Chapter 14 - Page 2

Touches, who made a respectful
bow, full of gratitude, to the baroness.

"That one," thought Fanny, "really loves my boy; she seems to thank me
for bringing him into the world."

"I suppose you have come to see, as I have, whether the harvest is a
good one. But I believe you have better reasons for doing so than I,"
said the baron to Camille. "You have property here, I think,
mademoiselle."

"Mademoiselle is the largest of all the owners," said one of the
/paludiers/ who were grouped about them, "and may God preserve her to
us, for she's a /good/ lady."

The two parties bowed and separated.

"No one would suppose Mademoiselle des Touches to be more than
thirty," said the baron to his wife. "She is very handsome. And
Calyste prefers that haggard Parisian marquise to a sound Breton
girl!"

"I fear he does," replied the baroness.

A boat was waiting at the steps of the jetty, where the party embarked
without a smile. The marquise was cold and dignified. Camille had
lectured Calyste on his disobedience, explaining to him clearly how
matters stood. Calyste, a prey to black despair, was casting glances
at Beatrix in which anger and love struggled for the mastery. Not a
word was said by any of them during the short passage from the jetty
of Guerande to the extreme end of the port of Croisic, the point where
the boats discharge the salt, which the peasant-women then bear away
on their heads in huge earthen jars after the fashion of caryatides.
These women go barefooted with very short petticoats. Many of them let
the kerchiefs which cover their bosoms fly carelessly open. Some wear
only shifts, and are the more dignified; for the less clothing a woman
wears, the more nobly modest is her bearing.

The little Danish vessel had just finished lading, therefore the
landing of the two handsome ladies excited much curiosity among the
female salt-carriers; and as much to avoid their remarks as to serve
Calyste, Camille sprang forward toward the rocks, leaving him to
follow with Beatrix, while Gasselin put a distance of some two hundred
steps between himself and his master.

The peninsula of Croisic is flanked on the sea side by granite rocks
the shapes of which are so strangely fantastic that they can only be
appreciated by travellers who are in a position to compare them with
other great spectacles of primeval Nature. Perhaps the rocks of
Croisic have the same advantage over sights of that kind as that
accorded to the road to the Grande Chartreuse over all other narrow
valleys. Neither the coasts of Croisic, where the granite bulwark is
split into strange reefs, nor those of Sardinia,