That face was an emblem of long resignation,of the patience of a fisherman and his quiet ways.The man had a voice without harshness,kind lips,evidently no ambition,and something frail and puny about him.Any other sort of countenance would,at that moment,have jarred upon us.
"Where shall you sell your fish?"
"In the town."
"How much will they pay you for that lobster?""Fifteen sous."
"And the crab?"
"Twenty sous."
"Why so much difference between a lobster and a crab?""Monsieur,the crab is much more delicate eating.Besides,it's as malicious as a monkey,and it seldom lets you catch it.""Will you let us buy the two for a hundred sous?"asked Pauline.
The man seemed petrified.
"You shall not have it!"I said to her,laughing."I'll pay ten francs;we should count the emotions in.""Very well,"she said,"then I'll pay ten francs,two sous.""Ten francs,ten sous."
"Twelve francs."
"Fifteen francs."
"Fifteen francs,fifty centimes,"she said.
"One hundred francs."
"One hundred and fifty francs."
I yielded.We were not rich enough at that moment to bid higher.Our poor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax,or to go mad with joy;we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name of our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab to her house.
"Do you earn enough to live on?"I asked the man,in order to discover the cause of his evident penury.
"With great hardships,and always poorly,"he replied."Fishing on the coast,when one hasn't a boat or deep-sea nets,nothing but pole and line,is a very uncertain business.You see we have to wait for the fish,or the shell-fish;whereas a real fisherman puts out to sea for them.It is so hard to earn a living this way that I'm the only man in these parts who fishes along-shore.I spend whole days without getting anything.To catch a crab,it must go to sleep,as this one did,and a lobster must be silly enough to stay among the rocks.Sometimes after a high tide the mussels come in and I grab them.""Well,taking one day with another,how much do you earn?""Oh,eleven or twelve sous.I could do with that if I were alone;but I have got my old father to keep,and he can't do anything,the good man,because he's blind."At these words,said simply,Pauline and I looked at each other without a word;then I asked,--"Haven't you a wife,or some good friend?"He cast upon us one of the most lamentable glances that I ever saw as he answered,--"If I had a wife I must abandon my father;I could not feed him and a wife and children too.""Well,my poor lad,why don't you try to earn more at the salt marshes,or by carrying the salt to the harbor?""Ah,monsieur,I couldn't do that work three months.I am not strong enough,and if I died my father would have to beg.I am forced to take a business which only needs a little knack and a great deal of patience.""But how can two persons live on twelve sous a day?""Oh,monsieur,we eat cakes made of buckwheat,and barnacles which Iget off the rocks."
"How old are you?"
"Thirty-seven."
"Did you ever leave Croisic?"
"I went once to Guerande to draw for the conion;and I went to Savenay to the messieurs who measure for the army.If I had been half an inch taller they'd have made me a soldier.I should have died of my first march,and my poor father would to-day be begging his bread."I had thought out many dramas;Pauline was accustomed to great emotions beside a man so suffering as myself;well,never had either of us listened to words so moving as these.We walked on in silence,measuring,each of us,the silent depths of that obscure life,admiring the nobility of a devotion which was ignorant of itself.The strength of that feebleness amazed us;the man's unconscious generosity belittled us.I saw that poor being of instinct chained to that rock like a galley-slave to his ball;watching through twenty years for shell-fish to earn a living,and sustained in his patience by a single sentiment.How many hours wasted on a lonely shore!How many hopes defeated by a change of weather!He was hanging there to a granite rock,his arm extended like that of an Indian fakir,while his father,sitting in their hovel,awaited,in silence and darkness,a meal of the coarsest bread and shell-fish,if the sea permitted.
"Do you ever drink wine?"I asked.
"Three or four times a year,"he replied.
"Well,you shall drink it to-day,--you and your father;and we will send you some white bread.""You are very kind,monsieur."
"We will give you your dinner if you will show us the way along the shore to Batz,where we wish to see the tower which overlooks the bay between Batz and Croisic.""With pleasure,"he said."Go straight before you,along the path you are now on,and I will follow you when I have put away my tackle."We nodded consent,and he ran off joyfully toward the town.This meeting maintained us in our previous mental condition;but it lessened our gay lightheartedness.
"Poor man!"said Pauline,with that accent which removes from the compassion of a woman all that is mortifying in human pity,"ought we not to feel ashamed of our happiness in presence of such misery?""Nothing is so cruelly painful as to have powerless desires,"Ianswered."Those two poor creatures,the father and son,will never know how keen our sympathy for them is,any more than the world will know how beautiful are their lives;they are laying up their treasures in heaven.""Oh,how poor this country is!"she said,pointing to a field enclosed by a dry stone wall,which was covered with droppings of cow's dung applied symmetrically."I asked a peasant-woman who was busy sticking them on,why it was done;she answered that she was making fuel.Could you have imagined that when those patches of dung have dried,human beings would collect them,store them,and use them for fuel?During the winter,they are even sold as peat is sold.And what do you suppose the best dressmaker in the place can earn?--five sous a day!"adding,after a pause,"and her food."
