all
got in, except the two sailors, who pushed the boat off.

A light, steady breeze blowing towards the land just ruffled the surface
of the water. The sail was hoisted, filled out a little, and the boat
moved gently along hardly rocked by the waves.

At first they sailed straight out to sea. At the horizon the sky could
not be distinguished from the ocean; on land the high steep cliff had a
deep shadow at its foot. Behind could be seen the brown sails of the
boats leaving the white pier of Fecamp, and before lay a rounded rock
with a hole right through it, looking like an elephant thrusting its
trunk into the water.

Jeanne, feeling a little dizzied by the rocking of the boat, sat holding
one side with her hand, and looking out to sea; light, space and the
ocean seemed to her to be the only really beautiful things in creation.
No one spoke. From time to time old Lastique, who was steering, drank
something out of a bottle placed within his reach under the seat. He
smoked his stump of a pipe which seemed unextinguishable, and a small
cloud of blue smoke went up from it while another issued from the corner
of his mouth; he was never seen to relight the clay bowl, which was
colored blacker than ebony, or to refill it with tobacco, and he only
removed the pipe from his mouth to eject the brown saliva.

The baron sat in the bows and managed the sail, performing the duties of
a sailor, and Jeanne and the vicomte were side by side, both feeling a
little agitated. Their glances were continually meeting, a hidden
sympathy making them raise their eyes at the same moment, for there was
already that vague, subtle fondness between them which springs up so
quickly between two young people when the youth is good-looking and the
girl is pretty. They felt happy at being close together, perhaps because
each was thinking of the other.

The sun rose higher in the sky as if to consider from a better vantage
point the vast sea stretched out beneath him, while the latter, like a
coquette, enveloped herself in a light mist which veiled her from his
rays. It was a transparent golden haze which hid nothing but softened
everything. It gradually melted away before the sun's flaming darts, and
when the full heat of the day began it disappeared entirely, and the
sea, smooth as glass, lay glittering in the sun.

Jeanne murmured enthusiastically, "How lovely it is!"

The vicomte answered "Yes, it is indeed beautiful." And their hearts
felt as