The christening
the farmer’s wife
the devil
the Snipe
the will
Walter SCHNAFF’S adventure
at sea
minuet
the son
that pig of A Morin
saint Anthony
lasting love
Pierrot
A Normandy joke
father Matthew
“Well doctor, a little brandy?”
“With pleasure.”
The old ship’s surgeon, holding out his glass,
watched it as it slowly filled with the golden liquid.
Then, holding it in front of his eyes, he let the
light from the lamp stream through it, smelled it,
tasted a few drops and smacked his lips with relish.
Then he said:
“Ah! the charming poison! Or rather the
seductive murderer, the delightful destroyer of peoples!
“You people do not know it the way I do.
You may have read that admirable book entitled L’Assommoir,
but you have not, as I have, seen alcohol exterminate
a whole tribe of savages, a little kingdom of negroes—alcohol
calmly unloaded by the barrel by red-bearded English
seamen.
“Right near here, in a little village in Brittany
near Pont-l’Abbe, I once witnessed a strange
and terrible tragedy caused by alcohol. I was
spending my vacation in a little country house left
me by my father. You know this flat coast where
the wind whistles day and night, where one sees, standing
or prone, these giant rocks which in the olden times
were regarded as guardians, and which still retain
something majestic and imposing about them. I
always expect to see them come to life and start to
walk across the country with the slow and ponderous
tread of giants, or to unfold enormous granite wings
and fly toward the paradise of the Druids.
“Everywhere is the sea, always ready on the
slightest provocation to rise in its anger and shake
its foamy mane at those bold enough to brave its wrath.
“And the men who travel on this terrible sea,
which, with one motion of its green back, can overturn
and swallow up their frail barks—they go
out in the little boats, day and night, hardy, weary
and drunk. They are often drunk. They have
a saying which says: ’When the bottle is
full you see the reef, but when it is empty you see
it no more.’
“Go into one of their huts; you will never find
the father there. If you ask the woman what has
become of her husband, she will stretch her arms out
over the dark ocean which rumbles and roars along the
coast. He remained, there one night, when he
had had too much to drink; so did her oldest son.
She has four more big, strong, fair-haired boys.
Soon it will be their time.
“As I said, I was living in a little house near
Pont-l’Abbe. I was there alone with my
servant, an old sailor, and with a native family which
took care of the grounds in my absence. It consisted
of three persons, two sisters and a man, who had married
one of them, and who attended to the garden.
