Though the sun rise in the splendor of silver gilt dawns, though it go down in purple glory, though the sea display its gems, though everything glitter, sing and emit sweet odors, I don’t want to see anything, I don’t want to hear anything. … I only want to see Juliette in the fugitive outline of the clouds; I only want to hear Juliette in the errant plaint of the wind, and I am ready to kill myself just to grasp her elusive image in the things about me! … I see her at the Bois smiling, happy with her freedom. I see her promenading in the stage boxes; I see her especially at night, in her bedroom. Men enter and go out, others come in and leave, all sated with love! By the glimmer of the night lamp, obscene shadows dance and grimace around her bed; laughter, kisses and dull spasms are stifled in the pillows, and with a swooning look, with trembling mouth, she offers everyone her luxurious body which never tires of pleasure. With my brains on fire, sinking my nails into my throat, I shriek: “Juliette! Juliette!” as if it were possible for Juliette to hear me across the space: “Juliette! Juliette!” Alas! the cry of the seagulls and the rumbling noise of the waves beating against the rocks are the only things that answer: “Juliette! Juliette!”
And evening comes. … The fogs float up, pink and weightless, enveloping the shore, the village, while the jetty, almost black, assumes the appearance of the hull of a huge vessel without masts; the sun inclines its copper-colored ball toward the sea, tracing a path of rippling, crimson light upon its limitless extent. Near the shore the water grows darker, and sparkles flare up on the crests of the waves. At this sad hour I return through the fields, meeting again the same carts pulled by oxen covered with cloths of grey flax, seeing the same silhouettes of peasants who, bent over the niggardly soil, struggle grimly with the heath and the rocks. And upon the heights of Saint-Jean where the windmills rotate their sails in the blue of the sky, the same calvary stretches out its supplicating arms. …
I lived at the end of the village with Mother Le Gannec, an excellent woman who took care of me as well as she could. The house which opened on the main road was clean, well-kept, furnished with new and shining furniture. The poor woman strove to please me, worked desperately to invent something that would smooth my brow, that would bring a smile upon my lips. She was really touching. Every time I came down in the morning I would find her, knitting stockings or spinning, finished with her housework, alive, alert, almost pretty in her flat cap, her short black shawl, and her apron of green serge.
“Friend Mintié!” she would exclaim, “I have cooked some nice shellfish fricassee for supper for you. … If you like sea-eel soup better, I’ll make you some sea-eel soup.”
“Just as you please, Mother Le Gannec.”
“But you always say the same thing. Ah! by Jesus! Friend Lirat was not like you at all. ‘Mother Le Gannec, I want some oysters and some periwinkles.’ To be sure I gave him some oysters and some periwinkles! … But he was never as sad as you are. Why no, indeed!”
And Mother Le Gannec told me some stories about Lirat who stayed with her a whole autumn.
“And he was so lively and so intrepid! … He would go out in the rain ‘to take some views.’ It did not hurt him a bit. He would come back drenched to the bones but always gay, always singing! … You ought to have seen that fellow eat! Ah, he could swallow the sea in the morning!”
Sometimes, to distract me, she told me her misfortunes, simply, without complaining, repeating with sublime resignation:
“Whatever the good Lord wishes, we must wish also. To cry over it all the time won’t help matters a bit.”
And in a musical voice which all Bretons possess, she used to say:
“Le Gannec was the best fisherman in Ploch and the most daring seaman on the entire coast. There was none whose fishing boat was better equipped, none who better knew reefs abounding with fish. Whenever a fishing boat dared out in stormy weather it was sure be the Marie Joseph. Everybody held him in high esteem not only because he was courageous but because his conduct was beyond reproach and worthy. He shunned the cabarets like a pest, detested drunkards, and it was an honor to be of the same mind as he was. I must also tell you that he was the commander of a life boat. We had two boys, friend Mintié, strong, well-built and able, one was eighteen years old and the other twenty, and the father expected both to be brave seamen as he was. … Ah! If you had only seen my two handsome boys, friend Mintié! Things were coming along nicely, in fact so nicely that with our savings we were able to build this house and buy this furniture. And so we were contented! One night, it was two years ago, the father and the boys did not return! I was not alarmed at all. It often happened that he had gone out far, as far as Croisic, Sables or Herbaudière. Was it not his business to follow the fish? But days passed and none showed up! And the days were still passing. … And not one came back! Every morning
