The week which followed was one of those agitated periods which are common enough in a sailor's life: living at the hotel as in a flying camp, amid the disorder of half-unpacked trunks, not knowing to-morrow's destination; busy with a number of things, official business at the port and preparations for the voyage;—and then these comings and goings, applications on Yves' behalf, in order to secure his withdrawal from the Reserve, and to keep him near me, ready to depart with me.
The December days, very short, very gloomy, sped quickly. I climbed often, three steps at a time, the sordid old staircase of the Kermadecs; and Marie, anxious always about the first words I might say, smiled at me sadly, with a respectful and resigned confidence, awaiting the decision I should bring.
[CHAPTER LXI]
IN THE ROADSTEAD OF BREST,
23rd December, 1880.
A night in December, clear and cold; a great calm over the sea, a great silence on board.
In a little ship's cabin, which is painted white and has iron walls, Yves is sitting near me amid open trunks and cases. We are still in the disarray of arrival; we have yet to instal ourselves, to make a little home, in this iron box which presently is going to carry us through the waves and storms of winter.
All the embarcations we had foreseen, all the long voyages we had projected, had come to nothing. And I find myself simply on board this Sèvre which is not going to leave the Brittany coast. Yves is among the crew and we shall be together again, in all human probability, for a year. Given our calling it is a stroke of good luck; it might have happened to us at any moment to be separated for ever. And Yves has very gladly given a hundred francs out of his purse to the sailor who consented to give up his place to him.
Let us make the best of this Sèvre, since fate will have it so. It will remind us at any rate of the times already distant when we sailed together over the misty northern sea under the protecting eye of the Creizker tower.
But I should have liked it better if we had been sent elsewhere, to somewhere in the sun; for Yves' sake especially, I should have preferred to be going farther from Brest, farther from his evil companions and the taverns of the coast.