clearness. I see again all the things and beings among whom I began the stern apprenticeship of life. There is really too much sorrow on one side, too much happiness on the other. The world is not just.
One night, I remember,—I was very small, moreover,—I remember that we were awakened with a start by the whistle of the life-saving boat. Oh! those calls in the tempest and in the darkness,—how lugubrious they are! Since the night before, the wind had been blowing a gale. The harbor bar was white and furious. Only a few sloops had been able to get back. The others, the poor others, were surely in danger.
Knowing that my father was fishing in the vicinity of the Ile de Sein, my mother was not too anxious. She hoped that he had put into the island harbor, as he had done so often before. Nevertheless, on hearing the whistle of the life-saving boat, she arose, trembling and very pale, wrapped me hurriedly in a thick woolen shawl, and started for the breakwater. My sister Louise, who was already grown, and my younger brother, followed her, crying:
"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"
And she, too, cried:
"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"
The narrow streets were full of people,—women, old men, children. A crowd of frightened shadows
