The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  But Lethierry's hostility to the papacy did not win him the favor of the Anglicans. He was no more popular with the Protestant rectors than with the Catholic cures. Faced with the gravest of dogmas, his irreligion burst out almost without restraint. Chance having led him to hear a sermon on hell by the Reverend Jaquemin Herode--a magnificent sermon filled from beginning to end with texts from Holy Writ proving the eternal punishments, the torments, the tortures, the damnations, the inexorable chastisements, the burnings without end, the inextinguishable curses, the wrath of the Almighty, the heavenly furies, the divine vengeances that inevitably awaited the wicked--he was heard to say quietly, when leaving with another member of the congregation: "Do you know, I've got an odd idea. I believe that God is merciful."

  This leavening of atheism came to him from his stay in France.

  Although a Guernsey man of fairly pure-bred stock, he was known on the island as the "Frenchman" because of his "improper" notions. He made no secret of them, and he was full of subversive ideas. His determination to build his steamship, his devil boat, was proof enough of that. He would say, "I was suckled on 1789." That is not a good kind of milk.

  Of course he made blunders. It is very difficult to avoid error in a small society. For a quiet life in France you have to "keep up appearances"; in England you have to be "respectable." Being respectable involves a series of observances, from keeping the Sabbath holy to tying your necktie properly. "Not to have the finger pointed at you" is another harsh law. To have the finger pointed at you is the diminutive form of anathema. Small towns--hotbeds of gossip--excel in this type of malignity, which, isolating its victims, is like an ecclesiastical malediction seen through the wrong end of a spyglass. The most valiant are afraid of this Raca.115 They will stand firm in the face of grapeshot, they will stand firm in a hurricane, but they will retreat when confronted by Mrs. Grundy. Mess Lethierry was tenacious rather than logical; but under such pressure as this even his tenacity gave way. To use another phrase laden with hidden and sometimes shameful concessions, he "watered his wine." He held aloof from the clergy but did not completely close his door to them. On official occasions and at the regular times for pastoral visits he received with adequate courtesy either the Lutheran minister or the Popish chaplain. Very occasionally he would accompany Deruchette to the Anglican parish church, which she attended, as we have seen, only on the four great festivals of the year.

  But these compromises, which cost him a considerable effort, annoyed him, and, instead of making him more favorably disposed toward the clergy, stiffened his internal resistance. He relieved his feelings by increased mockery. This man who was entirely without bitterness had harsh feelings only in this quarter. There was no curing him of this.

  In short, that was the way he was, and nothing could be done about it.

  He disliked all clergymen. He had preserved the irreverence of the French Revolution. He made little distinction between different forms of worship. He did not even appreciate the great progress that had been made--the disbelief in the real presence. His shortsightedness in these matters went so far as to prevent him from seeing any difference between a minister and an abbe. He made no difference between a reverend doctor and a reverend father. He would say, "Wesley is no better than Loyola." If he saw a Protestant clergyman walking with his wife he would turn aside. "A married priest!" he would say, in the mocking tone in which these words were spoken in France at that period. He was fond of telling how, on his last visit to England, he had seen the "bishopess of London." This kind of union roused him to anger. "Gown does not marry gown!" he would say. To him the priesthood was like a third sex. "Neither a man nor a woman: a priest!" he might have said. Regardless of good taste, he applied the same disdainful epithets to both the Anglican and the Popish clergy, lumping them together in the same phraseology; and he did not take the trouble, when talking of either Catholic or Lutheran priests, to vary the military-style versions of the terms used at that period. He used to say to Deruchette, "Marry whom you please, so long as it isn't a parson!"

  XIII

  INSOUCIANCE--AN ADDITIONAL CHARM

  A word once spoken, Lethierry remembered it; a word once spoken, Deruchette forgot it. That was the difference between the uncle and the niece.

  Deruchette, brought up as we have seen, had become accustomed to having little sense of responsibility. It must be observed that there are latent dangers in an education that has been too much taken for granted. It is perhaps a mistake to want to make your child happy too soon.

  Deruchette thought that as long as she was happy all was well. She felt, too, that her uncle was pleased to see her pleased. Her ideas were much the same as Mess Lethierry's. Her religious beliefs were satisfied with going to the parish church four times a year. We have already seen her dressed for the Christmas service. She knew nothing at all of life. She had all that was required to fall, some day, madly in love. In the meantime she was lightheartedly happy.

  She sang when the fancy took her, chattered when the fancy took her, lived for the moment, threw out some remark and then passed on her way, did something or other and then ran off, was charming. She enjoyed, too, all the freedom of English life. In England children go out on their own, girls are their own mistresses, young people are given a free hand. Such is the English way of life. Later on these free young girls become slave wives. We take these two words in their best sense: free as they grow up, then slaves to duty.

  Deruchette woke up each morning without a thought of what she had been doing on the previous day. You would embarrass her considerably if you asked her what she had done last week. Yet in spite of all this there were more troubled moments when she had a mysterious sense of disquiet, a feeling that something of the darker side of life was passing over her gaiety and her joy. Such clear blue skies have their clouds. But the clouds soon passed away. She would cast the feeling off with a laugh, not knowing why she had been sad or why she was happy again. Everything was a game to her. She teased passersby with her mischief. She played tricks on boys. If she had encountered the Devil she would have had no pity on him but would have played some prank on him. She was pretty, but was so innocent that she took undue advantage of her prettiness. She smiled as a kitten scratches. So much the worse for the person scratched: she thought no more of the matter. Yesterday did not exist for her; she lived in the fullness of today. That is what it is to be too happy. In Deruchette recollection faded as snow melts in the sun.

  BOOK IV

  THE BAGPIPES

  I

  THE FIRST RED GLEAMS OF DAWN, OR OF A FIRE

  Gilliatt had never spoken to Deruchette. He knew her, having seen her at a distance, as we know the morning star.

  At the time Deruchette met Gilliatt on the road from St. Peter Port to the Vale and wrote his name on the snow she was sixteen. Only the day before Mess Lethierry had said to her: "No more childish tricks: you are a big girl now."

  The name "Gilliatt" that the girl had written had sunk into unplumbed depths.

  What were women for Gilliatt? He himself could not have said. When he met one she was afraid of him, and he was afraid of her. He never spoke to a woman except in extreme emergency. He had never been the "gallant" of any country girl. When he was walking by himself along a road and saw a woman coming toward him he would jump over the wall into a field or disappear into a clump of scrub and make off. He avoided even old women.

  He had once in his life seen a Parisienne. The sight of a Parisienne was an extraordinary event on Guernsey at that distant period. And Gilliatt had heard this Parisienne relating her troubles in these words: "What a nuisance! I have just had some drops of rain on my bonnet; it is apricot, and that's a color that is easily spoiled." Later, in the pages of a book, he found an old fashion plate representing "a lady of the Chaussee d'Antin"116 in all her finery and put it up on his wall as a reminder of the apparition. On summer evenings he would hide behind the rocks in the creek of Houmet Paradis to watch the country girls bathing in the
sea in their slips. One day, on the far side of a hedge, he had seen the witch of Torteval putting on her garter. He was probably a virgin.

  On that Christmas morning when he had met Deruchette and she had written his name and gone on her way laughing, he had returned home, having forgotten why he had gone out. That night he did not sleep. He thought of all sorts of things--that it would be a good idea to grow black radishes in his garden: the exposure was right--that he hadn't noticed the Sark boat passing: had something happened to it?-- that he had seen white stonecrop in flower, unusually early. He had never known exactly what relation the old woman who had died was to him; now he said to himself that she must certainly have been his mother and thought of her with redoubled tenderness. He thought of the bride's trousseau in the leather trunk. He thought that one of these days the Reverend Jaquemin Herode would probably be appointed dean of St. Peter Port and suffragan to the bishop, and that the living of St. Sampson would become vacant. He thought that the day after Christmas would be the twenty-seventh day of the moon, and that consequently high water would be at twenty-one minutes past three, half-tide on the ebb at fifteen minutes past seven, low water at twenty-seven minutes to ten, and half-tide on the flood at twenty-one minutes to one. He recalled in exact detail the costume of the highlander who had sold him his bagpipes: his cap with its thistle, his claymore, his close-fitting jacket with its short, square tails, his kilt or philabeg with its sporran and sneeshing-mull, his kilt pin set with a Scottish gem-stone, his sash and belt, his sword and dirk, and his skean dhu, a black knife with a black hilt decorated with two cairngorms; his bare knees, his stockings, his checked gaiters, and his buckled shoes. This equipment became a specter that pursued him, threw him into a fever, and lulled him to sleep. When he awoke it was broad daylight, and his first thought was of Deruchette.

  The following night he slept, but all night he saw the Scottish soldier in his dreams. While still half asleep he said to himself that the Court of Chief Pleas due after Christmas would hold its sitting on January 21. He also dreamed of the old rector, Jaquemin Herode. When he awoke he thought of Deruchette, and was very angry with her. He wished that he were a boy again so that he could throw stones at her windows.

  Then he thought that if he were a boy he would have his mother, and he began to cry.

  He thought of going away for three months to Chousey or the Minquiers. But he did not go.

  He kept away from the road from St. Peter Port to the Vale. He imagined that his name, Gilliatt, was still traced on the ground there and that everyone who passed that way would be looking at it.

  II

  GRADUAL ENTRY INTO THE UNKNOWN

  But he did see Les Bravees every day. He did not do it deliberately, but he did go in that direction. It so happened that his business always took him along the path that skirted the wall of Deruchette's garden.

  One morning, as he was walking that way, he heard a market woman coming from Les Bravees saying to another, "Miss Lethierry likes sea kale." Thereupon he dug a trench in his garden at the Bu de la Rue to grow sea kale--a kind of cabbage with the taste of asparagus.

  The garden wall at Les Bravees was quite low and could easily be stepped over. The thought of stepping over it would have appalled him; but there was nothing to prevent him, or anyone else who was passing, from hearing people speaking in the house or in the garden.

  He did not listen on purpose, but he heard. One day he heard the two maids, Douce and Grace, having an argument. It was a sound within the house. The quarrel remained in his ear like music.

  Another time he heard a voice that was not like the others and must, he thought, be Deruchette's. He made off at once. But the words spoken by the voice remained graven in his memory. He kept repeating them to himself. The words were: "Would you please give me the broom?"

  By degrees he became bolder. He ventured to stop by the garden wall. It happened one day that Deruchette, who could not be seen from outside, although her window was open, was sitting at her piano, singing. The song was her favorite "Bonny Dundee." He became very pale, but still found the strength to stay and listen.

  Spring came, and one day Gilliatt had a vision; the heavens opened. He saw Deruchette watering her lettuces.

  Soon he went further than merely stopping. He observed her habits, noted the timetable of her day, and waited for her to appear--always taking great care not to show himself.

  Gradually, as the flowerbeds filled with roses and were haunted by butterflies, he became accustomed to seeing Deruchette going to and fro in the garden--staying hidden behind the wall, seen by no one, for hours at a time, motionless and silent, holding his breath. You become accustomed to taking poison.

  From his hiding place he frequently heard Deruchette talking to Mess Lethierry in a densely grown arbor in which there was a garden seat. He could hear what they said quite distinctly.

  What a long way he had come! He had now reached the stage of watching out for her and eavesdropping on her. Alas! The human heart is a practiced spy.

  He could see another garden seat, quite close, on the edge of a path, on which Deruchette sometimes came to sit.

  From watching Deruchette pick and smell her flowers he had divined her taste in perfumes. Her favorite scent was that of convolvulus, followed by pinks, honeysuckle, and jasmine. Roses came only in fifth place. She looked at lilies but did not smell them.

  On the basis of this choice of perfumes Gilliatt built up a picture of her in his mind. With each scent he associated a particular perfection.

  The mere idea of speaking to Deruchette made his hair stand on end.

  An old huckster woman whose wandering trade brought her from time to time to the lane skirting the garden of Les Bravees had become aware, in some vague way, of Gilliatt's assiduity in visiting the garden wall and his devotion to this deserted area. Did she connect the presence of this man outside the wall with the possibility that there might be a woman behind the wall? Did she discern that vague invisible thread? Had she, in her decrepitude and poverty, remained young enough to remember something of older and happier days; and, in her winter and her night, did she still remember what the dawn was like? We cannot tell, but apparently on one occasion, passing close to Gilliatt while he was at his post, she directed toward him as much of a smile as she was still capable of and mumbled between her gums: "It's getting warmer!"

  Gilliatt heard what she said and was struck by it. He murmured, with an internal question mark: "It's getting warmer? What does the old woman mean?" He repeated her words mechanically all day, but still did not understand them.

  One evening when he was at his window in the Bu de la Rue five or six girls from L'Ancresse came to bathe in the Houmet creek. They played about in the water, very innocently, only a hundred paces away. He slammed his window shut. He found that a naked woman repelled him.

  III

  AN ECHO TO "BONNY DUNDEE"

  Gilliatt spent almost the whole of that summer in a spot behind the garden of Les Bravees, at an angle of the wall overgrown with holly and ivy and covered with nettles, with a tall wild mallow and a large mullein growing in the granite rock. He sat there deep in thought-- thoughts to which he could not give expression. The lizards had become accustomed to him and sunned themselves amid the same stones. The summer was luminous and caressing.

  Overhead, clouds passed to and fro. Gilliatt was sitting on the grass. The air was full of the sound of birds. Putting both hands to his forehead, he wondered: why had she written his name in the snow? Out at sea the wind was gusting violently. Occasionally, in the distant quarry of La Vaudue, there was a sudden blare of the quarrymen's horn, warning passersby that blasting was imminent and they should keep clear. St. Sampson harbor was not visible, but the tips of masts could be seen above the trees. A few seagulls flew around. Gilliatt had heard his mother say that women could be in love with men; that happened sometimes. He thought to himself, Now I understand: Deruchette loves me. He felt profoundly sad. He said to himself, But she, too,
is thinking of me; that is good. He thought that Deruchette was rich and he was poor. He thought that the steamship was a horrible invention. He could not remember which day of the month it was. Absentmindedly, he watched the large black bumblebees with their yellow rumps and short wings, buzzing as they made their way into crevices in the walls.

  One evening when Deruchette was going to bed she went to the window to close it. It was a dark night. Suddenly her ear was caught by a sound. Out in the deep shadows there was music. Someone--probably on the slopes of the hill, or under the towers of Vale Castle, or perhaps even farther away--was playing a tune on some instrument. Deruchette recognized her favorite melody, "Bonny Dundee," played on bagpipes. She could make nothing of it. After this, the same tune was played from time to time, always at the same hour, particularly on very dark nights.

  Deruchette did not like it much.

  IV

  For uncle and tutor, men severe and upright, A serenade is mere noise in the night.

  (OLD COMEDY)

  Four years went by.

  Deruchette was approaching her twenty-first birthday and was still not married.

  Someone has written: "A fixed idea is like a gimlet. Each year it goes in one turn farther. If you want to get rid of it in the first year it will pluck out your hair; in the second year, it will lacerate your skin; in the third year, it will break your bones; in the fourth year, it will tear out your brain."

  Gilliatt had reached the fourth year.

  He had never yet spoken to Deruchette. He thought about her a lot: that was all.

  Once, finding himself by chance in St. Sampson, he had seen Deruchette talking to Mess Lethierry outside the door of Les Bravees, which opened off the harbor quay. Gilliatt had ventured to come up quite close to them. He was almost sure that as he passed she had smiled. That was certainly by no means impossible.