On the granite wall hung a photograph of Sylvestre
in his sailor clothes. His grandmother had fixed
his military medal to it, with his own pair of those
red cloth anchors that French men-of-wars-men wear
on their right sleeve; Gaud had also brought one of
those funereal crowns, of black and white beads, placed
round the portraits of the dead in Brittany.
This represented Sylvestre’s mausoleum, and was
all that remained to consecrate his memory in his
own land.
On summer evenings they did not sit up late, to save
the lights; when the weather was fine, they sat out
a while on a stone bench before the door, and looked
at passers-by in the road, a little over their heads.
Then old Yvonne would lie down on her cupboard shelf;
and Gaud on her fine bed, would fall asleep pretty
soon, being tired out with her day’s work, and
walking, and dreaming of the return of the Icelanders.
Like a wise, resolute girl, she was not too greatly
apprehensive.
But one day in Paimpol, hearing that La Marie
had just got in, Gaud felt possessed with a kind of
fever. All her quiet composure disappeared; she
abruptly finished up her work, without quite knowing
why, and set off home sooner than usual.
Upon the road, as she hurried on, she recognised him,
at some distance off, coming towards her. She
trembled and felt her strength giving way. He
was now quite close, only about twenty steps off, his
head erect and his hair curling out from beneath his
fisher’s cap. She was so taken by surprise
at this meeting, that she was afraid she might fall,
and then he would understand all; she would die of
very shame at it. She thought, too, she was not
looking well, but wearied by the hurried work.
She would have done anything to be hidden away under
the reeds or in one of the ferret-holes.
He also had taken a backward step, as if to turn in
another direction. But it was too late now.
Both met in the narrow path. Not to touch her,
he drew up against the bank, with a side swerve like
a skittish horse, looking at her in a wild, stealthy
way.
She, too, for one half second looked up, and in spite
of herself mutely implored him, with an agonized prayer.
In that involuntary meeting of their eyes, swift as
the firing of a gun, these gray pupils of hers had
appeared to dilate and light up with some grand noble
thought, which flashed forth in a blue flame, while
the blood rushed crimson even to her temples beneath
her golden tresses.
As he touched his cap he faltered. “Wish
you good-day, Mademoiselle Gaud.”
“Good-day, Monsieur Yann,” she answered.
That was all. He passed on. She went on
her way, still quivering, but feeling, as he disappeared,
that her blood was slowly circulating again and her
strength returning.
At home, she found Granny Moan crouching in a corner
with her head held between her hands, sobbing with
her childish “he, he!” her hair dishevelled
and falling from beneath her cap like thin skeins of
gray hemp.
