"Do you remember our excursion in Père Lastique's boat?" said Jeanne.
Instead of replying, he gave her a hasty kiss on the ear.
The paddle-wheels struck the water, disturbing its torpor, and a long
track of foam like the froth of champagne remained in the wake of the
boat, reaching as far as the eye could see. Jeanne drank in with
delight the odor of the salt mist that seemed to go to the very tips
of her fingers. Everywhere the sea. But ahead of them there was
something gray, not clearly defined in the early dawn; a sort of
massing of strange-looking clouds, pointed, jagged, seemed to rest on
the waters.
Presently it became clearer, its outline more distinct on the
brightening sky; a large chain of mountains, peaked and weird,
appeared. It was Corsica, covered with a light veil of mist. The sun
rose behind it, outlining the jagged crests like black shadows. Then
all the summits were bathed in light, while the rest of the island
remained covered with mist.
The captain, a little sun-browned man, dried up, stunted, toughened
and shrivelled by the harsh salt winds, appeared on the bridge and in
a voice hoarse after twenty years of command and worn from shouting
amid the storms, said to Jeanne:
"Do you perceive it, that odor?"
She certainly noticed a strong and peculiar odor of plants, a wild
aromatic odor.
"That is Corsica that sends out that fragrance, madame," said the
captain. "It is her peculiar odor of a pretty woman. After being away
for twenty years, I should recognize it five miles out at sea. I
belong to it. He, down there, at Saint Helena, he speaks of it always,
it seems, of the odor of his native country. He belongs to my family."
And the captain, taking off his hat, saluted Corsica, saluted down
yonder, across the ocean, the great captive emperor who belonged to
his family.
Jeanne was so affected that she almost cried.