CHAPTER LXXXI

Marie had seen him coming, and climbed the stairs after him, trembling.

In the last two days she had had time to consider in all its aspects the misfortune which had come upon them.

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 him, and she was waiting, prepared for the worst.

Perhaps he would not come back; she was prepared for that as for everything else, and was surprised that she could think of it with so much calmness. In that case her plans were made; she would not return to Toulven, for fear of seeing their partly built house, for fear also of hearing the name of her husband execrated daily in the home of her parents, to which she would have to go. 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.

And it seemed to her, too, that if one day, after many years perhaps, Yves, the deserter, should return seeking those who belonged to him it was to that little corner of the world, to Plouherzel, that he would come.

The night before, she had had a strange dream of Yves' return; it seemed to her that many years had passed and that she was already old. Yves arrived at the cottage in Plouherzel in the evening; he too was old, altered, wretched. He came asking forgiveness. Behind him Goulven and Gildas entered, and _another Yves_, taller than them all, with hair quite white, trailing behind him long fringes of seaweed.

The old mother received them with her stern face. In a voice infinitely sad she asked:

"How comes it that they are all here? My husband was lost at sea more than sixty years ago. . . . Goulven is in America. . . . Gildas in his grave in the cemetery. . . . How comes it that they are all here?"

Then Marie awoke in fear, understanding that she had been surrounded by the dead.

But this evening Yves had returned alive and young; she had recognized in the darkness of the street his tall figure and active step. At the thought that she was going to see him again and to determine her lot, all her courage and all her plans had deserted her. She trembled more and more as she ascended the staircase. . . . Perhaps after all he had simply passed the last two days on board and was now returning in the ordinary way. Perhaps they would settle down once more. . . . She paused on the stairs and prayed God that this might be true, a quick, heartfelt prayer.

When she opened the door, he was indeed there, sitting by the cradle and looking at his sleeping son.

Poor little Pierre was sleeping peacefully, the bandage still on his forehead where the fire-iron had cut it.

As soon as she entered, pale, her heart beating so violently as almost to hurt her, she saw at once that Yves had not been drinking: he raised his eyes to her and his gaze was clear; but he lowered them quickly again and remained bent over his son.

"Is he much hurt?" he asked in an undertone, slowly, with a calmness that surprised and frightened her.

"No, I have been to the doctor for the dressing. He says that it will not leave a mark. He did not cry at all."

They remained there, silent, one before the other, he still sitting near the little cradle, she standing, white-faced and trembling. There was no ill-will between them now; perhaps they loved each other still; but now the irreparable was accomplished and it was too late. She looked at the clothes he wore, which she had never seen him in before: a black woollen jersey and a cloth cap. Why these clothes? And this little parcel near him on the floor, out of which the end of a blue collar peeped? It seemed to contain his sailor's effects, put aside for ever, as if the real Yves was dead.

She found courage to ask:

"The other day, did you return to the ship?"

There was silence again. She was conscious of a growing anxiety.

"During the last three days, you have not returned?"

"No!"

Then she did not dare to speak again, fearing to hear the dreadful truth; trying to prolong the minutes, even these minutes compact of uncertainty and anguish, because he was still there, before her, perhaps for the last time.

At last the poignant question fell from her lips:

"What are you going to do then?"

And he, in a low voice, simply, with the calmness of an unalterable resolve, let fall the fatal word:

"Desert!"

Desert! . . . Yes, she had divined it only too well in the last few moments, when she saw his altered clothing, and this little parcel of sailor's kit carefully folded in a handkerchief.

She recoiled under the weight of the word, supporting herself with her hands against the wall behind her, almost choking. 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! And this is the advance payment they have given me. . . . You will return to Toulven. . . . Oh! I will send you money, all I earn; you know, I shall not want much myself. We shall not see each other again, but you will not be too unfortunate . . . as long as I live."

She wanted to throw her arms round him, to hold him with all her strength, to struggle, to cling to him when he was going away, if needs be to let herself be dragged down the staircase, and even into the street. . . . But no, something held her bound where she stood: first the knowledge that all that she might do could be of no avail, and then a sense of dignity, there, where their son lay asleep. . . . And she remained against the wall, without a movement.

He had placed two hundred francs in large silver pieces on the table near him. They represented the payment that had been made to him in advance, all that remained of it, after he had paid for his clothes. He looked at her now very thoughtfully, very kindly, and with his woollen sleeve brushed off some tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

But he had nothing more to say to her. And now the last minute had come and all was over.

He bent again for a last time over his little son, then straightened himself and got up to go.