In the remote and tranquil seas in which we were cruising the sailors became rather hazy about the seasons, the months and the days; they lost the sense of the passage of time in the monotony of the days.
And in fact summer and winter had lost their qualities; they were no longer recognizable, for the climate was different. Nor did the things of nature serve now to mark them out. There was always this infinity of water, always this wooden house in which we dwelt, and, in the spring, there came no touch of green.
Yves had resumed without difficulty his former occupation, his habits of topman, his life in the crow's nest, well-nigh naked, exposed to wind and sun, with his knife and his "mooring." He had ceased to count the days because they were all alike, merged one into another by the regularity of the watches, by the alternation of a sun that was always hot with nights that were always clear. He had accepted this time of exile without measuring it.
But to-day was the day when his six months of punishment expired; and the captain had to tell him to take back his stripes, his silver whistle and his authority as petty officer. He did so with much cordiality and shook him by the hand; for Yves, while his punishment had lasted, had shown himself exemplary in conduct and courage and no top had ever been kept like his.
Yves came back to me with a broad smile of happiness:
"Why didn't you tell me it was to-day?"
He had been promised that, if he went on as he was going, his punishment would soon be quite forgotten. Clearly, the oath he had taken on the wounded head of his little Pierre, at the end of that dreadful evening, was succeeding beyond his hope.
[CHAPTER LXXXIII]
The afternoon of the same day. Yves is in my room, busy putting his stripes on his sleeves, in haste to finish before darkness falls, looking comical as always, with his big air of sea-rover, when he is engaged in sewing.
They are not very elegant, his poor clothes; they show signs of hard wear. For he was not rich when he left Brest with his reduced pay; and, so as not to break into his allowance, he had refrained from drawing too many things from the store. But they are so clean, the little woollen stripes are so neatly placed one above the other, on each forearm and on the bottom of each sleeve, that he will pass muster very well. These new stripes give them even a certain lustre of youth. Besides, Yves looks well in anything; and then, too, one wears very little clothing on board, and as he will put them on but rarely, they will certainly serve him until the end of the voyage. As for money, Yves has none; he has forgotten even the use and value of it, as often happens to sailors—for he allots to his wife, at Brest, his pay and his stripe-money, all that he earns.