Slowly the winter drew nigh, and spread over all like a shroud leisurely
drawn. Gray days followed one another, but Yann appeared no more, and
the two women lived on in their loneliness. With the cold, their daily
existence became harder and more expensive.
Old Yvonne was difficult to tend, too; her poor mind was going. She got
into fits of temper now, and spoke wicked, insulting speeches once or
twice every week; it took her so, like a child, about mere nothings.
Poor old granny! She was still so sweet in her lucid days, that Gaud did
not cease to respect and cherish her. To have always been so good and
to end by being bad, and show towards the close a depth of malice and
spitefulness that had slumbered during her whole life, to use a whole
vocabulary of coarse words that she had hidden; what mockery of the
soul! what a derisive mystery! She began to sing, too, which was still
more painful to hear than her angry words, for she mixed everything up
together--the _oremus_ of a mass with refrains of loose songs heard in
the harbour from wandering sailors. Sometimes she sang “_Les Fillettes
de Paimpol_” (The Lasses of Paimpol), or, nodding her head and beating
time with her foot, she would mutter:
“Mon mari vient de partir; Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de
partir, Il m'a laissee sans le sou, Mais--trala, trala la lou, J'en
gagne, j'en gagne.”
(My husband went off sailing Upon the Iceland cruise, But never left me
money, Not e'en a couple sous. But--ri too loo! ri tooral loo! I know
what to do!)
She always stopped short, while her eyes opened wide with a lifeless
expression, like those dying flames that suddenly flash out before
fading away. She hung her head and remained speechless for a great
length of time, her lower jaw dropping as in the dead.
One day she could remember nothing of her grandson. “Sylvestre?
Sylvestre?” repeated she, wondering whom Gaud meant; “oh! my dear, d'ye
see, I've so many of them, that now I can't remember their names!”
So saying she threw up her poor wrinkled hands, with a careless, almost
contemptuous toss. But the next day she remembered him quite well;
mentioning several things he had said or done, and that whole day long
she wept.
Oh! those long winter evenings when there was not enough wood for their
fire; to work in the bitter cold for one's daily bread, sewing hard to
finish the clothes brought over from Paimpol.
Granny Yvonne, sitting by the hearth, remained quiet enough, her feet
stuck in among the smouldering embers, and her hands clasped beneath her
apron. But at the beginning of the evening, Gaud always had to talk to
her to cheer her a little.
“Why don't ye speak to me, my good girl? In my time I've known many
girls who had plenty to say for themselves. I don't think it 'ud seem so
lonesome, if ye'd only talk a bit.”
So Gaud would tell her chit-chat she had heard in town, or spoke of the
people she had met on her way home, talking of things that were quite
indifferent to her, as indeed all things were now; and stopping in the
midst of her stories when she saw the poor old woman was falling asleep.
There seemed nothing lively or youthful around her, whose fresh youth
yearned for youth. Her beauty would fade away, lonely and barren. The
wind from the sea came in from all sides, blowing her lamp about,
and the roar of the waves could be heard as in a ship. Listening, the
ever-present sad memory of Yann came to her, the man whose dominion
was these battling elements; through the long terrible nights, when all
things were unbridled and howling in the outer darkness, she thought of
him with agony.
Always alone as she was, with the sleeping old granny, she sometimes
grew frightened and looked in all dark corners, thinking of the sailors,
her ancestors, who had lived in these nooks, but perished in the sea on
such nights as these. Their spirits might possibly return; and she did
not feel assured against the visit of the dead by the presence of the
poor old woman, who was almost as one of them herself.
Suddenly she shivered from head to foot, as she heard a thin, cracked
voice, as if stifled under the earth, proceed from the chimney corner.
In a chirping tone, which chilled her very soul, the voice sang:
“Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir, Il m'a laissee sans
le sou, Mais--trala, trala la lou!”
Then she was seized with that peculiar terror that one has of mad
people.
The rain fell with an unceasing, fountain-like gush, and streamed down
the walls outside. There were oozings of water from the old moss-grown
roof, which continued dropping on the self-same spots with a monotonous
sad splash. They even soaked through into the floor inside, which was of
hardened earth studded with pebbles and shells.
Dampness was felt on all sides, wrapping them up in its chill masses; an
uneven, buffeting dampness, misty and dark, and seeming to isolate the
scattered huts of Ploubazlanec still more.
But the Sunday evenings were the saddest of all, because of the relative
gaiety in other homes on that day, for there are joyful evenings even
among those forgotten hamlets of the coast; here and there, from some
closed-up hut, beaten about by the inky rains, ponderous songs issued.
Within, tables were spread for drinkers; sailors sat before the smoking
fire, the old ones drinking brandy and the young ones flirting with the
girls; all more or less intoxicated and singing to deaden thought. Close
to them, the great sea, their tomb on the morrow, sang also, filling the
vacant night with its immense profound voice.
On some Sundays, parties of young fellows who came out of the taverns
or back from Paimpol, passed along the road, near the door of the Moans;
they were such as lived at the land's end of Pors-Even way. They passed
very late, caring little for the cold and wet, accustomed as they were
to frost and tempests. Gaud lent her ear to the medley of their
songs and shouts--soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or the
breakers--trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feeling strangely
perplexed if she thought she had heard it.
It really was too unkind of Yann not to have returned to see them again,
and to lead so gay a life so soon after the death of Sylvestre; all
this was unlike him. No, she really could not understand him now, but
in spite of all she could not forget him or believe him to be without
heart.
The fact was that since his return he had been leading a most dissipated
life indeed. Three or four times, on the Ploubazlanec road, she had seen
him coming towards her, but she was always quick enough to shun him; and
he, too, in those cases, took the opposite direction over the heath. As
if by mutual understanding, now, they fled from each other.