An Iceland Fisherman

Their second meeting was at a wedding-feast. Young Gaos had been chosen to offer her his arm. At first she had been rather vexed, not liking the idea of strolling through the st...

At Paimpol, one fine evening of this same year, upon a Sunday in June, two women were deeply busy in writing a letter. This took place before a large open window, with a row of...

There they were, five huge, square-built seamen, drinking away together in the dismal cabin, which reeked of fish-pickle and bilge-water. The overhead beams came down too low fo...

She had been walking for the last hour, lightly yet oppressed, inhaling the healthy open breeze whistling up the roads to where they crossed and _Calvaires_ were erected, ghastl...

The wedding breakfast was given at Yann's parents', because Gaud's home was so poor. It took place upstairs in the great new room. Five-and-twenty guests sat down round the newl...

The Northern sun had taken another aspect and changed its colour, opening the new day by a sinister morn. Completely free from its veil, it gave forth its grand rays, crossing t...

About a month later, around Iceland, the weather was of that rare kind that the sailors call a dead calm; in other words, in the air nothing moved, as if all the breezes were ex...

For six days they were husband and wife. In this time of leave-taking the preparations for the Iceland season occupied everybody. The women heaped up the salt for the pickle in...

In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before the setting-out for Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale and still. For Yann was below, chatting to he...

For the last three months the two lone women had lived together at Ploubazlanec in the Moan's cottage. Gaud filled a daughter's place in the poor birthplace of so many dead sail...

After the spring day they had enjoyed, the falling night brought back the impression of winter, and they returned to dine before their fire, which was flaming with new branches....

When Yann was on deck, he looked around him with sleep-laden eyes, over the familiar circle of the sea. That night the illimitable immensity showed itself in its most astonishin...

About a fortnight later, as the sky was darkening at the approach of the rains, and the heat more heavily weighed over yellow Tonquin, Sylvestre brought to Hanoi, was sent to Ha...

It was at night, especially, that she kept attentive to approaching footsteps; at the slightest rumour or unaccustomed noise her temples vibrated; by dint of being strained to o...

One day, in the first fortnight of June, as old Yvonne was returning home, some neighbours told her that she had been sent for by the Commissioner from the Naval Registry Office...

One morning, going on three o'clock, while all were dreaming quietly under their winding-sheet of fog, they heard something like a clamour of voices--voices whose tones seemed s...

It was manifest that Yann meant to accompany them; perhaps all the way home. They walked on, all three together, as if following the cat's funeral procession; it was almost comi...

Slowly the winter drew nigh, and spread over all like a shroud leisurely drawn. Gray days followed one another, but Yann appeared no more, and the two women lived on in their lo...

The first day she had seen him, this Yann, was the day after his arrival, at the “_Pardon des Islandais_,” which is on the eighth of December, the fete-day of Our Lady of Bonne-...

At Paimpol lives a large, stout woman named Madame Tressoleur. In one of the streets that lead to the harbour she keeps a tavern, well known to all the Icelanders, where captain...

Hist! again the whizz, breaking the silence of the air--a shrill, continuous sound, a kind of prolonged _zing_, giving one a strong impression that the pellets buzzing by might...

Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over the unknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried him off to the confines of Asia was ordered...

Other sad weeks followed on, till it was early February, fine, temperate weather. Yann had just come from his shipowner's where he had received his wages for the last summer's f...

They looked very handsome, nevertheless, as they walked along as in a dream, arm-in-arm, like king and queen leading a long cortege. Calm, reserved, and grave, they seemed to se...

The day before, when they all had set off to the music of the old hymns, there blew a brisk breeze from the south, and all the ships with their outspread sails had dispersed lik...

One morning, a true autumn morning, with cold mist falling over the earth, in the rising sun, she sat under the porch of the chapel of the shipwrecked mariners, where the widows...

At last she was forced to return to Ploubazlanec, for she had come to the end of her little savings, and Sylvestre was to embark the day afterward. The sailors are always inexor...

One rainy evening they were sitting side by side near the hearth, and Granny Moan was asleep opposite them. The fire flames, dancing over the branches on the hearth, projected t...

The home letters were being distributed on board the _Circe_, at anchor at Ha-Long, over on the other side of the earth. In the midst of a group of sailors, the purser called ou...

This end of September was like another summer, only a little less lively. The weather was so beautiful, that had it not been for the dead leaves that fell upon the roads, one mi...

Caught in the fog, they remained ten days in succession without being able to see anything. The fishing went on handsomely the while, and with so much to do there was no time fo...

September had passed. The sorrowing wife took scarcely any nourishment, and could no longer sleep. She remained at home now, crouching low with her hands between her knees, her...

Their smack was named _La Marie_, and her master was Captain Guermeur. Every year she set sail for the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigid regions where the summers have no n...

The summer passed sadly, being hot and uneventful. She watched anxiously for the first yellowed leaves, and the first gathering of the swallows, and blooming of the chrysanthemu...

Others have the spring-time, the soft shadow of the trees, balmy evenings, and flowering rosebushes; they had only the February twilight, which fell over the sea-beaten land, st...

One evening as these lovers sat out on their stone bench in the solitude over which the night fell, they suddenly perceived a hawthorn bush, which grew solitarily between the ro...

“His sweetheart's a trifle old!” said the others, a couple of days later, as they laughed after Sylvestre and his grandmother, “but they seem to get on fine together all the same.”

The trooper continued its course through the Indian Ocean. Down below in the floating hospital other death-scenes went on. On deck there was carelessness of health and youth. Ro...

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...

I cannot refrain from telling you about Sylvestre's funeral, which I conducted myself in Singapore. We had thrown enough other dead into the Sea of China, during the early days...

Rain in torrents, under a heavy black sky. This was India. Sylvestre had just set foot upon land, chance selecting him to complete the crew of a whale boat. He felt the warm sho...

The Icelanders had returned a month back, except two, which had perished in that June gale. But the _Marie_ had held her own, and Yann and all her crew were peacefully at home.

Thus did Gaud, coming in for news in the evening, find her; her hair dishevelled, her arms hanging down, and her head resting against the stone wall, with a falling jaw grinning...

One pale August evening, the letter that announced Yann's brother's death, at length arrived on board the _Marie_, upon the Iceland seas; it was after a day of hard work and exc...

“Me get married?” said Yann to his parents that same evening. “Me get married? Good heavens, why should I? Shall I ever be as happy as here with ye? no troubles, no tiffs with a...

One day Sylvestre was summoned before the officer of his company; and they told him he was among those ordered out to China--in the squadron for Formosa. He had been pretty well...

One evening Yann amused himself by relating to his affianced a thousand things she had done, or which had happened to her since their first meeting; he even enumerated to her th...

The Icelanders were all returning now. Two ships came in the second day, four the next, and twelve during the following week. And, all through the country, joy returned with the...

But he never returned. One August night, out off gloomy Iceland, mingled with the furious clamour of the sea, his wedding with the sea was performed. It had been his nurse; it h...

She had fallen, and the street children ran after her. It was just at the boundary of the parish of Ploubazlanec, where many houses straggle along the roadside. But she had the...

Gaud could very easily have done over one of her former town-lady's dresses for the occasion. But Yann had wanted to make her this present, and she had not resisted too long the...

For the last fortnight Gaud's little confidant, Sylvestre, had been quartered in Brest; very much out of his element, but very quiet and obedient to discipline. He wore his open...

But the days succeeded one another without result. She still dressed herself every day, and with a joyful look, went down to the harbour to gossip with the other wives. She said...