CHAPTER VI--NEWS FROM HOME.
About a month later, around Iceland, the weather was of that rare kind that the sailors call a dead calm; in other words, in the air nothing moved, as if all the breezes were exhausted and their task done.
The sky was covered with a white veil, which darkened towards its lower border near the horizon, and gradually passed into dull gray leaden tints; over this the still waters threw a pale light, which fatigued the eyes and chilled the gazer through and through.

All at once, liquid designs played over the surface, such light evanescent rings as one forms by breathing on a mirror.

The sheen of the waters seemed covered with a net of faint patterns, which intermingled and reformed, rapidly disappearing.

Everlasting night or everlasting day, one could scarcely say what it was; the sun, which pointed to no special hour, remained fixed, as if presiding over the fading glory of dead things; it appeared but as a mere ring, being almost without substance, and magnified enormously by a shifting halo.
Yann and Sylvestre, leaning against one another, sang "Jean-Francois de Nantes," the song without an end; amused by its very monotony, looking at one another from the corner of their eyes as if laughing at the childish fun, with which they began the verses over and over again, trying to put fresh spirit into them each time.

Their cheeks were rosy under the sharp freshness of the morning: the pure air they breathed was strengthening, and they inhaled it deep down in their chests, the very fountain of all vigorous existence.