s
wrath.

"And the men who travel on this terrible sea, which, with one motion of
its green back, can overturn and swallow up their frail barks--they
go out in the little boats, day and night, hardy, weary and drunk. They
are often drunk. They have a saying which says: 'When the bottle is full
you see the reef, but when it is empty you see it no more.'

"Go into one of their huts; you will never find the father there. If you
ask the woman what has become of her husband, she will stretch her arms
out over the dark ocean which rumbles and roars along the coast. He
remained, there one night, when he had had too much to drink; so did her
oldest son. She has four more big, strong, fair-haired boys. Soon it will
be their time.

"As I said, I was living in a little house near Pont-l'Abbe. I was there
alone with my servant, an old sailor, and with a native family which took
care of the grounds in my absence. It consisted of three persons, two
sisters and a man, who had married one of them, and who attended to the
garden.

"A short time before Christmas my gardener's wife presented him with a
boy. The husband asked me to stand as god-father. I could hardly deny the
request, and so he borrowed ten francs from me for the cost of the
christening, as he said.

"The second day of January was chosen as the date of the ceremony. For a
week the earth had been covered by an enormous white carpet of snow,
which made this flat, low country seem vast and limitless. The ocean
appeared to be black in contrast with this white plain; one could see it
rolling, raging and tossing its waves as though wishing to annihilate its
pale neighbor, which appeared to be dead, it was so calm, quiet and cold.

"At nine o'clock the father, Kerandec, came to my door with his
sister-in-law, the big Kermagan, and the nurse, who carried the infant
wrapped up in a blanket. We started for the church. The weather was so
cold that it seemed to dry up the skin and crack it open. I was thinking
of the poor little creature who was being carried on ahead of us, and I
said to myself that this Breton race must surely be of iron, if their
children were able, as soon as they were born, to stand such an outing.

"We came to the church, but the door was closed; the priest was late.

"Then the nurse sat down on one of the steps and began to undress the
child. At first I thought there must have been some slight accident, but
I saw that they were leaving the poor little