A Misty Voyage to the Bald IslandThe narrator stands with hands pressed against the ship railing during the foggy twilight of a pale October morning, watching vague island shapes rise from the water like a fantastic herd of monsters. The rapid speed of the vessel imparts a mysterious kind of life to these forms in the dim, troubling dawn light where remnants of the night still float. These landforms appear confusedly and then almost immediately fade away, carried off by the moving flight of the swells. The unreality of the setting feels strange and striking, looking as though one is witnessing the shivering awakening of light and the organization of chaos out of the dark waters. The ship, a fifty ton steamer named La Louise that services Ouessant three times a week, plunges headlong into the waves, causing dark swells to bulge along its sides like overturned soil. The voyage takes them into the heart of the Iroise sea channel, which is bordered by a double row of aligned lighthouses resembling street lamps. Behind the vessel, the high white light of Saint Mathieu blinks like a dying star, while to the left, the red light of Pierres Noires continues to burn in the western depths, casting a bloody reflection over the abyss. Favourable winds allow the crew to deploy all sails to assist the machine, sending the ship forward at a swift though somewhat jolting pace.Roughly ten individuals are present on the deck, including a sailor, a cabin boy, and the captain. The captain, who is both slender and vigorous, has his torso fitted into a blue woollen jersey as he stands erect behind the steering wheel, occasionally shouting brief orders in the Breton tongue. Toward the bow of the vessel, a group of women from Le Conquet sit close together, collectively reciting their rosary prayers. Near the narrator, a postal worker busily checks the contents of his mailbag, classifying the correspondence one by one. These are small letters belonging to seafaring men, decorated with exotic postage stamps and addressed with large, trembling handwriting.The narrator enters into a conversation with the postal worker, who points out and names the passing islands, identifying them as Beniguet, Morgol, and Quemenes, which he characterizes as poor, widowed lands and the wreckage of a collapsed continent. Suddenly, the postman gestures toward Molène, indicating a high, bare, reddish hill toward which the steamer now alters its course. The postman asks if the island does not well deserve its local nickname signifying the bald island. He explains that it is a well known proverb in the country that only two trees have ever managed to grow in the soil of Molène, with one being made of stone in the form of the church steeple, and the other being made of iron in the form of the semaphore mast.