The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 8

Roland stood up, clinging to the mast, and answered:

"At this minute she is working round in the outer harbor. She is standing still – now she moves again! She was taking the tow-rope on board, no doubt. There she goes. Bravo! She is between the piers! Do you hear the crowd shouting? Bravo! The Neptune has her in tow. Now I see her bows – here she comes – here she is! Gracious heavens, what a ship! Look! look!"

Mme. Rosémilly 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; yes, and she felt as though she would never see the child again.

"Why are you crying?" asked her husband, "when you know he will be back again within a month."

She stammered out: "I don't know, I cry because I am hurt."

When they had landed, Beausire at once took leave of them to go to breakfast with a friend. Then Jean led the way with Mme. Rosémilly, and Roland said to his wife:

"A very fine fellow, all the same, is our Jean."

"Yes," replied the mother.

And her mind being too much bewildered to think of what she was saying, she went on:

"I am very glad that he is to marry Mme. Rosémilly."

The worthy man was astounded.

"Heh? What? He is to marry Mme. Rosémilly?"

"Yes, we meant to ask your opinion about it this very day."

"Bless me. And has this engagement been long in the wind?"

"Oh, no, only a very few days. Jean wished to make sure that she would accept him before consulting you."

Roland rubbed his hands.

"Very good. Very good. It is capital. I entirely approve."

As they were about to turn off from the quay down the Boulevard François 1er, his wife once more looked back to cast a last look at the high seas, but she could see nothing now but a puff of gray smoke, so far away, so faint that it looked like a film of haze.

DREAMS

It was after a dinner of friends, of old friends. There were five of them, a writer, a doctor, and three rich bachelors without any profession.

They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude came on, that feeling of lassitude which precedes and leads to the departure of guests after festive gatherings. One of those present, who had for the last five minutes been gazing silently at the surging boulevard starred with gas-lamps, and rattling with vehicles, said suddenly:

"When you've nothing to do from morning till night, the days are long."

"And the nights, too," assented the guest who sat next to him. "I sleep very little; pleasures fatigue me; conversation is monotonous. Never do I come across a new idea, and I feel, before talking to anyone, a violent longing to say nothing and listen to nothing. I don't know what to do with my evenings."

And the third idler remarked:

"I would pay a great deal for anything that would enable me to pass merely two pleasant hours every day."

Then the writer, who had just thrown his overcoat across his arm, turned round to them and said:

"The man who could discover a new vice, and introduce it among his fellow-creatures, even though it were to shorten their lives, would render a greater service to humanity than the man who found the means of securing to them eternal salvation and eternal youth."

The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he said:

"Yes, but 'tis not so easy as that to discover it. Men have, however crudely, been seeking for and working for the object you refer to since the beginning of the world. The men who came first reached perfection at once in this way. We are hardly equal to them."

One of the three idlers murmured:

"'Tis a pity!"

Then, after a minute's pause, he added:

"If we could only sleep, sleep well without feeling hot or cold, sleep with that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights when we are thoroughly fatigued, sleep without dreams."

"Why without dreams?" asked the guest sitting next to him.

The other replied: