At certain moments, when the face of little Pierre passed before his eyes, his heart ached horribly; it seemed to him that this ship, silent and empty, was as it were a bier on which he was about to be carried living to his grave; he almost choked, tears welled into his eyes, but he checked them in time, with his strong will, by thinking of something else; and quickly he began to talk to his new-found friends. They discussed the method of manœuvring the ship with so small a crew, and the working of the large pulleys which had been multiplied everywhere to replace the arms of men, and which, so Yves thought, made the gear of the Belle-Rose unduly heavy.
In the evening, when it was dark, he went to Recouvrance and climbed noiselessly to his door.
He listened first before opening it; there was no sound. He entered softly.
A lamp was burning on the table. His son was alone, asleep. He leaned over his wicker cradle, which had the scent of a bird's nest, and placed his lips very gently on those of his child in order to feel once more his soft breathing. Then he sat down near him and remained still, so that his face might be calm again when his wife should enter.
[CHAPTER LXXXI]
Marie had seen him coming, and climbed the stairs after him, trembling.
In the last two days she had had time to consider in all its aspects the misfortune which had come upon them.
She had shrunk from questioning the other sailors, as the poor wives of absentees commonly do, to ascertain from them whether Yves had returned to his ship. She knew nothing of him, and she was waiting, prepared for the worst.
Perhaps he would not come back; she was prepared for that as for everything else, and was surprised that she could think of it with so much calmness. In that case her plans were made; she would not return to Toulven, for fear of seeing their partly built house, for fear also of hearing the name of her husband execrated daily in the home of her parents, to which she would have to go. Not to Toulven; but to the country of Goëlo, where there was an old woman who resembled Yves, and whose features suddenly assumed for her an infinite kindliness. It was at her door she would knock. She would be indulgent to him, for she was his mother. They would be able to speak without hatred of the absent one; they would live there, the two deserted women, together, and watch over little Pierre, uniting their efforts to keep him, their last hope, with them, so that he at least should not be a sailor.
And it seemed to her, too, that if one day, after many years perhaps, Yves, the deserter, should return seeking those who belonged to him it was to that little corner of the world, to Plouherzel, that he would come.