CHAPTER VI
ALL BUT ONE
This end of September was like another summer, only a little less
lively. The weather was so beautiful, that had it not been for the
dead leaves that fell upon the roads, one might have thought that June
had come back again. Husbands and sweethearts had all returned, and
everywhere was the joy of a second spring-time of love.
At last, one day, one of the missing ships was signalled. Which one
was it?
The groups of speechless and anxious women had rapidly formed on the
cliff. Gaud, pale and trembling, was there, by the side of her Yann's
father.
"I'm almost sure," said the old fisher, "I'm almost sure it's them! A
red rail and a topsail that clews up--it's very like them anyhow. What
do you make it, Gaud?
"No, it isn't," he went on, with sudden discouragement; "we've made a
mistake again, the boom isn't the same, and ours has a jigger sail.
Well, well, it isn't our boat this time, it's only the /Marie-Jeanne/.
Never mind, my lass, surely they'll not be long now."
But day followed day, and night succeeded night, with uninterrupted
serenity.
Gaud continued to dress every day like a poor crazed woman, always in
fear of being taken for the widow of a shipwrecked sailor, feeling
exasperated when others looked furtively and compassionately at her,
and glancing aside so that she might not meet those glances that froze
her very blood.
She had fallen into the habit of going in the early morning right to
the end of the headland, on the high cliffs of Pors-Even, passing
behind Yann's old home, so as not to be seen by his mother or little
sisters. She went to the extreme point of the Ploubazlanec land, which
is outlined in the shape of a reindeer's horn upon the gray waters of
the channel, and sat there all day long at the foot of the lonely
cross, which rises high above the immense waste of the ocean. There
are many of these crosses hereabout; they are set up on the most
advanced cliffs of the seabound land, as if to implore mercy and to
calm that restless mysterious power that draws men away, never to give
them back, and in preference retains the bravest and noblest.
Around this cross stretches the ever-green waste, strewn with short
rushes. At this great height the sea air was very pure; it scarcely
retained the briny odour of the weeds, but was perfumed with all the
exquisite ripeness of September flowers.
Far away, all the bays and inlets of the coast were firmly outlined,
rising one above another; the land of Brittany terminated in ragged
edges, which spread out far into the tranquil surface.
Near at hand the reefs were numerous, but out beyond nothing broke its
polished mirror, from which arose a soft, caressing ripple, light and
intensified from the depths of its many bays. Its horizon seemed so
calm, and its depths so soft! The great blue sepulchre of many Gaoses
hid its inscrutable mystery, while the breezes, faint as human breath,
wafted to and fro the perfume of the stunted gorse, which had bloomed
again in the lastest autumn sun.
At regular hours the sea retreated, and great spaces were left
uncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; then
with the same lazy slowness, the waters rose again, and continued
their everlasting coming and going, without any heed of the dead.
At the foot of the cross, Gaud remained, surrounded by these tranquil
mysteries, gazing ever before her, until the night fell and she could
see no more.
