Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

I

ON the 3rd of May 1882 a three-masted sailing vessel, Notre-Dame-des-Vents, left Havre for the China Seas. After discharging her cargo in China, she took on board a fresh freight for Buenos Aires, from whence she carried other goods to Brazil.

Apart from these long voyages, the vessel was so much delayed by damages, repairs, calms that continued for months, gales which drove her far out of her course, adventures at sea, and various accidents, that it was four years before she returned to France. At last however, on the 8th of May 1886, she reached Marseilles with a cargo of American tinned fruit.

When the ship left Havre she had on board a captain, a mate, and fourteen sailors. During the voyage one sailor died, four were lost in various adventures, and of those that had sailed from France only nine returned home. In place of these men struck off the list, two Americans had been engaged, besides one negro, and a Swede who had been picked up in a drink-shop at Singapore.

The sails were furled and all the rigging made taut. A tug took them in tow and, steaming noisily, drew the vessel to the line of ships moored at the quay. The sea was calm, only a slight swell plashed on the shore. The vessel took her place in the line of those ranged along the quay, where cheek by jowl stood ships large and small, of all sizes, shapes, and kinds, from every country in the world. Notre-Dame-des-Vents lay between an Italian brig and an English schooner, which had both crowded up to make room for their new companion.

As soon as the captain had got rid of the custom-house officers and port officials, he gave leave to the greater part of the crew to go ashore for the night.

It was a warm summer night. The streets of Marseilles were lighted up and were pervaded by the smell of food, the buzz of conversation, and the noise of traffic interspersed by sounds of gaiety.

The sailors from Notre-Dame-des-Vents had not been on shore for four months and now on landing went about timidly in pairs, like strangers unused to a town. They wandered about the streets nearest the quay, looking around them like dogs sniffing about in search of something. It was four months since they had seen a woman. In front walked Celestin Duclos, a strong and agile fellow who always took the lead when they went ashore. He knew how to find the right places and how to get out of a scrape when necessary. He avoided such broils as sailors frequently engage in when they go ashore, but he went the pace with his comrades and could stand up for himself.

For some time the sailors strolled about those streets which run down to the sea like sewers, filled with an oppressive smell rising from their damp cellars and musty attics. At last Celestin chose a narrow side-street where large, prominent lamps shone over the doors of the houses, and into this he turned. The others followed him, grinning and singing. Numbers were painted in huge figures on the coloured glass of these lamps. In the low doorways, on straw-plaited chairs, sat women in aprons. They rushed out at the sight of the sailors, and running into the street threw themselves in their way, enticing them each to her own lair.

At times a door unexpectedly opened at the end of a passage, through which one saw a half-naked woman wearing very short skirts and a very low-cut velvet bodice trimmed with gilt lace.

‘Ah! lads, come here,’ such a one would cry from a distance, or even ran out herself and catching hold of a sailor dragged him with all her strength towards her den. She stuck to him like a spider seizing a fly stronger than itself. The fellow resisted feebly and the others stopped to see the result, but Celestin Duclos shouted:

‘Not there, don’t go in there: come farther!’

The fellow obeyed, tearing himself from the woman by force, and the sailors went on, followed by the abuse of the enraged woman. At the noise of the encounter other women along the street rushed out and fell upon them, shouting the praises of their wares in hoarse voices, but the sailors went on farther and farther. Occasionally they met a soldier with jingling spurs or a solitary clerk or tradesman making his way to some accustomed haunt. In other side-streets shone other lamps of the same kind, but the sailors went farther and farther, tramping through the foul-smelling slush that oozed from the yards. At last Duclos stopped at a house of better appearance than the others, and led his comrades in.

II

THE sailors were sitting in the chief room of the establishment. Each of them had chosen a woman companion from whom he did not part the whole evening; such was the custom of the place. Three tables had been placed together, and first of all the sailors drank, each with his lass. Then they rose and went upstairs with them. Long and loud clattered their twenty feet in their thick boots on the wooden stairs before they had all tumbled through the narrow doors into their separate rooms. From there they came down again to drink, and then returned once more upstairs.

The carouse was kept up recklessly. The whole half-year’s pay went in a four hours’ debauch. By eleven o’clock they were all drunk, and with bloodshot eyes were shouting disconnected phrases not knowing what they said. They sang, shouted, beat with their fists on the table, or poured wine down their throats. Celestin Duclos was there among his comrades and with him sat a large, stout, red-cheeked woman. He had had as much to drink as the others, but was not yet quite drunk: some more or less connected thoughts still flickered through his brain. He grew tender, and tried to think of something to say to his lass, but the thoughts that came into his head vanished again at once and he was unable to remember or express them.

‘Yes,’ said he, laughing. ‘Just so.… Just so.… And have you lived here long?’

‘Six months,’ replied the woman.

He nodded his head, as if to show his approval of this.

‘And are you comfortable here?’

She thought a moment.

‘I have got accustomed to it,’ she said. ‘One has to live somehow. It is not so bad as being in service or working in a laundry.’

He nodded his head approvingly, as if to commend her for this also.

‘Were you born in these parts?’ said he.

She shook her head.

‘Do you come from far away?’ he continued.

She nodded.

‘Where from?’

She paused, as if to remember.

‘I am from Perpignan,’ said she.

‘Yes, yes,’ said he and ceased questioning her.

‘And what are you – a sailor?’ asked the woman in her turn.

‘Yes, we are sailors.’

‘And have you been on long voyages?’

‘Yes, long enough! We have seen places of all sorts.’

‘Have you been round the world?’

‘Oh yes,’ said he, ‘not once only – we have been nearly twice round.’

She again paused, as if remembering something.

‘I suppose you have met many ships?’ said she.

‘Of course we have.’

‘Have you ever met the Notre-Dame-des-Vents? There is a ship of that name.’

He was surprised at her naming his vessel, and thought he would play a trick on her.

‘Why, certainly,’ said he; ‘we met her only last week.’

‘Is that the truth?’ she said, growing pale.

‘The solemn truth.’

‘You are not telling me a lie?’

‘So help me God,’ swore he, ‘I am telling the truth.’

‘And did you not meet a man on board named Celestin Duclos?’ asked she.

‘Celestin Duclos?’ he repeated, astonished and even alarmed. How did this woman know his name?

‘Why! do you know him?’ he asked.

It was evident that she too was alarmed.

‘No, not I, but there is a woman here that knows him.’

‘What woman? Here in this house?’

‘No, but near here.’

‘Tell me where?’

‘Oh, not very far away.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Oh, just a woman – like myself.’

‘What has she to do with him?’

‘How should I know? Perhaps they come from the same parts.’

They looked searchingly into each other’s eyes.

‘I should like to see that woman,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Have you anything to tell her?’

‘I want to tell her …’

‘To tell her – what?’

‘That I have seen Celestin Duclos.’

‘You have seen Celestin Duclos! Is he alive and well?’

‘He is quite well. But what is that to you?’

She was silent, again collecting her thoughts. Then she said softly:

‘What port is the Notre-Dame-des-Vents bound for?’

‘What port? Why, Marseilles.’

‘Is that true?’ cried she.

‘Quite true.’

‘And you know Duclos?’

‘I have already told you that I know him.’

She thought awhile.

‘Yes, yes, it is well,’ said she softly.

‘What do you want with him?’

‘If you should see him, tell him … No, better not!’

‘What shall I tell him?’

‘No, never mind.’

As he looked at her he became more and more agitated.

‘Do you know him yourself?’ asked he.

‘No, I don’t know him myself.’

‘Then what does he matter to you?’

She did not answer, but jumping up ran to the counter, behind which the hostess sat. Taking a lemon, she cut it in half and squeezed the juice into a glass which she filled with water, and this she gave to Celestin.

‘There – drink that!’ she said, sitting down as before on his knees.

‘What is this for?’ he asked, taking the glass from her.

‘To clear your head. Then I will tell you something. Drink it!’

He drank it, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Well, now tell me! I am attending.’

‘But you must not let him know that you have seen me, nor tell him whom you heard it from.’

‘Very well, I will not tell.’

‘Swear it!’

He swore.

‘So help you God!’

‘So help me God!’

‘Well then, tell him his father and mother are both dead and his brother also. A fever broke out and they all died in one and the same month.’

Duclos felt the blood rushing to his heart. For some minutes he sat in silence, not knowing what to say. Presently he uttered the words:

‘Are you sure it is so?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Who told you?’

She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

‘Swear you will not let it out!’

He swore it: ‘So help me God!’

‘I am his sister.’

‘Françoise!’ he shrieked.

She looked intently at him, and softly, softly moved her lips, hardly letting the words escape:

‘So you are Celestin!’

They did not stir, but remained as though benumbed, gazing into each other’s eyes.

Around them the others shouted with drunken voices. The ringing of glasses, the beating of hands and heels, and the piercing screams of women, intermingled with the singing and the shouting.

‘How can it have happened?’ said he, so gently that even she could hardly catch the words.

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

‘They died,’ she continued. ‘All three in one month. What was I to do? I was left alone. The chemist, the doctor, the three funerals.… I had to sell everything to pay the debts. Nothing was left but the clothes I wore. I went as servant to Monsieur Cacheux.… Do you remember him? A lame man. I was only just fifteen. I was scarcely fourteen when you left home – and I went wrong with him.… You know how stupid we peasant girls are. Then I went as nurse in a notary’s family – and it was the same with him. For a time he made me his mistress and I had a lodging of my own; but that did not last long. He left me, and for three days I was without food. No one would take me, so I came here like the rest of them.’ And as she spoke the water flowed in streams from her eyes and nose, wetting her cheeks and trickling into her mouth.

‘What have we done?’ said he.

‘I thought you were dead also. How could I have helped it?’ whispered she through her tears.

‘How was it you did not know me?’ he answered, also in a whisper.

‘I do not know. It was not my fault,’ continued she, weeping yet more bitterly.

‘How could I know you?’ he said again. ‘You were so different when I left home! But you should have known me!’

She threw up her hands in despair.

‘Ah! I see so many of them – these men. They all look alike to me now!’

His heart contracted so painfully and so strongly that he wanted to cry aloud, as a little boy does when he is beaten.

He rose and held her at arm’s length; then, seizing her head in his great sailor paws, he gazed intently into her face.

Little by little he recognized in her the small, slender, merry maiden he had left at home with those others whose eyes it had been her lot to close.

‘Yes, you are Françoise! My sister!’ he exclaimed. And suddenly sobs – the sobs of a strong man, sounding like the hiccups of a drunkard – rose in his throat. He let go of her head, and striking the table so that the glasses upset and broke to atoms, he cried out in a wild voice.

His comrades, astonished, turned towards him.

‘See how he’s swaggering,’ said one.

‘Stop that shouting,’ said another.

‘Eh, Duclos! What are you bawling about? Let’s get upstairs again,’ said a third, plucking Celestin by the sleeve with one hand while his other arm encircled a flushed, laughing, black-eyed lass, in a rose-coloured, low-cut, silk dress.

Duclos suddenly became quiet, and holding his breath looked at his comrades. Then, with the same strange and resolute expression with which he used to enter on a fight, he staggered up to the sailor who was embracing the girl, and struck down with his hand – dividing them apart.

‘Away! Do you not see that she is your sister! Each of them is someone’s sister. See, here is my sister, Françoise! Ha, ha … ha …’ and he broke into sobs that almost sounded like laughter. Then he staggered, raised his hands, and fell with a crash to the floor, where he rolled about, striking the floor with his hands and feet and choking as though about to die.

‘He must be put to bed,’ said one of his comrades. ‘We shall be having him taken up if we go out into the streets.’

So they lifted Celestin and dragged him upstairs to Françoise’s room, where they laid him on her bed.