land, with her eyes half-shut, murmured: "Good heavens, how
beautiful the sea is!"

And Mme. Rosemilly replied with a long sigh, which, however, had no
sadness in it:

"Yes, but it is sometimes very cruel, all the same."

Roland exclaimed:

"Look, there is the Normandie just going in. A big ship, isn't she?"

Then he described the coast opposite, far, far away, on the other side
of the mouth of the Seine--that mouth extended over twenty kilometres,
said he. He pointed out Villerville, Trouville, Houlgate, Luc,
Arromanches, the little river of Caen, and the rocks of Calvados which
make the coast unsafe as far as Cherbourg. Then he enlarged on the
question of the sand-banks in the Seine, which shift at every tide so
that even the pilots of Quilleboeuf are at fault if they do not survey
the channel every day. He bid them notice how the town of Havre divided
Upper from Lower Normandy. In Lower Normandy the shore sloped down
to the sea in pasture-lands, fields, and meadows. The coast of Upper
Normandy, on the contrary, was steep, a high cliff, ravined, cleft and
towering, forming an immense white rampart all the way to Dunkirk,
while in each hollow a village or a port lay hidden: Etretat, Fecamp,
Saint-Valery, Treport, Dieppe, and the rest.

The two women did not listen. Torpid with comfort and impressed by the
sight of the ocean covered with vessels rushing to and fro like wild
beasts about their den, they sat speechless, somewhat awed by the
soothing and gorgeous sunset. Roland alone talked on without end; he
was one of those whom nothing can disturb. Women, whose nerves are
more sensitive, sometimes feel, without knowing why, that the sound of
useless speech is as irritating as an insult.

Pierre and Jean, who had calmed down, were rowing slowly, and the Pearl
was making for the harbour, a tiny thing among those huge vessels.

When they came alongside of the quay, Papagris, who was waiting there,
gave his hand to the ladies to help them out, and they took the way into
the town. A large crowd, the crowd which haunts the pier every day at
high tide--was also drifting homeward. Mme. Roland and Mme. Rosemilly
led the way, followed by the three men. As they went up the Rue de Paris
they stopped now and then in front of a milliner's or a jeweller's shop,
to look at a bonnet or an ornament; then after making their comments
they went on again. In front of the Place de la Bourse Roland paused, as
he did every day, to gaze