Towards midnight, being in that state of mind that
is peculiar to seaman who are conscious of the time
of day in their slumber, and quite clearly see the
hour draw night when to awaken for the watch—he
saw the funeral, and said to himself: “I
am dreaming; luckily the mate will come and wake me
up, and the vision will pass away.”
But when a heavy hand was laid upon him and a voice
cried out: “Tumble out, Gaos! watch, boy!”
he heard the slight rustling of paper at his breast,
a fine ghastly music that affirmed the fact of the
death. Yes, the letter! It was true, then?
The more cruel, heartrending impression deepened,
and he jumped up so quickly in his sudden start, that
he struck his forehead against the overhead beam.
He dressed and opened the hatchway to go up mechanically
and take his place in the fishing.
When Yann was on deck, he looked around him with sleep-laden
eyes, over the familiar circle of the sea. That
night the illimitable immensity showed itself in its
most astonishingly simple aspects, in neutral tints,
giving only the impression of depth. This horizon,
which indicated no recognisable region of the earth,
or even any geological age, must have looked so many
times the same since the origin of time, that, gazing
upon it, one saw nothing save the eternity of things
that exist and cannot help existing.
It was not the dead of night, for a patch of light,
which seemed to ooze from no particular point, dimly
lit up the scene. The wind sobbed as usual its
aimless wail. All was gray, a fickle gray, which
faded before the fixed gaze. The sea, during
its mysterious rest, hid itself under feeble tints
without a name.
Above floated scattered clouds; they had assumed various
shapes, for, without form, things cannot exist; in
the darkness they had blended together, so as to form
one single vast veiling.
But in one particular spot of the sky, low down on
the waters, they seemed a dark-veined marble, the
streaks clearly defined although very distant; a tender
drawing, as if traced by some dreamy hand—some
chance effect, not meant to be viewed for long, and
indeed hastening to die away. Even that alone,
in the midst of this broad grandeur, appeared to mean
something; one might think that the sad, undefined
thought of the nothingness around was written there;
and the sight involuntarily remained fixed upon it.
Yann’s dazzled eyes grew accustomed to the outside
darkness, and gazed more and more steadily upon that
veining in the sky; it had now taken the shape of
a kneeling figure with arms outstretched. He began
to look upon it as a human shadow rendered gigantic
by the distance itself.
In his mind, where his indefinite dreams and primitive
beliefs still lingered, the ominous shadow, crushed
beneath the gloomy sky, slowly coalesced with the
thought of his dead brother, as if it were a last
token from him.
