The water does not consist entirely of water.
The midget island sits just inside the mouth, facing the sea where two rivers marry, the Lay to the right and the Sèvre to the left: and as it happens these nuptials are rich with sand, mud, oyster shells, and all the debris that rivers calmly snatch up and crush: windfall and dead cows; the waste that men throw out in sport, from necessity, or from weariness; and sometimes their own human bodies thrown likewise in sport, from necessity, or from weariness. With the result that it’s neither the forthright sea nor the honest river that Èble has before his eyes but something mixed and tangled: a thousand arms of fresh water, as many arms of salt water, and as many again of water that is neither fresh nor salt embrace a thousand plots of naked blue mud, naked pink and gray mud, red-brown mud, worthless sand where the devil — which is to say nothing — plies his trade. Besides, he is the only being able to set foot here because everything else — men, dogs and horses, field mice — is instantly swallowed up in a shroud of stinking gases. Only the flat-bottomed barges come this way bringing the monks’ pittance over the water’s arms, and even then the water is so thin that you need to use long poles to sail across the mud. It’s not earth, because seagulls screech above the eels, or sea, since crows and kites fly up with vipers in their beaks. Èble is not sure that this does suit him so welclass="underline" it’s like when you don’t know whether the meadow at Longeville belongs to Twisted Beard, Long-Sword, or Tow-head, and you have to unsheathe iron and square the parleys in order to decide whether Longeville belongs to one of the three or to all three at once, which is as good as to say to the devil. Èble thinks for a moment about his brother Guillaume, softens at the memory of this man of fire who doesn’t belong to the devil. He pictures Guillaume with broigne, halberd, and helmet, his fair tow hair in the wind, lance held aloft, riding his horse determinedly across the marsh, flying over it at an angelic gallop, like Saint George. Èble smiles, though you can’t see it since we’re looking from some way off and his back is turned as he leans against the fortifications, a tiny dark figure bearing a radiant head at one end — for this is a black monk, a Benedictine, clearly silhouetted and visible against the white limestone.
This same evening in May, after Vespers and None, at the hour when the first lamps are lit and before the first psalms are sung, he summons all the monks to the chapter house: some fifteen patricians like himself, drawn or banished here by a violent reading of the Life of Saint Martin, by their courage, by their cowardice, by a brother who wants to rule alone because the fiefdom is only small, and — who knows? — some by God. A few lay brothers too, clerks of humble origin, called by the prospect of bed and board, and some by a desire for books. You can hear the seagulls and the sounds of water. Èble looks at them one after the other in the early lamplight as it dances on their faces, faces that are sharp, heavy, crushed, burning, or calm. Then he makes the sign of salvation, and the others do the same, casting huge shadows of arms onto the cob walls. He allows more silence to go by — he knows how you govern, he has parleyed in close-fought argument with Louis, late king of France, with Alain and Eudes; he has even taken fiefdoms with a smile and a few pretty words from Guillaume Long-Sword, a Viking’s son and almost a Viking himself — he lets them contemplate at leisure his towhead and his mouth, from which there will emerge a sound that is different from the cry of the seagulls which measures time. Eventually he asks Brother Hugues, who is young and a clerk, to come and stand beside him and to open the Book.
He asks him to read the Third Day of Creation.
Hugues’s voice is strong and young, crushed and burning. He reads, “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.” Hugues trembles slightly. Èble stretches an arm toward the window which gives onto the mouth of the river, and he says, “We have reached the Second Day. The earth and the waters are not disentangled. We shall make the Chaos and the Void which lie beneath into something on which we can set foot. Saint George must be able to ride his horse across it and cows graze upon it. In a year from now I want to plant my crozier on it and have it stand firm without being swallowed up by the great maws below.” The gulls are heard again. Then the psalms are sung.
The next day before dawn they take the two barges that belong to the abbey, launch them on the trickle of water, and set off in search of the arms that will separate the Chaos from the Void. Abbot Èble is part of the expedition, and Hugues is there too. Each of them is sitting in a barge, two acolytes with poles in each stern. They know a little about the arms they’re going in search of, as these are the ones that fish for themselves and for the monks, and live on the little islands nearby, Grues, La Dive, La Dune, Champagné, Elle, Triaize. From one barge to the other in the backwater, they joke about these natives who stink of fish. They say that they worship rain like a wandering idol. They say that they piously coat the crosses which are planted for them with honey, and make them offerings of bird carcasses and flat stones. They grant that they are tall and often handsome, with arms of iron, for the miasmas from the marshes carry off so many in their early years that those who survive are made of iron. They grant that they are gentle. The monks visit them from time to time and talk of salvation, the natives listen obligingly but barely understand the language. However, they understand perfectly when the monks say to them: so many barrels of herring to the monastery for Christmas, so many thornback skate and carp for Easter, so many sardines for the monks’ everyday fare. It’s because they’re half fish, says Hugues. But we still christened them, says Èble. They laugh, and the huge pale sky above the two tiny black monks laughs too, along with the gulls.
They disembark at Grues, at La Dive, at Triaize. There are huts with drying fish, one or two ambling cows. They gather the fishermen or their womenfolk, whatever is to be had: faces that are sharp or heavy, crushed or burning, assorted bodies dressed in tunics which look very like the monks’ cowls, except that they are not necessarily black. The monks make the sign of salvation over them and they all sit down. The monks tell them that they are going to drain the marsh at the foot of Saint-Michel, transform mud into rock, work a miracle. Ever since the monks spoke to them of miracles, they have retained the word, and they listen more attentively. The miracle requires their arms. The monks tell them that this miracle land and the cattle it will bear are to be shared, half for them and half for the monks. The monks say to them that those who are enticed by this prospect should follow them at once, and set up their shacks in the meadow by the monastery for several months each year over the summer — and that they will be able to return to their homes from October to mid-May, when the marsh reverts to being forthright sea and honest river. It is Hugues who does the explaining in his beautiful, burning voice, and Èble adds that besides the extra land and the cattle they will have salvation. The natives talk for a long time among themselves; some go back to their nets, but others don’t. On Dive two couples with their children launch a barge and follow the monks; on Grues a silent old man and two young men; on Triaize no one. They land on Champagné.
It’s the middle of the day. They are hungry.
Six black monks climb the steps of the harbor on Champagné, and they are now in the middle of a ring of huts. On Champagné the men are hungry, too; they have all returned from fishing and raised the nets and the creels; fish is cooking on the huge fires. The explanations, the hires, and salvation can wait until later: six black monks sit scattered among the fishermen, talking of sturgeon, pike, and the summer months. They laugh; the steaming bowls are filled. Èble has not engaged in talk and is sitting alone; he is tired, irritated with himself; he is wondering what possessed him yesterday to tangle with water-courses — what pride, what diabolical imposture. Someone hands him a bowl; he looks up. Above him a very young and beautiful, very serious woman is holding it out to him with an open hand. She has a strong nose and lips, wide open eyes. She is tall and her skin is white. Her bare feet are like marble. Èble blazes in an instant.