Penguin Island | Page 3

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Scanned by Aaron Cannon of Paradise, California

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 celestial perfume 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