The town-hall clock struck eleven, with that peculiar
resonance that bells have during the quiet spring
nights. At Paimpol eleven o’clock is very
late; so Gaud closed her window and lit her lamp, to
go to bed.
Perhaps it was only shyness in Yann, after all, or
was it because, being proud also, he was afraid of
a refusal, as she was so rich? She wanted to
ask him this herself straightforwardly, but Sylvestre
thought that it would not be the right thing, and
it would not look well for her to appear so bold.
In Paimpol already her manners and dress were sufficiently
criticised.
She undressed slowly as if in a dream; first her muslin
cap, then her town-cut dress, which she threw carelessly
on a chair. The little lamp, alone to burn at
this late hour, bathed her shoulders and bosom in its
mysterious light, her perfect form, which no eye ever
had contemplated, and never could contemplate if Yann
did not marry her. She knew her face was beautiful,
but she was unconscious of the beauty of her figure.
In this remote land, among daughters of fishers, beauty
of shape is almost part of the race; it is scarcely
ever noticed, and even the least respectable women
are ashamed to parade it.
Gaud began to unbraid her tresses, coiled in the shape
of a snail-shell and rolled round her ears, and two
plaits fell upon her shoulders like weighty serpents.
She drew them up into a crown on the top of her head—this
was comfortable for sleeping—so that, by
reason of her straight profile, she looked like a
Roman vestal.
She still held up her arms, and biting her lip, she
slowly ran her fingers through the golden mass, like
a child playing with a toy, while thinking of something
else; and again letting it fall, she quickly unplaited
it to spread it out; soon she was covered with her
own locks, which fell to her knees, looking like some
Druidess.
And sleep having come, notwithstanding love and an
impulse to weep, she threw herself roughly in her
bed, hiding her face in the silken masses floating
round her outspread like a veil.
In her hut in Ploubazlanec, Granny Moan, who was on
the other and darker side of her life, had also fallen
to sleep—the frozen sleep of old age—dreaming
of her grandson and of death.
And at this same hour, on board the Marie,
on the Northern Sea, which was very heavy on this
particular evening, Yann and Sylvestre—the
two longed-for rovers—sang ditties to one
another, and went on gaily with their fishing in the
everlasting daylight.
About a month later, around Iceland, the weather was
of that rare kind that the sailors call a dead calm;
in other words, in the air nothing moved, as if all
the breezes were exhausted and their task done.
