A delay out at those islands to repair damages was
a very likely event. She rose and brushed her
hair, and then dressed as if she might fairly expect
him. All then was not lost, if a seaman, his own
father, did not yet despair. And for a few days,
she resumed looking out for him again.
Autumn at last arrived, a late autumn too, its gloomy
evenings making all things appear dark in the old
cottage, and all the land looked sombre, too.
The very daylight seemed crepuscular; immeasurable
clouds, passing slowly overhead, darkened the whole
country at broad noon. The wind blew constantly
with the sound of a great cathedral organ at a distance,
but playing profane, despairing dirges; at other times
the noise came close to the door, like the howling
of wild beasts.
She had grown pale, aye, blanched, and bent more than
ever, as if old age had already touched her with its
featherless wing. Often did she finger the wedding
clothes of her Yann, folding and unfolding them again
and again like some maniac, especially one of his blue
woolen jerseys, which still had preserved his shape;
when she threw it gently on the table, it fell with
the shoulders and chest well defined; so she placed
it by itself on a shelf of their wardrobe, and left
it there, so that it might for ever rest unaltered.
Every night the cold mists sank upon the land, as
she gazed over the depressing heath through her little
window, and watched the paltry puffs of white smoke
arise from the chimneys of other cottages scattered
here and there on all sides. There the husbands
had returned, like wandering birds driven home by
the frost. Before their blazing hearths the evenings
passed, cosy and warm; for the spring-time of love
had begun again in this land of North Sea fishermen.
Still clinging to the thought of those islands where
he might perhaps have lingered, she was buoyed up
by a kind hope and expected him home any day.
But he never returned. One August night, out
off gloomy Iceland, mingled with the furious clamour
of the sea, his wedding with the sea was performed.
It had been his nurse; it had rocked him in his babyhood,
and had afterward made him big and strong; then, in
his superb manhood, it had taken him back again for
itself alone. Profoundest mystery had surrounded
this unhallowed union. While it went on, dark
curtains hung pall-like over it as if to conceal the
ceremony, and the ghoul howled in an awful deafening
voice to stifle his cries. He, thinking of Gaud,
his sole, darling wife, had battled with giant strength
against this deathly rival, until he at last surrendered,
with a deep death-cry like the roar of a dying bull,
through a mouth already filled with water; and his
arms were stretched apart and stiffened for ever.
All those he had invited in days of old were present
at his wedding. All except Sylvestre, who had
gone to sleep in the enchanted gardens far, far away,
at the other side of the earth.
