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.
