It was truly delightful at the top. I can still recall now the lovely oak-panelled dining room with large flagstones, the bouillabaisse steaming inside, and the door wide open to the white terrace; all lit up by the setting sun. The keepers were already there, waiting for me before settling themselves down to eat. There were three of them: a man from Marseilles and two Corsicans; they all looked alike—small, and bearded, with tanned, cracked faces, and the same goat-skin sailor's jacket. But they had completely different ways and temperaments.
You could immediately sense the difference in the two races by their conduct. The Marseillais, industrious and lively, always busy, always on the move, going round the island from morning till night, gardening, fishing, or collecting gulls' eggs. He would lie in wait in the scrub to catch a passing goat to milk. And there was always some garlic mayonnaise or bouillabaisse on the hob.
The Corsicans, however, did absolutely nothing over and above their duties. They regarded themselves as Civil Servants and spent whole days in the kitchen playing cards only pausing to perform the ritualistic relighting of their pipes or using scissors to cut up large wads of green tobacco in their palms.
Otherwise, all three, Marseillais and Corsicans, were good, simple, straight-forward folk, and were full of consideration for their visitor, although I must have seemed a very queer fish to them….
The thought of someone coming to stay in the lighthouse for pleasure, was beyond their grasp. These were men who found the days interminably long and were ecstatic when their turn came to go ashore. In the warm season, this great relief came every month. Ten days off after thirty days on; that was the rule. In the winter, though, in rough weather, no rules could be enforced. The wind blew strongly, the waves ran high, the Sanguinaires were shrouded in white sea spray, and they were cut off for two or three months at a time, sometimes in terrible conditions.
—I tell you what happened to me, monsieur,—old Bartoli told me one day, while we were eating,—it was five years ago, at this very table, one winter evening, just like this one. That night, there were just the two of us, me and a fellow keeper called Tchéco…. The others were ashore, or sick, or else on leave…. I can't remember, now…. We were finishing our dinners, quite contentedly…. Suddenly, my fellow keeper stopped eating, looked at me with strange eyes, and fell forward onto the table with outstretched arms. I went to him; I shook him; I called his name:
"—Hey Tché!… Hey Tché!…
"No response! He was dead!… You can't imagine how I felt! I stayed there, idiot-like and trembling, next to the body for more than an hour. Then suddenly, I remembered,—The Light!—I only just had time to climb up to light the lantern—it was already getting dark….
"What a night, monsieur! The sea and the wind, they just didn't sound like they usually do. All the time somebody seemed to be calling to me from down the stairway…. I became frenzied; my mouth dried. But you couldn't have made me go down there again…. Oh no! I was too scared of the dead body. However, in the small hours, some of my courage returned. I went down and carried my mate back to his bed, covered him over with a sheet, said a short prayer, and then ran to raise the alarm.
"Unfortunately, the sea was too heavy; I shouted as loudly as I could, again and again, but to no avail, nobody came…. So, I was alone in the lighthouse with poor Tchéco, and for God knows how long. I was hoping to be able to keep him close to me until the boat came, but after three days that became impossible…. What should I have done? Carried him outside? Buried him? The rock was too hard and there are murders of crows on the island. It was a shame to leave a Christian to them. And then I decided to take him down to one of the lodges in the lazaretto…. That sad duty lasted a whole afternoon and, yes, it took some courage…. Look here, Monsieur, even today, when I go down to that part of the island through an afternoon gale, I feel that the dead man is still there, on my shoulders…."