Yves stopped his counting and looked up. It was the tone of Gaspard’s voice rather than his words, perhaps, that caused the expression upon his broad, sun-burnt face. A heavy, unfriendly expression, such as the face of a croupier might wear when some punter disputes the game.
“Yours?” said Yves, “and who found them?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said the Moco, “you found them, it is true, but it was only a question of luck. I might have found them just as easily, and if I had I would have gone shares.”
Yves knew this to be a fact. Gaspard was the soul of generosity. Generosity was not predominant in the soul of Yves. He was a good-hearted man, but the Breton peasant was uppermost in his nature; he had made this great haul of golden fish entirely with his own hand, and now he was called upon by a man more generous than himself to share it.
He said nothing for a moment, but went on counting the pieces; then, as if addressing them, “Yes, it’s easy to talk of luck—but would I have found them if I had been lying lazy on the beach, or staring into the sea like some people? No, I was hunting for dead brushwood, doing something for my living, and I found them.”
“Then keep them,” cried Gaspard, and turning on his heel he walked down to the sea edge. He walked for a bit along the sand, then, with his arms folded, he stood looking at the sea.
His mind had left the subject of the money and was clinging to the true grievance he had against Yves. The poisonous source of hatred. Anisette.
But the grievance of the money was there as well, and all at once by some alchemy of Satan the hundred grudges petty and large that he had against his companion joined together and formed the figure of a monstrous Yves, a creature he hated, and who, so the devil whispered, hated him.
The sun was now near its setting, and as Gaspard stood there with arms folded looking at the sea, the eternal crying of the gulls took on a new meaning; they were saying a new word:
“Yves,—Yves,—Yves.”