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.
