there. But most of the time I just mooned about.”
After a meal, they talked things over. To stay in Marseille would be imprudent: their movements would be bound to arouse suspicion, sooner or later.
“In that case …?” Daniel murmured tentatively.
“In that case,” Jacques replied, “I know what to do. We must go to Toulon. It’s only ten or twenty miles from here, over there on the left, along the coast. We’ll go on foot; they’ll think we’re schoolboys out for a walk. At Toulon there ,are any number of boats, and we’ll manage somehow or other to get on board one.”
While he spoke, Daniel could not take his eyes off the loved face that he had found again, the freckled cheeks, the frail, almost transparent ears, and the blue eyes in which seemed to come and go pictures of the things he was describing: Toulon and ships and the vast horizons of the sea. But, however great his desire to share Jacques’s fine tenacity of purpose, his common sense made him sceptical; he felt sure they would never set out on that voyage… . And yet was it really so impossible? At times almost he hoped he was wrong, that dreams might prove truer than common sense.
They bought some food and started for Toulon. Two women of the town stared at them, and smiled. Daniel blushed; their skirts no longer hid from him the secrets of their bodies. Fortunately Jacques was whistling, and noticed nothing. Daniel felt that that experience, the mere memory of which made his heart beat faster, would be from now on a barrier between them. Jacques could never now be his friend in the fullest sense; he was only a “kid.”
After passing through the suburbs they reached at last a road ribboning the windings of the coast like a line traced in pink chalk along the seashore. A light breeze met them, with a tang that had an aftertaste of brine. Their shoulders scorched by the sun, they trudged through the white dust. The nearness of the sea intoxicated them; they left the road and ran to it, crying: “ Thalassa! ThalassaI ” and reaching eager hands towards the sparkling blue waves. But the sea proved less easy of access than they had hoped. At the point where they approached it, the shore did not shelve down to the water’s edge along the reach of golden sand their eagerness had pictured. It overhung a deep gulf of equal width throughout, in which the sea was breaking over dark, jagged rocks. Immediately below them a mass of tumbled boulders projected like a Cyclopean breakwater; waves were charging furiously against the granite ledges only to slip back in impotent confusion, foam-flecked, along the smooth, steep flanks. They had joined hands and, bending over the abyss, forgot everything in contemplation of the seething eddies faceted with broken lights. And in their wordless ecstasy there was a certain awe.
“Look!” Daniel said.
A few hundred yards out a boat, a miracle of dazzling whiteness, was gliding over the dark blue expanse. The hull was painted green beneath the water-line, the bright green of a young leaf, and the boat was moving forward to a strong rhythm of oars that lifted the bows clean out of the water and with each stroke displayed a streaming glint of green, vivid as an electric spark.
“Ah, if only one could describe all that!” Jacques murmured, crushing the note-book in his pocket between his fingers. “But you’ll see!” he cried, with a jerk of his shoulders. “Africa is even more lovely! Come along!”
He dashed back, between the rocks, onto the road. Daniel ran beside him, and for the moment his heart was care-free, emptied of regret, all eagerness for adventure.
They came to a place where the road climbed and turned off at a right angle, to reach a group of houses. Just when they came to the bend, a terrific uproar made them stop abruptly; they saw charging down at break-neck speed towards them, zigzagging across the road, what seemed to be a confused mass of horses, wheels, and barrels. Before they
After a meal, they talked things over. To stay in Marseille would be imprudent: their movements would be bound to arouse suspicion, sooner or later.
“In that case …?” Daniel murmured tentatively.
“In that case,” Jacques replied, “I know what to do. We must go to Toulon. It’s only ten or twenty miles from here, over there on the left, along the coast. We’ll go on foot; they’ll think we’re schoolboys out for a walk. At Toulon there ,are any number of boats, and we’ll manage somehow or other to get on board one.”
While he spoke, Daniel could not take his eyes off the loved face that he had found again, the freckled cheeks, the frail, almost transparent ears, and the blue eyes in which seemed to come and go pictures of the things he was describing: Toulon and ships and the vast horizons of the sea. But, however great his desire to share Jacques’s fine tenacity of purpose, his common sense made him sceptical; he felt sure they would never set out on that voyage… . And yet was it really so impossible? At times almost he hoped he was wrong, that dreams might prove truer than common sense.
They bought some food and started for Toulon. Two women of the town stared at them, and smiled. Daniel blushed; their skirts no longer hid from him the secrets of their bodies. Fortunately Jacques was whistling, and noticed nothing. Daniel felt that that experience, the mere memory of which made his heart beat faster, would be from now on a barrier between them. Jacques could never now be his friend in the fullest sense; he was only a “kid.”
After passing through the suburbs they reached at last a road ribboning the windings of the coast like a line traced in pink chalk along the seashore. A light breeze met them, with a tang that had an aftertaste of brine. Their shoulders scorched by the sun, they trudged through the white dust. The nearness of the sea intoxicated them; they left the road and ran to it, crying: “ Thalassa! ThalassaI ” and reaching eager hands towards the sparkling blue waves. But the sea proved less easy of access than they had hoped. At the point where they approached it, the shore did not shelve down to the water’s edge along the reach of golden sand their eagerness had pictured. It overhung a deep gulf of equal width throughout, in which the sea was breaking over dark, jagged rocks. Immediately below them a mass of tumbled boulders projected like a Cyclopean breakwater; waves were charging furiously against the granite ledges only to slip back in impotent confusion, foam-flecked, along the smooth, steep flanks. They had joined hands and, bending over the abyss, forgot everything in contemplation of the seething eddies faceted with broken lights. And in their wordless ecstasy there was a certain awe.
“Look!” Daniel said.
A few hundred yards out a boat, a miracle of dazzling whiteness, was gliding over the dark blue expanse. The hull was painted green beneath the water-line, the bright green of a young leaf, and the boat was moving forward to a strong rhythm of oars that lifted the bows clean out of the water and with each stroke displayed a streaming glint of green, vivid as an electric spark.
“Ah, if only one could describe all that!” Jacques murmured, crushing the note-book in his pocket between his fingers. “But you’ll see!” he cried, with a jerk of his shoulders. “Africa is even more lovely! Come along!”
He dashed back, between the rocks, onto the road. Daniel ran beside him, and for the moment his heart was care-free, emptied of regret, all eagerness for adventure.
They came to a place where the road climbed and turned off at a right angle, to reach a group of houses. Just when they came to the bend, a terrific uproar made them stop abruptly; they saw charging down at break-neck speed towards them, zigzagging across the road, what seemed to be a confused mass of horses, wheels, and barrels. Before they
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