in the morning, while I walked up the grey platform, my head was
filled with memories of the sea, for all the way across it had seemed
like a beautiful blue plain without beginning or end, a plain on which
the ship threw a little circle of light, moving always like life
itself, with darkness before and after. I remembered how we steamed
into the long winding harbour in the dusk, half an hour before we were
due--at daybreak. Against the green sky, along the cliff's edge, a
line of broken paling zigzagged; one star shone in the dawning sky,
one reflection wavered in the tranquil harbour. There was no sound
except the splashing of paddle-wheels, and not wind enough to take the
fishing boats out to sea; the boats rolled in the tide, their sails
only half-filled. From the deck of the steamer we watched the strange
crews, wild-looking men and boys, leaning over the bulwarks; and I
remembered how I had sought for the town amid the shadow, but nowhere
could I discover trace of it; yet I knew it was there, smothered in
the dusk, under the green sky, its streets leading to the cathedral,
the end of every one crossed by flying buttresses, and the round roof
disappearing amid the chimney-stacks. A curious, pathetic town, full
of nuns and pigeons and old gables and strange dormer windows, and
courtyards where French nobles once assembled--fish will be sold there
in a few hours. Once I spent a summer in Dieppe. And during the hour
we had to wait for the train, during the hour that we watched the
green sky widening between masses of shrouding cloud, I thought of ten
years ago. The town emerged very slowly, and only a few roofs were
visible when the fisher girl clanked down the quays with a clumsy
movement of the hips, and we were called upon to take our seats in the
train. We moved along the quays, into the suburbs, and then into a
quiet garden country of little fields and brooks and hillsides
breaking into cliffs. The fields and the hills were still shadowless
and grey, and even the orchards in bloom seemed sad. But what shall I