AN ICELAND FISHERMAN [45]
her darling's death? She remained standing before the desk, stiffened, and tearing the fringes of her brown shawl with her poor aged hands, sore and chapped with washing.
How far away she felt from home! Goodness! what a long walk back to be gone through, and steadily, too, before nearing the whitewashed hut in which she longed to shut herself up, like a wounded beast who hides in its hole to die. And so she tried not to think too much and not to understand yet, frightened above all at the long home-journey.
They gave her an order to go and take, as the heiress, the thirty francs that came from the sale of Sylvestre's bag; and then the letters, the certificates, and the box containing the military medal.
She took the whole parcel awkwardly with open fingers, unable to find pockets to put them in.
She went straight through Paimpol, looking at no one, her body bent slightly like one about to fall, with a rushing of blood in her ears; pressing and hurrying along like some poor old machine, which could not be wound up, at a great pressure, for the last time, without fear of breaking its springs.
At the third mile she went along quite bent in two and exhausted; from time to time her foot struck against the stones, giving her a painful shock up to the very head. She hurried to bury herself in her home, for fear of falling and having to be carried there.
CHAPTER VI A CHARITABLE ASSUMPTION
"Old Yvonne's tipsy!" was the cry.
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 strength to rise and hobble along on her stick.
"Old Yvonne's tipsy!"
The bold little creatures stared her full in the face, laughing. Her /coiffe/ was all awry. Some of these little ones were not really wicked, and these, when they scanned her closer and saw the senile grimace of bitter despair, turned aside, surprised and saddened, daring to say nothing more.
At home, with the door tightly closed, she gave vent to the deep scream of despair that choked her, and fell down in a corner, her head against the wall. Her cap had fallen over her eyes; she threw off roughly what formerly had been so well taken care of. Her Sunday dress was soiled, and a thin mesh of yellowish white hair strayed from beneath her cap, completing her pitiful, poverty-stricken disorder.
CHAPTER VII THE COMFORTER
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, and the plaintive whimper of a little child; she scarcely could weep any more; these grandmothers, grown too old, have no tears left in their dried-up eyes.
"My grandson is dead!" She threw the letters, papers, and medal into her caller's lap.
Gaud quickly scanned the whole, saw the news was true, and fell on her knees to pray. The two women remained there together almost dumb, through the June gloaming, which in Brittany is long but in Iceland is never-ending. On the hearth the cricket that brings joy was chirping his shrill music.
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."
She wept, too, for her little friend Sylvestre, but in her sorrow she was led involuntarily to think of another--he who had gone back to the deep-sea fishery.
They would have to write to Yann and tell him Sylvestre was dead; it was just now that the fishers were starting. Would he, too, weep for him? Mayhap he would, for he had loved him dearly. In the midst of her own tears, Gaud thought a great deal of him; now and again waxing wroth against the hard-hearted fellow, and then pitying him at the thought of that pain which would strike him also, and which would
How far away she felt from home! Goodness! what a long walk back to be gone through, and steadily, too, before nearing the whitewashed hut in which she longed to shut herself up, like a wounded beast who hides in its hole to die. And so she tried not to think too much and not to understand yet, frightened above all at the long home-journey.
They gave her an order to go and take, as the heiress, the thirty francs that came from the sale of Sylvestre's bag; and then the letters, the certificates, and the box containing the military medal.
She took the whole parcel awkwardly with open fingers, unable to find pockets to put them in.
She went straight through Paimpol, looking at no one, her body bent slightly like one about to fall, with a rushing of blood in her ears; pressing and hurrying along like some poor old machine, which could not be wound up, at a great pressure, for the last time, without fear of breaking its springs.
At the third mile she went along quite bent in two and exhausted; from time to time her foot struck against the stones, giving her a painful shock up to the very head. She hurried to bury herself in her home, for fear of falling and having to be carried there.
CHAPTER VI A CHARITABLE ASSUMPTION
"Old Yvonne's tipsy!" was the cry.
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 strength to rise and hobble along on her stick.
"Old Yvonne's tipsy!"
The bold little creatures stared her full in the face, laughing. Her /coiffe/ was all awry. Some of these little ones were not really wicked, and these, when they scanned her closer and saw the senile grimace of bitter despair, turned aside, surprised and saddened, daring to say nothing more.
At home, with the door tightly closed, she gave vent to the deep scream of despair that choked her, and fell down in a corner, her head against the wall. Her cap had fallen over her eyes; she threw off roughly what formerly had been so well taken care of. Her Sunday dress was soiled, and a thin mesh of yellowish white hair strayed from beneath her cap, completing her pitiful, poverty-stricken disorder.
CHAPTER VII THE COMFORTER
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, and the plaintive whimper of a little child; she scarcely could weep any more; these grandmothers, grown too old, have no tears left in their dried-up eyes.
"My grandson is dead!" She threw the letters, papers, and medal into her caller's lap.
Gaud quickly scanned the whole, saw the news was true, and fell on her knees to pray. The two women remained there together almost dumb, through the June gloaming, which in Brittany is long but in Iceland is never-ending. On the hearth the cricket that brings joy was chirping his shrill music.
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."
She wept, too, for her little friend Sylvestre, but in her sorrow she was led involuntarily to think of another--he who had gone back to the deep-sea fishery.
They would have to write to Yann and tell him Sylvestre was dead; it was just now that the fishers were starting. Would he, too, weep for him? Mayhap he would, for he had loved him dearly. In the midst of her own tears, Gaud thought a great deal of him; now and again waxing wroth against the hard-hearted fellow, and then pitying him at the thought of that pain which would strike him also, and which would