanty brown shawl, and a

high Paimpol _coiffe_. She, too, hanging on his arm, turned towards him

with an affectionate glance.

“A trifle old was his sweetheart!”

That's what the others called after him, we say, but without spite, for

any 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

sudden departure; for this Chinese war had already cost Paimpol many

sailors. So she had scraped together all her poor little savings, put

her best Sunday dress and a fresh clean _coiffe_ in a box, and had set

out to kiss him once again.

She had gone straight to the barracks to ask for him; at first his

adjutant had refused to let him go out.

“If you've anything to say, my good woman, go and speak to the captain

yourself. There he is, passing.”

So she calmly walked up to him, and he allowed himself to be won over.

“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 the

good old lady, to make him laugh, of course, made a most inimitably

droll face and a mock curtsey at the adjutant behind his back.

But when the grandson appeared in his full uniform, with the inevitable

turned-down collar, leaving his throat bare, she was quite struck with

his beauty; his black beard was cut into a seamanly fashionable point by

the barber, and his cap was decked out with long floating ribbons, with

a golden anchor at each end. For the moment she almost saw in him her

son 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

shadowed the present hour.

But the sadness soon passed away. Arm-in-arm they strolled on, happy to

be together; and it was then that the others had pretended to see in her

his sweetheart, and voted her “a trifle old.”

She had taken him, for a treat, to dine in an inn kept by some people

from Paimpol, which had been recommended to her as rather cheap. And

then, still arm-in-arm, they had sauntered through Brest, looking at the

shop-windows. There never were such funny stories told as those she told

her grandson to make him laugh; of course all in Paimpol Breton, so that

the passers-by might not understand.

CHAPTER VIII--OLD AND YOUNG

She stayed three days with him, three happy days, though over them hung

a dark and ominous forecast; one might as well call them three days of

respite.

At last she was forced to return to Ploubazlanec, for she had come

to the end of her little savings, and Sylvestre was to embark the day

afterward. The sailors are always inexorably kept in barracks the day

before foreign cruises (a custom that seems rather barbarous at first,

but which is a necessary precaution against the “flings” they would have

before leaving definitely).

Oh that last day! She had done her very best to hatch up some more funny

stories in her head, to tell her boy just at the parting; but she had

remembered nothing--no; only tears had welled up, and at every moment

sobs choked her. Hanging on his arm, she reminded him of a thousand

things he was not to forget to do, and he also tried hard to repress

his tears. They had ended by going into a church to say their prayers

together.

It was by the night train that she went. To save a few pence, they had

gone on foot to the station; he carrying her box, and holding her on his

strong arm, upon which she weighed heavily.

She was so very, very tired--poor old lady! She had scarcely any

strength left after the exertion of the last three or four days. Her

shoulders were bent under her brown shawl, and she had no force to bear

herself up; her youngish look was gone, and she felt the weight of her

seventy-six years.

Oh! how her heart ached at the thought that it was all over, and that

in 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 great heartrending

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 answered

her with an obedient “Ay, ay,” bending his head tenderly towards her and

gazing lovingly at her, in his soft childish way.

“Now then, old lady, you must make up your mind plaguey quick if you

want to go by this train!”

The engine whistled. Suddenly terrified at the idea of losing the train,

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 pressed into

the first carriage near; the door was banged quickly upon her, while

Sylvestre, with all the speed of a young sailor, rushed out of the

station to the rails beside the line to see the train pass.

A shrill screeching whistle, a noisy grinding of the wheels, and his

grandmother passed away, leaving him leaning against the gate and

swinging up his cap with its flying ribbons, while she, hanging out of

the window of her third-class carriage, made an answering signal with

her handkerchief; and for as long as she could see the dark blue-clad

figure, that was her child, followed him with her eyes, throwing her

whole soul into that “good-bye!” kept back to the last, and always

uncertain of realization when sailors are concerned.

Look long at your little Sylvestre, poor old woman; until the very

latest moment, do not lose sight of his fleeting shadow, which is fading

away for ever.

When she could see him no longer, she fell back, completely crushing

her still clean unrumpled cap, weeping and sobbing in the agony of death

itself.

He had turned away slowly, with his head bent, and big tears falling

down his cheeks. The autumn night had closed in; everywhere the gas was

flaring, and the sailors' riotous feasts had begun anew. Paying no heed

to anything about him, he passed through Brest and over the Recouvrance

Bridge, to the barracks.

“Whist! here, you darling boy!” called out some nocturnal prowlers to

him; but he passed on, and entering the barracks, flung himself down in

his hammock, weeping, all alone, and hardly sleeping until dawn.

CHAPTER IX--THE EASTERN VOYAGE

Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over the

unknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried him

off to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stop

nowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed was

unceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he was

a topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldiers

crowded upon the deck.

Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up more

Zouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amid

sands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look at the

dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in small boats

to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.

The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, made

him feel out of his element.

One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe waved

overhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on a

feast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a moving

sea.

They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of the

long streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestre

never had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement and

numbers of boats excited and amused him.

With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boats

crowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itself

in a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high he

could see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing in

the plain.

On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-coloured

attire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour of

confused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of the

locomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breaking

sorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.

The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon of

water between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long file

through the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, and they

were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speed through this

warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with their boiling wake like

blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in his top, where he would

hum his old song of “Jean-Francois de Nantes,” to remind him of his dear

brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good old bygone days.

Sometimes, in the depths of the shadowy distance, some wonderfully

tinted mountain would arise. Notwithstanding the distance and the

dimness around, the names of those projected capes of countries appeared

as the eternal landmarks on the great roadways of the earth to the

steersmen of this vessel; but a topman is carried on like an inanimate

thing, knowing nothing, and unconscious of the distance over the

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 and

exact as he looked upon the seething foam behind, and tried to remember

how long had lasted this pace that never slackened night or day. Down on

deck, the crowd of men, huddled together in the shadow of the awnings,

panted with weariness. The water and the air, even the very light above,

had a dull, crushing splendour; and the fadeless glory of those elements

were as a very mockery of the human beings whose physical lives are so

ephemeral.

Once, up in his crow's nest, he was gladdened by the sight of flocks

of tiny birds, of an unknown species, which fell upon the ship like a

whirlwind of coal dust. They allowed themselves to be taken and stroked,

being worn out with fatigue. All the sailors had them as pets upon their

shoulders. But soon the most exhausted among them began to die, and

before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards, ports, and

sails--poor little things!--under the blasting sun of the Red Sea.

They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeing before

a sandstorm. And through fear of falling into the blue waters that

stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flight upon

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 her

this surplus, as unmoved as if they had been superabundant men. On the

scorching funnels and ironwork of the ship they died away; the deck was

strewn with their puny forms, only yesterday so full of life, songs, and

love. Now, poor little black dots, Sylvestre and the others picked them

up, spreading out their delicate blue wings, with a look of 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 a

lifeless blue sea, where they saw no things around them, except from

time to time the flying fish skimming along the level water.

CHAPTER X--THE ORIENT

Rain in torrents, under a heavy black sky. This was India. Sylvestre had

just set foot upon land, chance selecting him to complete the crew of a

whale boat. He felt the warm shower upon him through the thick foliage,

and looked around, surprised at the novel sight. All was magnificently

green; the leaves of the trees waved like gigantic feathers, and the

people walking beneath them had large velvety eyes, which seemed to

close under the weight of their lashes. The very wind that brought the

rain had the odour of musk and flowers.

At a distance, dusky girls beckoned him to come to them. Some happy

strain they sang, like the “Whist! here, you darling boy!” so often

heard at Brest. But seductive as was their country, their call was

imperious and exasperating, making his very flesh shudder. Their perfect

bosoms rose and fell under transparent muslin, in which they were solely

draped; they were glowing and polished as in bronze statues. Hesitating,

fascinated by them, he wavered about, following them; but the

boatswain's sharp shrill whistle rent the air with bird-like trills,

summoning him hurriedly back to his boat, about to push off.

He took his flight, and bade farewell to India's beauties.

After a second week of the blue sea, they paused off another land of

dewy verdure. A crowd of yellow men appeared, yelling out and pressing

on deck, bringing coal in baskets.

“Already in China?” asked Sylvestre, at the sight of those grotesque

figures in pigtails.

“Bless you, no, not yet,” they told him; “have a little more patience.”

It was only Singapore. He went up into his mast-top again, to avoid the

black dust tossed about by the breeze, while the coal was feverishly

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 which

Sylvestre had been long ago assigned, and he was left there with his

bag.

On board he met with two mates from home, Icelanders, who were captains

of guns for the time being. Through the long, hot, still evenings, when

there was no work to be done, they clustered on deck apart from the

others, to form together a little Brittany of remembrances.

Five months he passed there in inaction and exile, locked up in the

cheerless bay, with the feverish desire to go out and fight and slay,

for change's sake.

CHAPTER XI--A CURIOUS RENCONTRE

In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before the setting-out

for Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale and still.

For Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had seen him come in,

and indistinctly heard his voice.

All through the winter they never had met, as if some invincible fate

always had kept them apart.

After the failure to find him in her walk to Pors-Even, she had placed

some hope on the _Pardon des Islandais_ where there would be many

chances for them to see and talk to one another, in the market-place at

dusk, among the crowd.

But on the very morning of the holiday, though the streets were already

draped in white and strewn with green garlands, a hard rain had fallen

in torrents, brought from the west by a soughing wind; never had so

black a sky shadowed Paimpol. “What a pity! the boys won't come over

from Ploubazlanec now,” had moaned the lasses, whose sweethearts dwelt

there. And they did not come, or else had gone straight into the taverns

to drink together.

There had been no processions or strolls, and she, with her heart aching

more than ever, had remained at her window the whole evening listening

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, surmising truly

that old Gaos would send his son to terminate the business concerning

the sale of the boat, as he did not care to come into Paimpol himself.

She determined then that she would go straight to him, and, unlike other

girls, speak out frankly, to have her conscience clear on the subject.

She would reproach him with having sought her out and having abandoned

her like a man without honour. If it 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, fair understanding between them. His fond smile might return,

which had charmed and won her the winter before, and all would be

settled. This hope gave her strength and courage, and sweetened her

impatience. From afar, 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 sure

that her father, who was sitting and smoking, would not get up to walk

part of the way with him; so in the empty passage she might have her

explanation out with him.

But now that the time had come, such boldness seemed extreme. The bare

idea of looking him face to face at the foot of those stairs, made her

tremble; and her heart beat as if it would break. At any moment the door

below might open, with the squeak she knew so well, to let him out!

“No, no, she never would dare; rather would she die of longing and

sorrow, than attempt such an act.” She already made a few return steps

towards the back of her room, to regain her seat and work. But she

stopped again, hesitating and afraid, remembering that to-morrow was the

sailing day for Iceland, and that this occasion stood alone. If she

let it slip by, she would have to wait through months upon months of

solitude and despair, languishing for his return--losing another whole

summer of her life.

Below, the door opened--Yann was coming out!

Suddenly resolute, she rushed downstairs, and tremblingly stood before

him.

“Monsieur Yann, I--I wish to speak to you, please.”

“To me, Mademoiselle Gaud?” queried he, lowering his voice and snatching

off his hat.

He looked at her fiercely, with a hard expression in his flashing eyes,

and his head thrown back, seeming even to wonder if he ought to stop

for her at all. With one foot ready to start away, he stood straight up

against the wall, as if to be as far apart from her as possible, 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, odd

tone--not at all the one she wished to use.

He turned his eyes away, looking outside; his cheeks blazed red, a rush

of blood burned all his face, and his quivering nostrils dilated with

every breath, keeping time with the heavings of his chest, like a young

bull's.

“The night of the ball,” she tried to continue, “when we were together,

you bade me good-bye, not as a man speaks to an indifferent person.

Monsieur Yann, have you no memory? What have I done to vex you?”

The nasty western breeze blowing in from the street ruffled his hair

and the frills of Gaud's _coiffe_, and behind them a door was banged

furiously. The passage was not meet for talking of serious matters in.

After these first phrases, choking, Gaud remained speechless, feeling

her head spin, and without ideas. They still advanced towards the street

door; he seemed so anxious to get away, and she was so determined not to

be shaken off.

Outside the wind blew noisily and the sky was black. A sad livid light

fell upon their faces through the open door. And an opposite neighbour

looked at them: what could the pair be saying to one another in that

passage together, looking so troubled? What was wrong over at the

Mevel's?

“Nay, Mademoiselle Gaud,” he answered at last, turning away with the

powerful grace of a young lion, “I've heard folks talk about us quite

enough 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 come after a

'swell' lady.”

He went forth on his way. So now all was over for ever and ever. She had

not even said what she wished in that interview, which had only made her

seem a very bold girl in his sight. What kind of a fellow was this Yann,

with his contempt for women, his scorn for money, and all desirable

things?

At first she remained fixed to the spot, sick with giddiness, as things

swam around her. One intolerably painful thought suddenly struck her

like a flash of lightning--Yann's comrades, the Icelanders, were waiting

for him below in the market-place. What if he were to tell them this

as a good joke--what a still more odious affront upon her! She quickly

returned to her room to watch them through her window-curtains.

Before the house, indeed, she saw the men assembled, but they were

simply 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 it

passes.”

They poked jokes and laughed loudly over Jeannie Caroff and other

beauties; but not even one of them looked up at _her_ window. They were

all joyful, except Yann, who said nothing, and remained grave and sad.

He did not go in to drink with them; and without noticing either them

or the rain, which had begun to fall, he slowly walked away under

the shower, as if absorbed in his thoughts, crossing the market-place

towards Ploubazlanec.

Then she forgave him all, and a feeling of hopeless tenderness for him

came, instead of the bitter disappointment that previously had filled

her heart. She sat down and held her head between her hands. What could

she do now?

Oh! if he had listened only a moment to her, or if he could come into

that room, where they might speak together alone, perhaps all might yet

be arranged. She loved him enough to tell him so to his face. She would

say to him: “You sought me out when I asked you for nothing; now I am

yours with my whole soul, if you will have me. I don't mind a bit being

the wife of a fisherman, and yet, if I liked, I need but choose

among all the young men of Paimpol; but I do love you, because,

notwithstanding all, I believe you to be better than others. I'm

tolerably well-to-do, and I know I am pretty; although I have lived

in towns, I am sure that I am not a spoiled girl, as I never have done

anything 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 rather die.

Yet to-morrow they would all start for Iceland. The whitish February

daylight streamed into her fine room. Chill and lonely she fell upon

one of the chairs along the wall. It seemed to her as if the whole world

were crashing and falling in around her. All things past and present

were as if buried in a fearful abyss, which yawned on all sides of her.

She wished her life would end, and that she were lying calm beneath some

cold tombstone, where no more pain might touch her.

But she had sincerely forgiven him, and no hatred mingled with her

desperate love.

CHAPTER XII--STRIKING THE ROCK UNKNOWN

The sea, the gray sea once more, where Yann was gently gliding along its

broad, trackless road, that leads the fishermen every year to the Land

of Ice.

The day before, when they all had set off to the music of the old hymns,

there blew a brisk breeze from the south, and all the ships with their

outspread sails had dispersed like so many gulls; but that breeze 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 too

calm, and appeared to excite himself, as if he would drive away some

care that weighed upon him. But he had nothing to do but be carried

serenely in the midst of serene things; only to breathe and let himself

live. On looking out, only the deep gray masses around could be seen; on

listening, only silence.

Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible rumbling, which came from

below, accompanied by a grinding sensation, as when a brake comes hard

down on carriage wheels. The _Marie_ ceased all movement. They had

struck. Where, and on what? Some bank off the English coast probably.

For since overnight they had been able to see nothing, with those

curtains of mist.

The men ran and rushed about, their bustle contrasting strongly with

the sudden rigidity of their ship. How had the _Marie_ come to a stop in

that spot? In the midst of that immensity of fluid in this dull weather,

seeming to be almost without consistence, she had been seized by some

resistless immovable power hidden beneath the waves; she was tight in

its grasp, and might perish there.

Who has not seen poor birds caught by their feet in the lime? At first

they can scarcely believe they are caught; it changes nothing in their

aspect; but they soon are sure that they are held fast, and in danger

of never getting free again. And when they struggle to get free, and

the sticky stuff soils their wings and heads, they gradually assume that

pitiful look of a dumb creature in distress, about to die. Such was the

case with the _Marie_. At first it did not seem much to be concerned

about; she certainly was careened a little on one side, but it was broad

morning, and the weather was fair and calm; one had to know such things

by experience to become uneasy, and understand that it was a serious

matter.

The captain was to be pitied. It was his fault, as he had not understood

exactly where they were. He wrung his hands, saying: “God help us! God

help us!” in a voice of despair.

Close to them, during a lifting of the fog, they could distinguish a

headland, but not recognize it. But the mists covered it anew, and they

saw it no longer.

There was no sail or smoke in sight. They all jostled about, hurrying

and knocking the deck lumber over. Their dog Turc, who did not usually

mind the movement of the sea, was greatly affected too by this incident,

these sounds from down below, these heavy wallowings when the low

swell passed under, and the sudden calm that afterwards followed; he

understood that all this was unusual, and hid himself away in corners,

with his tail between his legs. They got out the boats to carry the

kedges and set them firm, and tried to row her out of it by uniting all

their forces together upon the tow-lines--a heavy piece of work this,

which lasted ten successive hours. So, when evening came, the poor

bark, which had only that morning been so fresh and light, looked almost

swamped, fouled, and good for nothing. She had fought hard, floundered

about on all sides, but still remained there, fixed as in a dock.

Night was overtaking them; the wind and the waves were rising; things

were growing worse, when, all of a sudden, towards six o'clock,

they were 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 to

feel themselves going forwards on a buoyant craft again, instead of on

the semi-wreck it was before, none but a seaman feels, and few of them

can tell.

Yann's sadness had disappeared too. Like his ship, he became lively once

more, cured by the healthy manual labour; he had found his reckless look

again, and had thrown off his glum thoughts.

Next morning, when the kedges were fished up, the _Marie_ went on her

way to Iceland, and Yann's heart, to all appearance, was as free as in

his early years.

CHAPTER XIII--HOME NEWS

The home letters were being distributed on board the _Circe_, at anchor

at Ha-Long, over on the other side of the earth. In the midst of a group

of sailors, the purser called out, in a loud voice, the names of the

fortunate men who had letters to receive. This went on at evening, on

the ship's side, all crushing round a funnel.

“Moan, Sylvestre!” There was one for him, postmarked “Paimpol,” but it

was not Gaud's writing. What did that mean? from whom did it come else?

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 the

bottom of the letter she even had placed her signature, learned by

heart, but trembling like a school-girl's scribble: “Widow Moan.”

“Widow Moan!” With a quick spontaneous movement he carried the paper to

his lips and kissed the poor name, as a sacred relic. For this letter

arrived at a critical moment of his life; to-morrow at dawn, he was to

set out for the battlefield.

It was in the middle of April; Bac-Ninh and Hong-Hoa had just been

taken. There was no great warfare going on in Tonquin, yet the

reinforcements arriving were not sufficient; sailors were taken from

all the ships to make up the deficit in the corps already disembarked.

Sylvestre, who had languished so long in the midst of cruises and

blockades, had just been selected with some others to fill up the

vacancies.

It is true that now peace was spoken of, but something told them that

they yet would disembarck in good time to fight a bit. They packed their

bags, made all their other preparations, and said good-bye, and all the

evening through they strolled about with their unfortunate mates who had

to remain, feeling much grander and prouder than they. Each in his

own way showed his impression at this departure--some were grave and

serious, others exuberant and talkative.

Sylvestre was very quiet and thoughtful, though impatient; only, when

they looked at him, his smile seemed to say, “Yes, I'm one of the

fighting party, and huzza! the action is for to-morrow morning!”

Of gunshots and battle he formed but an incomplete idea as yet; but they

fascinated him, for he came of a valiant race.

The strange writing of his letter made him anxious about Gaud, and he

drew near a porthole to read the epistle through. It was difficult amid

all those half-naked men pressing round, in the unbearable heat of the

gundeck.

As he thought she would do, in the beginning of her letter Granny Moan

explained why she had had to take recourse to the inexperienced hand of

an old neighbour:

“My dear child, I don't ask your cousin to write for me to-day, as she

is in great trouble. Her father died suddenly two days ago. It appears

that his whole fortune has been lost through unlucky gambling last

winter in Paris. So his house and furniture will have 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 his

articles with Captain Guermeur of the _Marie_, and the departure for

Iceland was rather early this year, for they set sail on the first of

the month, two days before our poor Gaud's trouble, and he 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 glee at

going out to fight.

PART III -- IN THE SHADOW

CHAPTER I--THE SKIRMISH

Hark! a bullet hurtles through the air!

Sylvestre stops short to listen!

He is upon an infinite meadow, green with the soft velvet carpet of

spring. The sky is gray, lowering, as if to weigh upon one's very

shoulders.

They are six sailors reconnoitring among the fresh rice-fields, in a

muddy pathway.

Hist! again the whizz, breaking the silence of the air--a shrill,

continuous sound, a kind of prolonged _zing_, giving one a strong

impression that the pellets buzzing by might have stung fatally.

For the first time in his life Sylvestre hears that music. The bullets

coming towards a man have a different sound from those fired by himself:

the far-off report is attenuated, or not heard at all, so it is easier

to distinguish the sharp rush of metal as it swiftly passes by, almost

grazing one's ears.

Crack! whizz! ping! again and yet again! The balls fall in regular

showers now. Close by the sailors they stop short, and are buried in

the 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 the

same Chinese family. It is difficult to show their contempt and mocking

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 slight shower

of lead did not last long.

Perfect silence returns to the broad verdant plain, and nowhere can

anything be seen moving. The same six are still there, standing on the

watch, scenting the breeze, and trying to discover whence the volley

came. Surely from over yonder, by that clump of bamboos, which looks

like an island of feathers in the plain; behind it several pointed roofs

appear half hidden. So they all made for it, their feet slipping or

sinking into the soaked soil. Sylvestre runs foremost, on his longer,

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; the

cloudy gray skies and the fresh tints of fields in spring-time, for

example; one could imagine this upon French meadows, and these young

fellows, running merrily over them, playing a very different sport from

this game of death.

But as they approach, the bamboos show the exotic delicacy of their

foliage, and the village roofs grow sharper in the singularity of their

curves, and yellow men hidden behind advance to reconnoitre; their flat

faces are contracted by fear and spitefulness. Then suddenly 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 one of

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 would

have been proud to see him such a warrior. Since the last few days he

had altered. His face was bronzed, and his voice strengthened. He was in

his own element here.

In a moment of supreme indecision the sailors hit by the bullets almost

yielded to an impulse of retreat, which would certainly have been death

to them all; but Sylvestre continued to advance, clubbing his rifle, and

fighting a whole band, knocking them down right and left with smashing

blows from the butt-end. Thanks to him the situation was reversed;

that panic or madness that blindly deceives all in these leaderless

skirmishes had now passed over to the Chinese side, and it was they who

began to retreat.

It was soon all over; they were fairly taking to their heels. The six

sailors, reloading their repeating rifles, shot them down easily; upon

the grass lay dead bodies by red pools, and skulls were emptying their

brains into the river.

They fled, cowering like leopards. Sylvestre ran after them, although he

had two wounds--a lance-thrust in the thigh and a deep gash in his arm;

but feeling nothing save the intoxication of battle, that unreasoning

fever that comes of vigorous blood, gives lofty courage to simple souls,

and made the heroes of antiquity.

One whom he was pursuing turned round, and with a spasm of desperate

terror took a deliberate aim at him. Sylvestre stopped short, smiling

scornfully, sublime, to let him fire, and seeing the direction of the

aim, only shifted a little to the left. But with the pressure upon the

trigger the barrel of the Chinese jingal deviated slightly in the same

direction. He suddenly felt a smart rap upon his breast, and in a flash

of thought understood what it was, even before feeling any pain; he

turned towards the others following, and tried to cry out to them the

traditional phrase of the old soldier, “I think it's all up with me!” In

the great breath that he inhaled after having run, to refill his lungs

with air, he felt the air rush in also by a hole in his right breast,

with a horrible gurgling, like the blast in a broken bellows. In that

same time his mouth filled with blood, and a sharp pain shot through

his side, which rapidly grew worse, until it became atrocious and

unspeakable. He whirled round two or three times, his brain swimming

too; and gasping for breath through the rising red tide that choked him,

fell heavily in the mud.