We were then off the Cape Verde Islands. The “Marat” was shooting
along, sailing before the wind, at ten knots, without inconveniencing
herself. The night was the finest I have seen in my life near the
tropic. The moon was rising above the horizon, as large as a sun;
the sea cut it in half, and turned quite white like a sheet of snow
covered with little diamonds. I looked at this as I smoked, sitting on
my seat. The officer of the watch and the sailors said nothing, and
like me watched the shadow of the brig on the water. I was pleased at
hearing nothing. I like silence and order. I had forbidden any noise
and any fire. I caught a glimpse, however, of a little red line almost
under my feet. I should have flown into a rage at once; but, as it was
coming from my little “convicts,” I wanted to make sure of what they
were doing before I got angry. I had only the trouble of stooping down,
and I could see, through the big skylight, into the little room: and I
looked.
The young wife was on her knees, saying her prayers. There was a little
lamp that threw its light on her. She was in her nightgown; I could see
from above her bare shoulders, her little bare feet, and her long fair
hair, all dishevelled. I thought of drawing back, but I said to myself:
“Pooh! an old soldier, what does he matter?” And I continued watching.
Her husband was sitting on a little trunk, his head on his hands,
watching her as she prayed. She raised her head upwards, as if to
heaven, and I saw her big blue eyes wet like those of a Magdalene.
While she prayed, he took the ends of her long tresses and kissed them
noiselessly. When she had finished, she made the sign of the cross,
smiling as if she were entering paradise. I saw that he made the sign
of the cross like her, but as if he were ashamed of it. In fact, for a
man it is odd.
She stood up, kissed him, and stretched herself out the first in her
hammock, into which he lifted her without a word, as you put a child
into a swing. The heat was stifling; she felt herself pleasantly lulled
by the motion of the ship, and seemed already to be falling asleep. Her
little white feet were crossed and raised to a level with her head, and
her whole body wrapped in her long white nightgown. She was a dear, she
was!
“My love,” she said, half asleep, “are you not sleepy? Do you know it’s
very late?”
He still remained with his brow on his hands, not answering. This
troubled her a little, the good little soul, and she put her pretty
head out of the hammock, like a bird’s out of its nest, and looked at
him with parted lips, not daring to speak again.
At last he said to her:
“Ah! my dear Laura, as we draw nearer to America, I cannot help growing
sadder. I don’t know why, but it seems to me that the happiest time of
our life will have been that of the voyage.”
“I think so too,” she said; “I should like never to get there.”
He looked at her, clasping his hands with a rapture which you cannot
imagine.
“And yet, my angel, you always weep as you pray to God,” he said; “that
grieves me very much, for I know well of what people you are thinking,
and I believe that you regret what you have done.”
“I, regret it!” she said, looking very hurt; “I, regret having followed
you, my beloved! Do you think that, because I have belonged to you such
a little while, I love you the less? Is one not a woman, does not one
know one’s duty, at seventeen? Did not my mother and sisters say that
it was my duty to follow you to Guiana? Did they not say that in that I
was doing nothing surprising? I am only surprised that it should have
touched you, my love; it is all natural. And now I don’t know how you
can think that I regret anything, when I am with you to help you to
live, or to die with you if you die!”
She said all that in a voice so soft that you would have thought it was
music. I was quite touched by it, and said:
“You’re a good little woman, you are!”
The young man began to sigh and tap the floor with his foot, as he
kissed a pretty hand and bare arm that she held out to him.
“Oh! Laurette, my Laurette!” he said, “when I think that, if we had
delayed our marriage for four days, I should have been arrested alone
and should have departed alone, I cannot forgive myself.”
Then the little beauty stretched out of the hammock her pretty white
arms, bare to the shoulders, and stroked his brow, his hair, and his
eyes, taking his head as if she would carry it away and hide it in
her bosom. She smiled like a child, and said to him a lot of little
womanly things, the like of which I had never heard before. She closed
his mouth with her fingers so that only she could speak. She said,
playfully taking her long hair like a handkerchief to wipe his eyes:
“Tell me, is it not much better to have with you a woman who loves you,
my beloved? I am quite pleased, myself, to go to Cayenne; I shall see
savages and cocoa-palms like Paul and Virginia’s, shan’t I? We shall
each plant our own. We shall see which will be the better gardener.
We’ll make a little hut for us two. I will work all day and all night,
if you like. I am strong; see, look at my arms;--see, I could almost
lift you. Don’t laugh at me; I can embroider very well, besides; and is
there not a town somewhere thereabouts where they need embroiderers? I
will give lessons in drawing and music if they want them too; and, if
they can read there, _you_ will write.”
I remember that the poor fellow was in such despair that he gave a
great cry when she said that.
“Write!”--he exclaimed,--” write!”
And he grasped the wrist of his right hand with his left.
“Oh! write! why did I ever learn to write? Write! why it’s a madman’s
trade!...--I believed in their liberty of the press!--Where did I get
my brains! Eh! and for what? to print five or six poor commonplace
ideas, only read by those who like them, thrown in the fire by those
who hate them, of no use but to cause us to be persecuted! It doesn’t
matter for me; but you, lovely angel, become a woman scarcely four
days ago! Explain to me, I beg of you, how it was I allowed you to be
so good as to follow me here? Do you know at all where you are, poor
little one? And do you know where you are going? Soon, child, you will
be sixteen hundred leagues from your mother and sisters ... and for me!
all that for me!”
She hid her head for a moment in the hammock; and I from above saw
that she was crying; but he below did not see her face; and, when she
withdrew it from the sheet, it was with a smile to make him cheerful.
“It’s true, we’re not rich just now,” she said, and burst out laughing;
“see, look at my purse, I have no more than one single louis left. What
have you?”
He began to laugh too like a child:
“On my word, I had a crown left, but I gave it to the little boy who
carried your box.”
“Oh, pooh! what does that matter”! she said snapping her little white
fingers like castanets; “one is never gayer than when one has nothing;
and haven’t I in reserve the two diamond rings that my mother gave me?
those are good anywhere, and for anything, aren’t they? When you wish,
we will sell them. Besides, I think that the dear good captain hasn’t
told us all his kind intentions towards us, and that he knows quite
well what is in the letter. It is surely a recommendation for us to the
governor of Cayenne.”
“Perhaps,” he said; “who knows?”
“Isn’t it?” his little wife went on; “you are so good, that I’m sure
that the government has exiled you for a little time, but isn’t angry
with you.”
She had said that so well! calling me the dear good captain, that I was
quite moved and softened by it; and I even rejoiced in my heart, that
she had perhaps guessed rightly about the sealed letter. They began
again to kiss one another; I stamped sharply on the deck to make them
stop.