CHAPTER VI
THE BRIDAL
It was six days before the sailing for Iceland. Their wedding
procession was returning from Ploubazlanec Church, driven before a
furious wind, under a sombre, rain-laden sky.
They looked very handsome, nevertheless, as they walked along as in a
dream, arm-in-arm, like king and queen leading a long cortege. Calm,
reserved, and grave, they seemed to see nothing about them; as if they
were above ordinary life and everybody else. The very wind seemed to
respect them, while behind them their "train" was a jolly medley of
laughing couples, tumbled and buffeted by the angry western gale.
Many people were present, overflowing with young life; others turning
gray, but these still smiled as they thought of /their/ wedding-day
and younger years. Granny Yvonne was there and following, too, panting
a little, but something like happy, hanging on the arm of an old uncle
of Yann's, who was paying her old-fashioned compliments. She wore a
grand new cap, bought for the occasion, and her tiny shawl, which had
been dyed a third time, and black, because of Sylvestre.
The wind worried everybody; dresses and skirts, bonnets and /coiffes/,
were similarly tossed about mercilessly.
At the church door, the newly married couple, pursuant to custom, had
bought two nosegays of artificial flowers, to complete their bridal
attire. Yann had fastened his on anyhow upon his broad chest, but he
was one of those men whom anything becomes. As for Gaud, there was
still something of the lady about the manner in which she had placed
the rude flowers in her bodice, as of old very close fitting to her
unrivalled form.
The violin player, who led the whole band, bewildered by the wind,
played at random; his tunes were heard by fits and starts betwixt the
noisy gusts, and rose as shrill as the screaming of a sea-gull. All
Ploubazlanec had turned out to look at them. This marriage seemed to
excite people's sympathy, and many had come from far around; at each
turn of the road there were groups stationed to see them pass. Nearly
all Yann's mates, the Icelanders of Paimpol, were there. They cheered
the bride and bridegroom as they passed; Gaud returned their greeting,
bowing slightly like a town lady, with serious grace; and all along
the way she was greatly admired.
The darkest and most secluded hamlets around, even those in the woods,
had been emptied of all their beggars, cripples, wastrels, poor, and
idiots on crutches; these wretches scattered along the road, with
accordions and hurdy-gurdies; they held out their hands and hats to
receive the alms that Yann threw to them with his own noble look and
Gaud with her beautiful queenly smile. Some of these poor waifs were
very old and wore gray locks on heads that had never held much;
crouching in the hollows of the roadside, they were of the same colour
as the earth from which they seemed to have sprung, but so unformed as
soon to be returned without ever having had any human thoughts. Their
wandering glances were as indecipherable as the mystery of their
abortive and useless existences. Without comprehending, they looked at
the merrymakers' line pass by. It went on beyond Pors-Even and the
Gaoses' home. They meant to follow the ancient bridal tradition of
Ploubazlanec and go to the chapel of La Trinite, which is situated at
the very end of the Breton country.
At the foot of the outermost cliff, it rests on a threshold of low-
lying rocks close to the water, and seems almost to belong to the sea
already. A narrow goat's path leads down to it through masses of
granite.
The wedding party spread over the incline of the forsaken cape head;
and among the rocks and stones, happy words were lost in the roar of
the wind and the surf.
It was useless to try and reach the chapel; in this boisterous weather
the path was not safe, the sea came too close with its high rollers.
Its white-crested spouts sprang up in the air, so as to break over
everything in a ceaseless shower.
Yann, who had advanced the farthest with Gaud on his arm, was the
first to retreat before the spray. Behind, his wedding party had
remained strewn about the rocks, in a semicircle; it seemed as if he
had come to present his wife to the sea, which received her with
scowling, ill-boding aspect.
Turning round, he caught sight of the violinist perched on a gray
rock, trying vainly to play his dance tunes between gusts of wind.
"Put up your music, my lad," said Yann; "old Neptune is playing us a
livelier tune than yours."
A heavily beating shower, which had threatened since morning, began to
fall. There was a mad rush then, accompanied by outcries and laughter,
to climb up the bluff and take refuge at the Gaoses'.
