Yves

“ A cold dark mist was rising on the horizon, and the winter sunshine was beginning to fade.
Poor Yves! So this is his home; a lonely cottage by the roadside; a poor little Breton cottage, in a turning off a remote lane, low-pitched, under a lowering sky, half buried in the earth, with ancient little granite walls overgrown with parietaries and moss.
All his memories of childhood are centred here; it was his cradle, his nest; a cherished home in which his mother lived, a home to which, in far-off countries, in the great cities of America and Asia, his imagination always brought him back. ”

“ It was at this visit I saw for the first and last time little Yvonne, Yves' little daughter who was born after our departure, and who made on this earth only a brief appearance of a few months. She was very like him; the same eyes, the same expression. It was strange to see this resemblance of a small girl-baby to a man.
One day she returned to the mysterious regions whence she had come, called away suddenly by a childish malady, which neither the old nurse nor the learned woman brought in from Toulven had understood. ”

“ Deserter! Yves! lost! The thought of Goulven, his brother, passed through her mind, and of distant seas from which sailors never return. And, feeling her helplessness against this fate which crushed her, she remained silent, utterly overwhelmed.
Yves began to speak to her very kindly, pointing with sorrowful calm to the little parcel which he had brought.
"I want you, my poor Marie, to-morrow, when my ship has left, to send that on board, you understand. You never can tell! . . . If I am caught . . . It is always more serious to take away the property of the State! ”

“ It was there I said good-bye to Yves and retraced my steps, for I, for my part, was not going to Plouherzel. When we no longer heard the sound of each other's footsteps in the silence of the winter's night, the ghost of the little old man came back into our minds, and in spite of ourselves we took to peering into the darkness of the undergrowth. ”

“ Yves, too, was there; he had returned in the early morning for the fête with all his relations from Plouherzel; and he was waiting outside to conduct me to his mother.
She was a very old woman, this mother of Yves, holding herself very upright and rather proudly in her peasant dress. She resembled him a little about the eyes, but her expression was hard. I was surprised to find her so old. She looked over seventy. It is true, of course, that in the country people age very quickly, especially when grief is added to toil. ”

“ Yves is in my room, busy putting his stripes on his sleeves, in haste to finish before darkness falls, looking comical as always, with his big air of sea-rover, when he is engaged in sewing.
They are not very elegant, his poor clothes; they show signs of hard wear. For he was not rich when he left Brest with his reduced pay ”

“ On the following morning, with the tide, the Belle-Rose was going to put off. Yves scented the ocean, the life of the sea which was about to commence in the new fashion so long desired. For years this idea of deserting had obsessed him in a strange way, and now it was a thing accomplished. The decision he had taken raised him in his own eyes; he grew bigger as he felt himself outside the law; he was no longer ashamed, now that he was a deserter, of presenting himself before his wife ”

“ It is a large room, poor and almost empty. The things in it seem to have a presentiment of the grim visitor who is expected; one is tempted almost to ask whether he has not already arrived, and our eyes glance uneasily at a bed, the curtains of which are drawn. Yves looks all round, trying to stretch his intelligence into the past, to force himself as it were to remember. ”

“ Not to Toulven; but to the country of Goëlo, where there was an old woman who resembled Yves, and whose features suddenly assumed for her an infinite kindliness. It was at her door she would knock. She would be indulgent to him, for she was his mother. They would be able to speak without hatred of the absent one; they would live there, the two deserted women, together, and watch over little Pierre, uniting their efforts to keep him, their last hope, with them, so that he at least should not be a sailor. ”

“ Yvette takes from her hair the bonnet-rouge.
Séraphine
Psst! Little fool! Put on the cap again!
Yvette
It is too heavy!
Séraphine
Saint Yves! Put it on!
De Vardes
The duel’s o’er; the night is drawing on;
Dark is thy form against the crimson sky,
Rémond Lalain! Stand further off, my foe!
And now I think I see thee not at all,
And that is well! ”

“ This time it has to do with a dream Yves and his wife have dreamt together: to realize all their possessions and build a little house, covered with slate, in Toulven. I am to have my room there in this little house, and in it are to be put the old-fashioned Breton things I love, and flowers and ferns. They do not want to live any more in the large towns, not in Brest particularly—it is not good for Yves. ”

“ A corner of the hold of the Médée, in all the disarray of laying up. A lantern illumines a vast medley of heterogeneous objects more or less nibbled by rats.
A dozen or so sailors—Barrada, Guiaberry, Barazère, Le Hello, all the little band of friends—are grouped about a man lying on the floor. It is Yves in irons, stretched on the damp boards, his head supported on his elbow, his foot in the padlocked ring of the "bar of justice." ”

“ When I take my leave of them, Yves gets up also in order to accompany me as far as the village, where I am going to sleep at the inn.
Outside, in the sunken lane, under the branches, it is now pitch dark; we are enveloped by a double obscurity, that of the trees and that of the night.
It is a kind of peace to which we are not accustomed, the peace of the woods. And there is no sea; the country of Toulven is far away from it. We listen; it seems to us still that we ought to hear in the distance its familiar sound. But no; all about is silence. ”

“ Kergrist Chapel, in the district of Goëlo, under a lowering sky; the sea-water lake, and, in the middle, the granite islets, the great squatting beast asleep on the grey plain. . . . I can see the place now, as it appeared to me, many years ago already, on a winter's day. And I remember that there is Yves' native land, there is the earth which awaits him. When he is far away at sea, at night, in hours of danger, there is the grave of which he dreams. ”

“ Yves almost kissed the knees of the ingenuous Huron, who, by the by, was no longer ingenuous. The language of the eyes formed all the discourse of the two lovers, who, nevertheless, expressed every sentiment with which they were penetrated. Satisfaction and acknowledgment sparkled in the countenance of the one, while embarrassment was depicted in Miss St. Yves's melting, but half averted, eyes. Every one was astonished that she should mingle grief with so much joy.
The venerable Gordon soon endeared himself to the whole family. ”

“ Here I recall the very words of Yves. "Poor sparrow! It had for food in its cage a piece of that gray bread which is given in prisons, but it had the appearance of being quite happy, nevertheless. It jumped about just like any other bird."
Some hours afterward, when they reached the transport vessel and the convicts were about to embark for their long voyage, Yves, who had forgotten this old man, passed once more by chance near him. ”

“ A very long prayer, broken by solemn responses of the old grandmother; all the Saints of Brittany: Saints Corentin and Allain, Saints Thénénan and Thégonnec, Saints Tuginal and Tugdual, Saints Clet and Gildas were invoked, and then there was silence.
Quite near me, the scarcely perceptible breathing of Yves, already sunk in deep sleep. At the foot of our bed the hens at roost dreaming on their high perch. A cricket giving out from time to time, in the still warm hearth, a mysterious little crystal note. ”

“ At last little Pierre's toilet is finished and without so much as a cry. I should have liked him better dressed as a little Breton; but no, this son of Yves is all in white, with a long embroidered robe and bows of ribbon, like a little gentleman of the town. He looks more vigorous and browner than ever in this doll's dress; the poor little town babies, who go to their baptism in similar attire, are not, as a rule, so strong and lusty. ”

“ By the roadside there are carpets of Easter daisies and Breton flowers: the first pink silenes and the first foxgloves.
Turning a rocky corner we find that the rain and the wind have suddenly ceased. And as if by magic the aspect of things is entirely changed.
We see before us as far as eye commands a great flat country, a barren moor, bare as a desert: the old country of Léon, in the background of which, far away, stands the granite shaft of the Creizker.
And yet this mournful country has a charm of its own, and Yves smiles as he perceives his tower towards which we are moving. ”

“ We could see nothing but the intense blackness of the night; a strong wind lashed our faces, and, in the dark lanes, Yves no longer knew where he was.
They were uneasy in his cottage and were sitting up for him. His mother scolded him, in her stern way, speaking loud and angrily as one might to a naughty child; and he went very crestfallen and sat down in a corner.
However, we were forced to partake of a second supper; it is the custom and there was no escape. An omelette, more pancakes, and slices of brown bread and butter. ”

“ Then he fell asleep again, and Jean-Marie and I burst out laughing.
I was in no frame of mind for laughter, but this notion and this spoilt child's air were too comical. . . .
Later, at ten o'clock, Yves came round, got up furtively, and disappeared.
For two days he remained hidden in the crews' quarters in the bow of the ship, only showing himself for his watch and for drill, hanging his head, not daring to look at me.
Oh! these resolutions taken twenty times and as many times broken. . . . We dare not take them again or at any rate dare not say that we have taken them. ”

“ It has become in some sort my own country, this Toulven. A few short years ago it was unknown to me, and Yves, for all that even then I called him brother, scarcely counted for me. The aspects of life change, things happen, are transformed, and pass.
The heather is so thick that, in the distance, it looks as if the ground were covered with a reddish carpet. ”

“ At seven o'clock in the morning word is brought to me that Yves, dead-drunk, is in a boat alongside. Some old friends of his, topmen on the Vénus, have kept him drinking through the night in low taverns—to celebrate their return from the Antilles.
I am of the watch. There is no one yet on deck, save some sailors busy with their furbishing—but devoted fellows these, known for many a day and to be counted on. Four men get him aboard, and furtively carry him down a hatch and hide him in my room. ”

“ He embraced Yves affectionately and then introduced us to Jeannie, who, for the last fortnight, had been his wife.
Yves overwhelmed his mother with attentions and caresses; they had many things to tell one another, and they both spoke at once. He made apologies to us from time to time, but it was good to see them and to hear them. Her eyes lost their hard expression when she looked at him.
The good people of the country have always interminable business to transact with the notary; I left them as they all made their way to the one at Paimpol to wait their turn. ”

“ The next tide brought in a stiff little corpse, a little body of white wax, which was laid to rest near the chapel, under a wooden cross and a mound of green turf.
She still cherished a hope in her son Yves, the last, the best beloved, because he had remained the longest at home. . . . Perhaps he, at least, would return one day to live near her!
But it was not to be. This Marie Keremenen had stolen him from her; and, at the same time—a thing which counted in her rancour—she had taken from her also the money which this son had previously sent to help her to live. ”

“ She advances smiling, with an air of repressed triumph, and behind her looms M. Kangourou, in his suit of gray tweed. Fresh salutes, and behold her on all fours, she too, before my landlady and before my neighbors. Yves, the big Yves, who is not going to be married, stands behind me, with a comical grimace, hardly repressing his laughter,—while to give myself time to collect my ideas, I offer tea in little cups, little spittoons and embers to the company. ”

“ From Bannalec to Toulven is an hour's drive through the woods. With my eyes fixed in front of me I watch for the granite steeple of the church in the distance of the green horizon.
And now it appears reflected deep below in the mournful pool. The weather has cleared and the sky is blue again, a pale blue.
Toulven! . . . The diligence stops. Yves is there waiting for me, holding little Pierre by the hand.
We look at each other—and our first impulse is to laugh, on account of our moustaches. Our faces are altered, and we seem odd to each other. ”

“ Yves had climbed with the larboard men into the disarray of the rigging, and then I kept my eyes aloft, blinded myself also, and only seeing momentarily now the human cluster in the air.
And, suddenly, in a lurch more violent than any that had gone before, the silhouette of this group was broken brusquely and changed its form; two bodies broke away from it and fell with outspread arms into the roaring volutes of the sea, while another crashed on the deck, without a cry, falling as a man might who was already dead. ”