"Will you join us, vicomte? We can take breakfast down there."
And the matter was decided at once. From daybreak Jeanne was up and
waiting for her father, who dressed more slowly. They walked in the
dew across the level and then through the wood vibrant with the
singing of birds. The vicomte and Père Lastique were seated on a
capstan.
Two other sailors helped to shove off the boat from shore, which was
not easy on the shingly beach. Once the boat was afloat, they all took
their seats, and the two sailors who remained on shore shoved it off.
A light, steady breeze was blowing from the ocean and they hoisted the
sail, veered a little, and then sailed along smoothly with scarcely
any motion. To landward the high cliff at the right cast a shadow on
the water at its base, and patches of sunlit grass here and there
varied its monotonous whiteness. Yonder, behind them, brown sails were
coming out of the white harbor of Fécamp, and ahead of them they saw a
rock of curious shape, rounded, with gaps in it looking something like
an immense elephant with its trunk in the water; it was the little
port of Étretat.
Jeanne, a little dizzy from the motion of the waves, held the side of
the boat with one hand as she looked out into the distance. It seemed
to her as if only three things in the world were really beautiful:
light, space, water.
No one spoke. Père Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every
now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a
short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to
relight it or refill it.
The baron, seated in the bow looked after the sail. Jeanne and the
vicomte seemed a little embarrassed at being seated side by side. Some
unknown power seemed to make their glances meet whenever they raised
their eyes; between them there existed already that subtle and vague
sympathy which arises so rapidly between two young people when the
young man is good looking and the girl is pretty. They were happy in
each other's society, perhaps because they were thinking of each
other. The rising sun was beginning to pierce through the slight mist,
and as its beams grew stronger, they were reflected on the smooth
surface of the sea as in a mirror.
"How beautiful!" murmured Jeanne, with emotion.
"Beautiful indeed!" answered the vicomte. The serene beauty of the
morning awakened an echo in their hearts.
And all at once they saw the great arches of Étretat, like two
supports of a cliff standing in the sea high enough for vessels to
pass under them; while a sharp-pointed white rock rose in front of the
first arch. They reached shore, and the baron got out first to make
fast the boat, while the vicomte lifted Jeanne ashore so that she
should not wet her feet. Then they walked up the shingly beach side by
side, and they overheard Père Lastique say to the baron, "My! but they
would make a pretty couple!"
They took breakfast in a little inn near the beach, and while the
ocean had lulled their thoughts and made them silent, the breakfast
table had the opposite effect, and they chattered like children on a
vacation. The slightest thing gave rise to laughter.