United States or United States Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Paimpol was always quiet on these long May evenings, even on Sundays; the lasses, who had not a single lad to make love to them, sauntered along, in couples or three together, brooding of their lovers in Iceland. "A word of greeting to young Gaos!" She had been greatly affected in writing that sentence, and that name, which now she could not forget.
It took place upstairs in the great new room. Five-and-twenty guests sat down round the newly married pair sisters and brothers, cousin Gaos the pilot, Guermeur, Keraez, Yvon Duff, all of the old Marie's crew, who were now the Leopoldine's; four very pretty bridesmaids, with their hair-plaits wound round their ears, like the empresses' in ancient Byzantium, and their modern white caps, shaped like sea-shells; and four best men, all broad-shouldered Icelanders, with large proud eyes.
"To the Memory of GAOS, FRANCOIS, Husband of Anne-Marie le Goaster, Captain on board the Paimpolais, Lost off Iceland, between the 1st and 3d of May, 1877, With the twenty-three men of his crew. May they rest in peace!" And, lower down, were two cross-bones under a black skull with green eyes, a simple but ghastly emblem, reminding one of all the barbarism of a bygone age. "Gaos, Gaos!"
In Yann's letter Sylvestre got news of Marie Gaos, his little sweetheart; in Sylvestre's, Yann read all Granny Moan's funny stories, for she had not her like for amusing the absent ones you will remember; and the last paragraph concerning him came up: the "word of greeting to young Gaos."
The fine profile, the grand half-savage look, the brown, almost tawny pupils moving rapidly on the bluish opal of the eyes; all this had impressed her and made her timid. And it just happened to be that "Fils Gaos," of whom she had heard the Moans speak as a great friend of Sylvestre's.
A strange man was young Gaos! retiring and almost incomprehensible now, after having come forward so audaciously, yet so lovingly. In her long reverie, she remembered her return to Brittany, which had taken place the year before. One December morning after a night of travelling, the train from Paris had deposited her father and herself at Guingamp.
Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; the whole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, were covered by the same grayish lichen, splashed pale yellow. On one of the wooden crosses this name was written in large letters: "GAOS. GAOS, JOEL, 80 years."
It was the dessert now; the singing would soon begin. But first there were the prayers to say, for the dead of the family; this form is never omitted, at all wedding-feasts, and is a solemn duty. So when old Gaos rose and uncovered his white head, there was a dead silence around. "This," said he, "is for Guillaume Gaos, my father."
He was very angry, and his voice and tone frightened them, so that in the twinkling of an eye they all took flight, frightened and confused before "Long Gaos." Gaud, who was just returning from Paimpol, bringing home her work for the evening, had seen all this from afar, and had recognised Granny in the group.
But surely there was something different about this particular morning; for she had come to-day for the first time to sit in the porch of this chapel and read the names of the dead sailors, perished in their prime. IN MEMORY OF GAOS YVON Lost at Sea Like a great shudder, a gust of wind rose from the sea, and at the same time something fell like rain upon the roof above.
Word Of The Day