CHAPTER LXIX

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 longer visible. We came into dock in the small hours, with a damaged bow and a broken foretopmast.

The 2nd is pay day. Drunken men stumble in the hold in the dark and there are broken heads.

A little liberty of two days, quite unexpected. On the road with Yves for Trémeulé in Toulven. This _Sèvre_ is a good boat which never takes us away for long.

At ten o'clock at night, in the moonlight, we knock at the door of the old Keremenens and of Marie, who were not expecting us.

They wake up little Pierre in our honour, and sit him on our knees. Surprised in his first sleep he smiles and says how do you do to us very low, but afterwards does not make much ado about our visit. His eyes close in spite of himself and he cannot hold up his head. And Yves, disturbed at this, seeing him hanging his head, and looking at us in sidelong fashion, his hair in his eyes:

"You know, it seems to me that he has . . . that he has . . . a sly look."

And he looks at me anxious to know what I think of it, conceiving already a grave misgiving about the future.

Nobody in the world but my dear old Yves would have felt concern on such ludicrous grounds. I shake little Pierre, who thereupon becomes wide awake and bursts out laughing, his fine big eyes well opened between their long lashes. Yves is reassured and finds that in fact he does not look at all sly.

When his mother strips him, he looks like a classic baby, like the Greek statues of Cupid.