A Tale of Brittany (Mon frère Yves)

A fine rain was falling, cold, penetrating, continuous; it streamed down the walls, rendering deeper in colour the high-pitched roofs of slate, and the tall houses of granite; i...

And afterwards, when, in one hemisphere or the other, we ran into the life-giving trade wind again, when the awakened _Primauguet_ began once more to gather speed, then one real...

After we had lunched together at the best inn, we found that the winter's morning had yielded place to a fine May day. In the empty little streets, branches of lilac, clusters o...

Anne, her back turned towards me in a corner, adjusts her coif before a mirror, a little embarrassed to be obliged to do so in my presence; but the cottages of Brittany are not...

It was now the twentieth parallel of latitude, in the region of the trade winds. The hour was about six in the morning. On the deck of a ship which rode solitary in the midst of...

The ship on which I had embarked had left the Mediterranean and was going north in the Atlantic, bound for the northern ports and Brest where it was to be laid up.

Toulven, in spring; the lanes full of primroses. A first warm breeze stirs the air, a surprise and a delight; it stirs the branches of the oaks and beeches, and the great leafle...

In the heart of the docks at Brest, a little before dawn, on the first morning of the year 1881. A mournful place, these docks; the _Sèvre_ has been moored there now for a week.

The day on which I arrived at Brest, to don there that first naval uniform, which I see still, I met Yves Kermadec by chance at the house of a patron of his, an old Commander wh...

For two days now, the great sinister voice had been groaning round us. The sky was very dark. It was like the sky in that picture in which Poussin has tried to paint the deluge;...

Yves awoke slowly towards evening. He had first of all sensations of suffering, which came one by one, as after a kind of death. He was cold, cold to the marrow of his bones.

The Coral Sea! At the Antipodes of our old world. Nothing but blue anywhere. Around the ship which proceeds slowly, the infinite blue spreads its perfect circle. The surface shi...

"And my man, Madame Kerdoncuff, the day he returned from China, slept for two whole days; and I, you know, got drunk too, Madame Kerdoncuff. Oh! and how ashamed of myself I was!...

The street is full of women who have been waiting there since the morning, outside an ugly granite building: the sailors' pay office. Women of Brest, deterred in no wise by the...

She had shrunk from questioning the other sailors, as the poor wives of absentees commonly do, to ascertain from them whether Yves had returned to his ship. She knew nothing of...

He was very drunk, and after he had smiled thus to see himself clothed in the fashion of a Chinese mandarin, his eyes became dull and lustreless, his lip curled and disdainful....

My eyes still dazzled by sun and blue sea, and this Brittany, seen again so quickly and so suddenly for a few brief hours, absolutely as in the dreams we had of it at sea. . . ....

Now Paimpol and the sea, and the islands, and the headlands wooded with dark fir trees, had disappeared behind a fold of the ground; a more mournful country stretched before me.

The captain received me on his quarter-deck, dressed in reasonably correct American fashion; the _chola_, transformed, wore a red silk dress with a magnificent collar of pearls...

She had understood, with her mother's instinct, that I was not what I appeared to be, and that I should be able to exercise over the destiny of her last son a very important inf...

I, too, at midnight, when my watch was over and I had seen Yves descend, returned to my room to try to sleep. After all, the fate of the ship concerned us now no longer, me no m...

The pendulum of time, inexorable, swings on. In a few hours I shall have to leave, and soon my brother Yves will depart also, both of us for distant parts, for the unknown.

Seen from end to end it was a kind of long dark hall dimly lighted by flickering lanterns. The big guns, supported on their mountings, remained more or less in position by virtu...

In the southern ocean, still; near the Isle of Tonga, and to windward of it. The _Primauguet_ itself was anchored in a bay of the island, within the line of reefs, in the shelte...

Anne no longer wore her gay festival attire: she had put on a large smooth collarette and a simpler head-dress. Her Breton dress of blue cloth was ornamented with yellow embroid...

This "Good morning, Pierre!" preceded by a little smile of intelligence, is said with hesitation, in a shy voice; it is "Good morning, Captain!" that Yves is accustomed to say,...

In Brittany, during the winter of 1876, the _Sibylle_ had been back at Brest for two days--after having completed its voyage round the world--and I was with Yves, one evening in...

The night which follows is clear and exquisite. We are moving very slowly, in the Coral sea, before a light, warm breeze, advancing with precaution, in fear of encountering whit...

Yves, who will soon be thirty years old, begs me to bring him from the town a bound manuscript book in order that he may commence to record his impressions, after my manner. He...

The cottage of the old Keremenens, as darkness is falling on an evening of April. Our little party has just returned from a walk: Yves, Marie, Anne, little Corentine "golden loc...

We had wandered some considerable distance and were in a wood, Anne, Yves, and I, when suddenly, without apparent cause, the idea seized him. He had turned back and left us, say...

"DEAR BROTHER,--I write to let you know we have reached Australia; we have had a very fine voyage and to-morrow we are to leave for Japan; for, you know, we have had instruction...

It was not the first time that this Captain Kerjean had enrolled a deserter. He understood. He knew how to take them and afterwards how to manage them. His ship, _la Belle-Rose_...

It was a Sunday in October. He arrived from his ship, where he had been ordered to irons, so he said; and he had escaped because it was unjust. He seemed very exasperated; his b...

Since the fall of darkness my eyes have been turned in the direction of the lights of the town. I am awaiting with uneasiness the return of the cutter of which Yves is in charge...

The "pendulum of time" has continued its swing. It even seems that it has moved more quickly than usual, for the week's leave which had been given me is almost over.

Little Pierre is at Plouherzel, trying to play in front of his grandmother's door--quite lost as he looks at the motionless sheet of water before him, with the large beastlike s...

Old Corentin Keremenen had in fact returned from his work in the fields and was waiting for us at his door. He had had time even to change his clothes: he was wearing now his la...

We are in the heart of the Brest docks, where the _Sèvre_ comes from time to time to rest between two high walls. High gloomy-looking buildings overlook us; around us courses of...

When once Yves had said that, the storm was finally over; but it was often a long time before he said it. When the fit of drunkenness had passed, for two or three days, he would...

We sailed steadily, fully rigged, towards the south. Now there were clouds of "draught-boards" and other sea-birds in attendance upon us. They followed us, wondering and confide...

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 throu...

Yves and I take our departure, leaving little Pierre with his grandmother. We follow the green lane, under the vault of oaks and beeches, hearing in the distance, in the sonorou...

On the following morning, when the sun rose, the wind was still fresh. The _Primauguet_ was moving very quickly, rocking in its course with the supple and vigorous movement of a...

Another day! In the street below could be heard the characteristic sound of the lower quarters of Brest at the hour of the return to work: thousands of wooden sabots hammering o...

One Sunday in December I returned to Brest unannounced and made my way into the low-lying quarters of the Grand 'Rue, looking for Yves' house. Reading the numbers on the doors,...

The afternoon of the same day. 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...

At two o'clock on this same day on which he had concluded his bargain with Captain Kerjean, Yves, having bought some ordinary seaman's clothes, and changed clandestinely in a ta...

Six o'clock on the following morning. A dark mass having the form of a man in the gutter--by the side of a kind of deserted street overhung by ramparts. It is still dark. The ra...

In the days when we sailed the misty northern waters together, often as we passed in the offing, rocked in the grey swell, we had seen the legendary tower of Creizker upreared i...

"DEAR BROTHER,--I am sending you this short letter in reply on the same day that I have received yours. I write in haste and am taking advantage of the luncheon hour. I am on th...

"Kermadec (Yves-Marie), son of Yves-Marie and Jeanne Danveoch. Born 28 August, 1851, at Saint Pol-de-Léon (Finistère). Height 5 ft. 11 inches. Hair brown, eyebrows brown, eyes b...

The pancakes, which were being made for us, resembled the moon, so large were they; they were passed to us in turn, piping hot, at the end of a long oak spoon shaped like the oa...

At the end of about an hour I was in the midst of fields, absolutely lost. Around me nothing but darkness, and the silence of a winter's night. I wandered along muddy lanes; not...

In the evening, in the southern solitudes. The wind was rising. Over all this moving immensity in which the _Primauguet_ dwelt long dark blue waves were chasing one another. It...

On the following morning I opened my eyes in the large room of the good dame Le Pendreff. The Breton sun filtered gently through the windows. The day, apparently, was very fine.

Yves appeared at last, walking straight, carrying himself well, his head high, but his eye lustreless, bewildered. He saw his wife, but pretended that he did not, throwing on he...

The island of Teneriffe appears before us like a kind of large pyramidal edifice, placed on an immense reflecting mirror which is the sea. The rugged sides, the gigantic ridges...

An illegitimate child, born and reared in the open on the quays of Bordeaux. Very vicious, but with a good heart; full of contrasts, certain elementary notions of human dignity...

Yves made his entrance into the world in the form of a large baby, very round and very brown. The good women present at his arrival gave him the name of _Bugel-Du_, which in Eng...

Barrada went quickly to fetch his little mug, which during the day he carried on his belt and which he put away at night in a gun; he poured into it some water which was of the...

Little Pierre was cold. He cried as he clasped his two little hands, which he tried to hide under his pinafore. He was in a street in Brest, before daybreak, on a November morni...

Pale Brittany once more in autumn sunshine! Once more the old Breton lanes, the beech trees and the heather! I thought I had said good-bye to this country for many a long day, a...

When it was time to go, I found that Yves was much more tipsy than I could have believed. Outside he stumbled up to his knees in puddles of water, and reeled from side to side....

When Yves arrived, his face had changed and he was smiling as I had not seen him smile for many a long day. I took his hand, his poor topman's hand, in mine; it was necessary to...

It was some days now since we had left behind us the tranquillities of the Equator, and we were proceeding slowly towards the south, driven by the south trade wind. One morning...

Little Pierre was still asleep in his cradle, making up for the sleep he had lost in the early morning. And this morning his mother also dozed near him in her chair, exhausted a...

It was about six weeks after the _Médée_ had been laid up at Brest and I had separated from Yves, when one day, at Athens, I think, I received this surprising letter:

This cottage of the old Keremenen people is half-buried and overgrown with moss. Above it the oaks and beeches spread their green vault; it seems as old as the earth of the lanes.

It was the second day following, very early, at daybreak. I came up on deck, having scarcely slept a moment, after a very trying watch from midnight to four o'clock: we had been...

Wind and current had favoured her. She sailed rapidly, so rapidly, for days and nights on end, that one lost the notion of places and distances. Vaguely we had seen pass the Str...

On this particular evening, however, we only heard the passing of cockchafers and stagbeetles which flew through the warm air in eccentric curves, and the small buzzings of summ...

On the day before we sailed, Yves had obtained a special permission to go ashore during the day in order that he might see, in the naval hospital, his eldest brother, Gildas, th...

_At Sea._--We are returning from the Channel. The _Sèvre_ is proceeding very slowly in a thick fog, blowing every now and then its whistle which sounds like a cry of distress in...

At Paimpol Marie, with her son, has climbed into the diligence which moves off and is bearing them away. Through the door she watches her mother-in-law who has had the grace to...

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.

It was his joyous welcome, his home-coming feast, for, only twenty-four hours before, the _Primauguet_, returned from its distant cruise in the Pacific, had come to anchor in th...

"MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have to tell you that our _Sèvre_ is being disarmed; we handed her over yesterday to the authorities at the docks; and, I can assure you, I am not very grie...

At sea, on the following day, the first of April. Bound for Saint Nazaire. A full spread of canvas; a strong breeze from the north-west: the weather bad; the lighthouses no long...

Eight days afterwards our frigate was completely disarmed and laid up in a remote part of the dockyard, the crew was paid off and the _Médée_ might be described as a dead ship.

On the _Primauguet_, my dear Yves was above reproach, as he had promised us. The officers treated him with a rather special consideration on account of his general bearing and m...

In a little ship's cabin, which is painted white and has iron walls, Yves is sitting near me amid open trunks and cases. We are still in the disarray of arrival; we have yet to...

"MY DEAR BROTHER,--I do not know how to tell you, but it is true, I have taken to drink again. Also I do not want to remain in Brest, as you will understand, for I am afraid of...

When I returned to my room to tell him that he was to be put in irons, I found him sitting on my bed, his fists and teeth clenched with rage. His passionate Breton temper had go...

On the evening of the burial of Barazère, Yves had brought his friend Jean Barrada with him to my room. They were now the only survivors of the old band: Kerboul, Le Hello, had...

He had lived there only for four months, and already his round cheeks had paled a little under their bronze. Before, they were like those ripe nectarines of the south country wh...

I was walking on the quay at Bordeaux. A very smart person came up to me, hat doffed, holding out his hand: Barrada! A Barrada transformed, having shed his beard and his one-and...

As soon as the old cottage cuckoo had announced four o'clock in its cracked voice, quickly, we had to get up. We were due at Paimpol before daybreak, to catch there at six o'clo...

And yet, yes!--something told her that he had a heart, but that he was just a big boy whom the life of the sea had spoilt. And with a great tenderness she recalled his handsome,...

The next day, a Monday, the Commander sent for me early, and I entered his room with a feeling of resentment in my heart, with bitter words ready on my lips, which I would have...

When night came and we were in bed it was impossible to sleep. I heard Yves turning in his bed, "going about" as he said in his Breton accent. At the thought that on the morrow...

I had accepted an invitation to dinner on the following day with the captain of the whaler. We had got on famously together. His manners were not those of polite society, but th...

Yves is waiting for me on the arrival of the diligence which I caught at Bannalec. Beside him is a girl of eighteen or nineteen, who blushes, looking very pretty in her large coif.

My memories of Brittany were fading fast. Even now I seemed to see them as through a mist of dreamland; the reefs I had known so well, the lights on the coast, Cape Finistère wi...

It has been urged against my books that there is always in them too much of the trouble of love. This time there is only a little love and that an honest love and it comes only...

The lover lost no time, and she, won over by Yves' manly air, by his honest, winning smile, had been induced to consent--not without a certain uneasiness, nevertheless--to this...

It was one morning, as we were entering the Celebean Sea, that the owl which was Yves' parrot died, a morning of high wind on which we took in the second reef of the topsail. It...

It seems odd to us to find ourselves performing the formal duties of citizens in the way of the world in general. At the Mairie, and at the parish priest's house, we feel very a...

At the moment of leaving I saw this Marie Keremenen, whom I had half dreaded to meet. She was a young woman of about twenty years of age, dressed in the costume of the village o...

It was called the _Navarin_; all the men of our ship who had finished their term of service were embarking on it also: among others, Barrada, who was going to Bordeaux, with his...

Sometimes Yves would fall suddenly like a log and sleep for several hours; and then it would be over. This depended on the particular kind of liquor he had taken.