They had to drag them apart. And Marie, seated once more in her corner, watches as she draws away, with eyes filled with tears, the old woman, who has sunk down, sobbing, on a milestone, while little Pierre waves good-bye with his plump little hand from the window.
[CHAPTER LXVI]
1st January, 1881.
In the heart of the docks at Brest, a little before dawn, on the first morning of the year 1881. A mournful place, these docks; the Sèvre has been moored there now for a week.
Above, the sky has begun to brighten between the high granite walls which enclose us. The lamps, few and far between, shed in the mist their last meagre yellow light. And already one may discern the silhouettes of formidable things which are taking shape, awakening ideas of a grim and cruel rigidity; machines high perched, enormous anchors upturning their black arms; all sorts of vague and ugly shapes; and, in addition, laid-up ships, with their outline of gigantic fishes, motionless on their chains, like large dead monsters.
A great silence prevails and a deadly cold. There is no solitude comparable with that of a naval dockyard at night, especially on a night of holiday. As the time approaches for the gun to sound the signal to cease work, everybody flees as from a place of pestilence; thousands of men issue from every point, swarming like ants, hastening towards the gates. The last of them run, actuated by a fear lest they should arrive too late and find the iron gates closed. Then calm descends. Then night. And there is no longer a soul, no longer a sound.
From time to time a patrol passes on his round, challenged by the sentries, giving in a low voice the password. And then the silent population of rats debouches from all the holes, takes possession of the deserted ships, the empty yards.
On duty on board since the previous day I had got to sleep very late, in my icy, iron-walled room. I was worried about Yves, and the songs, the shoutings of sailors which came to me in the night from the distance, from the low quarters of the town, filled me with foreboding.
Marie and little Pierre were to make their journey to Plouherzel in Goello, and Yves had wanted, nevertheless, to spend the night on shore in Brest, to celebrate the New Year with some old friends. I could have stopped him by asking him to stay and keep me company; but the coldness between us persisted; and I had let him go. And this night of the 31st December is of all nights perhaps the most dangerous, a night when Brest gives itself up wholly to a riot of alcohol.
As I climbed on deck, I saluted rather sadly this first morning of the New Year, and I began the mechanical promenade, the hundred paces of the watch, thinking of many past things.