Merciful heavens! How dreary this country is! How dreary and how depressing!
I knocked at the door and a young girl who resembled Yves appeared on the threshold.
I asked her if this was indeed the house of the Kermadecs.
"Yes," she said, a little surprised and apprehensive. And then, suddenly:
"Ah! you, sir, are the friend of my brother who arrived with him at Brest yesterday evening?"
But she was rather concerned to see that I came alone.
I entered. I saw the cupboards, the Breton beds, the old plates in rows on the plate stand. Everything looked clean and respectable; but the cottage was very small and humble.
"All our relations are rich," Yves had often told me. "It is only we who are poor."
I was shown one of those beds in the form of a cupboard, with two places, which had been prepared for Yves and me. I was to occupy the upper shelf, which was decorated with thick hangings of reddish cloth, very clean and very stiff.
"Won't you sit down? They will be back from the town very soon now."