Penguin Island

by Anatole France
CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE BEGINNINGS
BOOK II. THE ANCIENT TIMES

BOOK III. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE
BOOK IV. MODERN TIMES: TRINCO

BOOK V. MODERN TIMES: CHATILLON
BOOK VI. MODERN TIMES

BOOK VII. MODERN TIMES
BOOK VIII. FUTURE TIMES

BOOK I. THE BEGINNINGS
I. LIFE OF SAINT MAEL

Mael, a scion of a royal family of Cambria, was sent in his ninth year to the
Abbey of Yvern so that he might there study both sacred and profane learning.

At the age of fourteen he renounced his patrimony and took a vow to serve the
Lord. His time was divided, according to the rule, between the singing of

hymns, the study of grammar, and the meditation of eternal truths.
A celestialperfume soon disclosed the virtues of the monk throughout the

cloister, and when the blessed Gal, the Abbot of Yvern, departed from this
world into the next, young Mael succeeded him in the government of the

monastery. He established therein a school, an infirmary, a guest-house, a
forge, work-shops of all kinds, and sheds for building ships, and he compelled

the monks to till the lands in the neighbourhood. With his own hands he
cultivated the garden of the Abbey, he worked in metals, he instructed the

novices, and his life was gently gliding along like a stream that reflects the
heaven and fertilizes the fields.

At the close of the day this servant of God was accustomed to seat himself on
the cliff, in the place that is to-day still called St. Mael's chair. At his

feet the rocks bristling with green seaweed and tawny wrack seemed like black
dragons as they faced the foam of the waves with their monstrous breasts. He

watched the sun descending into the ocean like a red Host whose glorious blood
gave a purple tone to the clouds and to the summits of the waves. And the holy

man saw in this the image of the mystery of the Cross, by which the divine
blood has clothed the earth with a royal purple. In the offing a line of dark

blue marked the shores of the island of Gad, where St. Bridget, who had been
given the veil by St. Malo, ruled over a convent of women.

Now Bridget, knowing the merits of the venerable Mael, begged from him some
work of his hands as a rich present. Mael cast a hand-bell of bronze for her

and, when it was finished, he blessed it and threw it into the sea. And the
bell went ringing towards the coast of Gad, where St. Bridget, warned by the

sound of the bell upon the waves, received it piously, and carried it in
solemn procession with singing of psalms into the chapel of the convent.

Thus the holy Mael advanced from virtue to virtue. He had already passed
through two-thirds of the way of life, and he hoped peacefully" target="_blank" title="ad.平静地；安宁地">peacefully to reach his

terrestrial end in the midst of his spiritual brethren, when he knew by a
certain sign that the Divine wisdom had decidedotherwise, and that the Lord

was calling him to less peaceful but not less meritorious labours.
II. THE APOSTOLICAL VOCATION OF SAINT MAEL

One day as he walked in meditation to the furthest point of a tranquil beach,
for which rocks jutting out into the sea formed a rugged dam, he saw a trough

of stone which floated like a boat upon the waters.
It was in a vessel similar to this that St. Guirec, the great St. Columba, and

so many holy men from Scotland and from Ireland had gone forth to evangelize
Armorica. More recently still, St. Avoye having come from England, ascended

the river Auray in a mortar made of rose-coloured granite into which children
were afterwards placed in order to make them strong; St. Vouga passed from

Hibernia to Cornwall on a rock whose fragments, preserved at Penmarch, will
cure of fever such pilgrims as place these splinters on their heads. St.

Samson entered the Bay of St. Michael's Mount in a granitevessel which will
one day be called St. Samson's basin. It is because of these facts that when

he saw the stone trough the holy Mael understood that the Lord intended him
for the apostolate of the pagans who still peopled the coast and the Breton

islands.
He handed his ashen staff to the holy Budoc, thus investing him with the

government of the monastery. Then, furnished with bread, a barrel of fresh
water, and the book of the Holy Gospels, he entered the stone trough which

carried him gently to the island of Hoedic.
This island is perpetually buffeted by the winds. In it some poor men fished

among the clefts of the rocks and labouriously cultivated vegetables in
gardens full of sand and pebbles that were sheltered from the wind by walls of

barren stone and hedges of tamarisk. A beautiful fig-tree raised itself in a
hollow of the island and thrust forth its branches far and wide. The

inhabitants of the island used to worship it.
And the holy Mael said to them: "You worship this tree because it is

beautiful. Therefore you are capable of feeling beauty. Now I come to reveal
to you the hidden beauty." And he taught them the Gospel. And after having

instructed them, he baptized them with salt and water.
The islands of Morbihan were more numerous in those times than they are

to-day. For since then many have been swallowed up by the sea. St. Mael
evangelized sixty of them. Then in his granitetrough he ascended the river

Auray. And after sailing for three hours he landed before a Roman house. A
thin column of smoke went up from the roof. The holy man crossed the threshold

on which there was a mosaic representing a dog with its hind legs outstretched
and its lips drawn back. He was welcomed by an old couple, Marcus Combabus and

Valeria Moerens, who lived there on the products of their lands. There was a
portico round the interior court the columns of which were painted red, half

their heightupwards from the base. A fountain made of shells stood against
the wall and under the portico there rose an altar with a niche in which the

master of the house had placed some little idols made of baked earth and
whitened with whitewash. Some represented winged children, others Apollo or

Mercury, and several were in the form of a naked woman twisting her hair. But
the holy Mael, observing those figures, discovered among them the image of a

young mother holding a child upon her knees.
Immediately pointing to that image he said:

"That is the Virgin, the mother of God. The poet Virgil foretold her in
Sibylline verses before she was born and, in angelical tones he sang Jam redit

et virgo. Throughout heathendom prophetic figures of her have been made, like
that which you, O Marcus, have placed upon this altar. And without doubt it is

she who has protected your modest household. Thus it is that those who
faithfully observe the natural law prepare themselves for the knowledge of

revealed truths."
Marcus Combabus and Valeria Moerens, having been instructed by this speech,

were converted to the Christian faith. They received baptism together with
their young freedwoman, Caelia Avitella, who was dearer to them than the light

of their eyes. All their tenants renounced paganism and were baptized on the
same day.

Marcus Combabus, Valeria Moerens, and Caelia Avitella led thenceforth a life
full of merit. They died in the Lord and were admitted into the canon of the

saints.
For thirty-seven years longer the blessed Mael evangelized the pagans of the

inner lands. He built two hundred and eighteen chapels and seventy-four
abbeys.

Now on a certain day in the city of Vannes, when he was preaching the Gospel,
he learned that the monks of Yvern had in his absence declined from the rule

of St. Gal. Immediately, with the zeal of a hen who gathers her brood, he
repaired to his erring children. He was then towards the end of his

ninety-seventh year; his figure was bent, but his arms were still strong, and
his speech was poured forth abundantly like winter snow in the depths of the

valleys.
Abbot Budoc restored the ashen staff to St. Mael and informed him of the

unhappy state into which the Abbey had fallen. The monks were in disagreement
as to the date an which the festival of Easter ought to be celebrated. Some

held for the Roman calendar, others for the Greek calendar, and the horrors of
a chronological schism distracted the monastery.

There also prevailed another cause of disorder. The nuns of the island of Gad,
sadly fallen from their former virtue, continually came in boats to the coast

of Yvern. The monks received them in the guesthouse and from this there arose
scandals which filled pious souls with desolation.

Having finished his faithful report, Abbot Budoc concluded in these terms:
"Since the coming of these nuns the innocence and peace of the monks are at an

end."
"I readily believe it," answered the blessed Mael. "For woman is a cleverly

constructed snare by which we are taken even before we suspect the trap. Alas!
the delightfulattraction of these creatures is exerted with even greater