We had to leave immediately after dinner in order to catch the diligence at Toulven and the train at Bannalec. For Yves and I were returning to Lorient, where our ship was waiting for us in the harbour.
At about eleven o'clock, when we had got back to the chance lodging we had booked in the town, Yves, before going to bed, began to arrange in vases the flowers we had gathered in the woods of Toulven.
It was the first time in his life that he had ever done anything of the kind; he was surprised at himself that he should find pleasure in these poor little flowers to which he had never before given a thought.
"Well, well!" he said. "When I have my own little house at Toulven, I shall have flowers in it, for it seems to me that they look very well. But it is you, you know, who have given me the idea of these things. . . ."
[CHAPTER LXIX]
At sea, on the following day, the first of April. Bound for Saint Nazaire. A full spread of canvas; a strong breeze from the north-west: the weather bad; the lighthouses no longer visible. We came into dock in the small hours, with a damaged bow and a broken foretopmast.
The 2nd is pay day. Drunken men stumble in the hold in the dark and there are broken heads.
A little liberty of two days, quite unexpected. On the road with Yves for Trémeulé in Toulven. This Sèvre is a good boat which never takes us away for long.
At ten o'clock at night, in the moonlight, we knock at the door of the old Keremenens and of Marie, who were not expecting us.
They wake up little Pierre in our honour, and sit him on our knees. Surprised in his first sleep he smiles and says how do you do to us very low, but afterwards does not make much ado about our visit. His eyes close in spite of himself and he cannot hold up his head. And Yves, disturbed at this, seeing him hanging his head, and looking at us in sidelong fashion, his hair in his eyes: