The purser, diving into his post-bags of sailcloth,
distributed them all round, often finding it hard
to read the addresses, which were not always written
very skilfully, while the captain kept on saying:
“Look alive there, look alive! the barometer
is falling.”
He was rather anxious to see all the tiny yawls afloat,
and so many vessels assembled in that dangerous region.
Yann and Sylvestre used to read their letters together.
This time they read them by the light of the midnight
sun, shining above the horizon, still like a dead
luminary. Sitting together, a little to one side,
in a retired nook of the deck, their arms about each
other’s shoulders, they very slowly read, as
if to enjoy more thoroughly the news sent them from
home.
In Yann’s letter Sylvestre got news of Marie
Gaos, his little sweetheart; in Sylvestre’s,
Yann read all Granny Moan’s funny stories, for
she had not her like for amusing the absent ones you
will remember; and the last paragraph concerning him
came up: the “word of greeting to young
Gaos.”
When the letters were got through, Sylvestre timidly
showed his to his big friend, to try and make him
admire the writing of it.
“Look, is it not pretty writing, Yann?”
But Yann, who knew very well whose hand had traced
it, turned aside, shrugging his shoulders, as much
as to say that he was worried too often about this
Gaud girl.
So Sylvestre carefully folded up the poor, rejected
paper, put it into its envelope and all in his jersey,
next his breast, saying to himself sadly: “For
sure, they’ll never marry. But what on earth
can he have to say against her?”
Midnight was struck on the cruiser’s bell.
And yet our couple remained sitting there, thinking
of home, the absent ones, a thousand things in reverie.
At this same moment the everlasting sun, which had
dipped its lower edge into the waters, began slowly
to reascend, and lo! this was morning.
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.
