she is! Gracious heavens, what a
ship! Look! look!"

Mme. Rosemilly and Beausire looked up behind them, the oarsmen ceased
pulling; only Mme. Roland did not stir.

The immense steamship, towed by a powerful tug, which, in front of
her, looked like a caterpillar, came slowly and majestically out of
the harbor. And the good people of Havre, who crowded the piers, the
beach, and the windows, carried away by a burst of patriotic
enthusiasm, cried: "_Vive la Lorraine!_" with acclamations and
applause for this magnificent beginning, this birth of the beautiful
daughter given to the sea by the great maritime town.

She, as soon as she had passed beyond the narrow channel between the
two granite walls, feeling herself free at last, cast off the
tow-ropes and went off alone, like a monstrous creature walking on the
waters.

"Here she is--here she comes, straight down on us!" Roland kept
shouting; and Beausire, beaming, exclaimed: "What did I promise you!
Heh! Do I know the way?"

Jean in a low tone said to his mother: "Look, mother, she is close
upon us!" And Mme. Roland uncovered her eyes, blinded by tears.

The _Lorraine_ came on, still under the impetus of her swift exit from
the harbor, in the brilliant, calm weather. Beausire, with his glass
to his eye, called out:

"Look out! M. Pierre is at the stern, all alone, plainly to be seen!
Look out!"

The ship was almost touching the _Pearl_ now, as tall as a mountain
and as swift as a train. Mme. Roland, distraught and desperate, held
out her arms toward it; and she saw her son, her Pierre, with his
officer's cap on, throwing kisses to her with both hands.

But he was going away, flying, vanishing, a tiny speck already, no
more than an imperceptible spot on the enormous vessel. She tried
still to distinguish him, but she could not.

Jean took her hand:

"You saw?" he said.

"Yes, I saw. How good he is!"

And they turned to go home.

"Cristi! How fast she goes!" exclaimed Roland with enthusiastic
conviction.

The steamer, in fact, was shrinking every second, as though she were
melting away in the ocean. Mme. Roland, turning back to look at her,
watched her disappearing on the horizon, on her way to an unknown land
at the other side of the world.

In that vessel which nothing could stay, that vessel which she soon
would see no more, was her son, her poor son. And she felt as though
half her heart had gone with him; she felt, too, as if her life were
ended;