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Updated: May 22, 2025
On the granite wall hung a photograph of Sylvestre in his sailor clothes. His grandmother had fixed his military medal to it, with his own pair of those red cloth anchors that French men-of-wars-men wear on their right sleeve; Gaud had also brought one of those funereal crowns, of black and white beads, placed round the portraits of the dead in Brittany.
There were only two lacking now. "Come, come," they said to her cheerily, "this year the Leopoldine and the Marie-Jeanne will be the last, to pick up all the brooms fallen overboard from the other craft." Gaud laughed also. She was more animated and beautiful than ever, in her great joy of expectancy. But the days succeeded one another without result.
The very silence apparently burst into exquisite music; and the pale winter twilight, creeping in at the narrow window, became a wonderful, unearthly glow. "So we'll go to the wedding when the Icelanders return; eh, my dear children?" Gaud hung her head. "Iceland," the "Leopoldine" so it was all real! while she had already forgotten the existence of those terrible things that arose in their way.
Gaud lent her ear to the medley of their songs and shouts soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or the breakers trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feeling strangely perplexed if she thought she had heard it. It really was too unkind of Yann not to have returned to see them again, and to lead so gay a life so soon after the death of Sylvestre; all this was unlike him.
The Léopoldine was among the belated; there were yet another ten expected. They would not be long now; and allowing a week's delay so as not to be disappointed, Gaud waited in happy, passionate joy for Yann, keeping their home bright and tidy for his return.
When the letters were got through, Sylvestre timidly showed his to his big friend, to try and make him admire the writing of it. "Look, is it not pretty writing, Yann?" But Yann, who knew very well whose hand had traced it, turned aside, shrugging his shoulders, as much as to say that he was worried too often about this Gaud girl.
So at last she had, indeed, guessed aright; he never could give her a real reason, because there was none to give. But everybody had teased him so much about that Gaud, his parents, Sylvestre, his Iceland mates, and even Gaud herself. Hence he had stubbornly said "no," but knew well enough in the bottom of his heart that when nobody thought any more about the hollow mystery it would become "yes."
But he was obliged to acknowledge that that was not all. "Was it because at that time we passed for very rich people, and you were afraid of being refused?" "Oh, no! not that." He said this with such simple confidence that Gaud was amused. Then fell another silence, during which the moaning of the sea-winds was heard outside.
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china."
The dim dusk entered through the narrow window into the dwelling of those Moans, who had all been devoured by the sea, and whose family was now extinguished. At last Gaud said: "I'll come to you, good granny, to live with you; I'll bring my bed that they've left me, and I'll take care of you and nurse you you shan't be all alone."
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