My father and Liénard, puzzled at my words, wished to know what they meant. They obtained only this answer:
“I don’t want any dot! I don’t want any!”
“You have commendable principles,” said father. “A girl should not be forced to give money in order to be married.”
Suddenly Liénard exclaimed:
“There is the sea!”
Papa and I looked, holding each other’s hands. It was a superb day, but a high wind came from the sea, which seemed borne in by the rising tide.
The seemingly endless, swelling flood we gazed upon advanced towards us, the waves looking like swaying monsters, ever growing larger. The foam alone reached us; the sea was held back by the immovable shore.
“I made you take this great journey so that you should see this as soon as possible,” said Liénard, delighted at our wonderment. “Well, Juliette, you, who are astonished at nothing, what do you say of it?”
I had no desire to speak. Enormous waves, with movements like serpents, broke into snowy foam on the beach, at first with a colossal crash, striking the pebbles, then with a soft roaring of the water as it rushed over the round stones.
The sea was so immense, it extended so far beneath the sky, that I asked myself how it was that all that mass of heavy water did not capsize the earth; but I realised that it was infantile to think this, and that I must not say it aloud, because then I should probably receive a very simple answer which would prove my stupidity or my ignorance. I had never thought of the sea as a phenomenal thing. I had not imagined it very large, but now it appeared to me immense and limitless. I was lost in contemplating it, dominated by it to such a degree that I could not express the astonishment I felt.