A DRAMA ON THE SEASHORE BY HONORE DE BALZAC Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Madame la Princesse Caroline Galitzin de Genthod, nee Comtesse Walewska. Homage and remembrances of The Author. A DRAMA ON THE SEASHORE Nearly all young men have a compass with which they delight inmeasuring the future. When their will is equal to the breadth of theangle at which they open it the world is theirs. But this phenomenonof the inner life takes place only at a certain age. That age, whichfor all men lies between twenty-two and twenty-eight, is the period ofgreat thoughts, of fresh conceptions, because it is the age of immensedesires. After that age, short as the seed-time, comes that ofexecution. There are, as it were, two youths, --the youth of belief, the youth of action; these are often commingled in men whom Nature hasfavored and who, like Caesar, like Newton, like Bonaparte, are thegreatest among great men. I was measuring how long a time it might take a thought to develop. Compass in hand, standing on a rock some hundred fathoms above theocean, the waves of which were breaking on the reef below, I surveyedmy future, filling it with books as an engineer or builder traces onvacant ground a palace or a fort. The sea was beautiful; I had just dressed after bathing; and I awaitedPauline, who was also bathing, in a granite cove floored with finesand, the most coquettish bath-room that Nature ever devised for herwater-fairies. The spot was at the farther end of Croisic, a daintylittle peninsula in Brittany; it was far from the port, and soinaccessible that the coast-guard seldom thought it necessary to passthat way. To float in ether after floating on the wave!--ah! who wouldnot have floated on the future as I did! Why was I thinking? Whencecomes evil?--who knows! Ideas drop into our hearts or into our headswithout consulting us. No courtesan was ever more capricious nor moreimperious than conception is to artists; we must grasp it, likefortune, by the hair when it comes. Astride upon my thought, like Astolphe on his hippogriff, I wasgalloping through worlds, suiting them to my fancy. Presently, as Ilooked about me to find some omen for the bold productions my wildimagination was urging me to undertake, a pretty cry, the cry of awoman issuing refreshed and joyous from a bath, rose above the murmurof the rippling fringes as their flux and reflux marked a white linealong the shore. Hearing that note as it gushed from a soul, I fanciedI saw among the rocks the foot of an angel, who with outspread wingscried out to me, "Thou shalt succeed!" I came down radiant, light-hearted; I bounded like a pebble rolling down a rapid slope. When she saw me, she said, -- "What is it?" I did not answer; my eyes were moist. The night before, Pauline hadunderstood my sorrows, as she now understood my joy, with the magicalsensitiveness of a harp that obeys the variations of the atmosphere. Human life has glorious moments. Together we walked in silence alongthe beach. The sky was cloudless, the sea without a ripple; othersmight have thought them merely two blue surfaces, the one above theother, but we--we who heard without the need of words, we who couldevoke between these two infinitudes the illusions that nourish youth, --we pressed each other's hands at every change in the sheet of wateror the sheets of air, for we took those slight phenomena as thevisible translation of our double thought. Who has never tasted inwedded love that moment of illimitable joy when the soul seems freedfrom the trammels of flesh, and finds itself restored, as it were, tothe world whence it came? Are there not hours when feelings clasp eachother and fly upward, like children taking hands and running, theyscarce know why? It was thus we went along. At the moment when the village roofs began to show like a faint grayline on the horizon, we met a fisherman, a poor man returning toCroisic. His feet were bare; his linen trousers ragged round thebottom; his shirt of common sailcloth, and his jacket tatters. Thisabject poverty pained us; it was like a discord amid our harmonies. Welooked at each other, grieving mutually that we had not at that momentthe power to dip into the treasury of Aboul Casem. But we saw asplendid lobster and a crab fastened to a string which the fishermanwas dangling in his right hand, while with the left he held his tackleand his net. We accosted him with the intention of buying his haul, --an idea whichcame to us both, and was expressed in a smile, to which I responded bya slight pressure of the arm I held and drew toward my heart. It wasone of those nothings of which memory makes poems when we sit by thefire and recall the hour when that nothing moved us, and the placewhere it did so, --a mirage the effects of which have never been noteddown, though it appears on the objects that surround us in momentswhen life sits lightly and our hearts are full. The loveliest sceneryis that we make ourselves. What man with any poesy in him does notremember some mere mass of rock, which holds, it may be, a greaterplace in his memory than the celebrated landscapes of other lands, sought at great cost. Beside that rock, tumultuous thoughts! There awhole life evolved; there all fears dispersed; there the rays of hopedescended to the soul! At this moment, the sun, sympathizing withthese thoughts of love and of the future, had cast an ardent glow uponthe savage flanks of the rock; a few wild mountain flowers werevisible; the stillness and the silence magnified that rugged pile, --really sombre, though tinted by the dreamer, and beautiful beneathits scanty vegetation, the warm chamomile, the Venus' tresses withtheir velvet leaves. Oh, lingering festival; oh, glorious decorations;oh, happy exaltation of human forces! Once already the lake of Briennehad spoken to me thus. The rock of Croisic may be perhaps the last ofthese my joys. If so, what will become of Pauline? "Have you had a good catch to-day, my man?" I said to the fisherman. "Yes, monsieur, " he replied, stopping and turning toward us theswarthy face of those who spend whole days exposed to the reflectionof the sun upon the water. That face was an emblem of long resignation, of the patience of afisherman and his quiet ways. The man had a voice without harshness, kind lips, evidently no ambition, and something frail and puny abouthim. Any other sort of countenance would, at that moment, have jarredupon 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 asmalicious 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 tenfrancs; 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. Ourpoor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax, or to gomad with joy; we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name ofour landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab to herhouse. "Do you earn enough to live on?" I asked the man, in order to discoverthe cause of his evident penury. "With great hardships, and always poorly, " he replied. "Fishing on thecoast, when one hasn't a boat or deep-sea nets, nothing but pole andline, is a very uncertain business. You see we have to wait for thefish, or the shell-fish; whereas a real fisherman puts out to sea forthem. It is so hard to earn a living this way that I'm the only man inthese parts who fishes along-shore. I spend whole days without gettinganything. To catch a crab, it must go to sleep, as this one did, and alobster must be silly enough to stay among the rocks. Sometimes aftera 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; butI have got my old father to keep, and he can't do anything, the goodman, because he's blind. " At these words, said simply, Pauline and I looked at each otherwithout 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 ashe answered, -- "If I had a wife I must abandon my father; I could not feed him and awife and children too. " "Well, my poor lad, why don't you try to earn more at the saltmarshes, or by carrying the salt to the harbor?" "Ah, monsieur, I couldn't do that work three months. I am not strongenough, and if I died my father would have to beg. I am forced to takea business which only needs a little knack and a great deal ofpatience. " "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 conscription; and I went toSavenay to the messieurs who measure for the army. If I had been halfan inch taller they'd have made me a soldier. I should have died of myfirst march, and my poor father would to-day be begging his bread. " I had thought out many dramas; Pauline was accustomed to greatemotions beside a man so suffering as myself; well, never had eitherof 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. Thestrength of that feebleness amazed us; the man's unconsciousgenerosity belittled us. I saw that poor being of instinct chained tothat rock like a galley-slave to his ball; watching through twentyyears for shell-fish to earn a living, and sustained in his patienceby a single sentiment. How many hours wasted on a lonely shore! Howmany hopes defeated by a change of weather! He was hanging there to agranite rock, his arm extended like that of an Indian fakir, while hisfather, sitting in their hovel, awaited, in silence and darkness, ameal 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 willsend you some white bread. " "You are very kind, monsieur. " "We will give you your dinner if you will show us the way along theshore to Batz, where we wish to see the tower which overlooks the baybetween Batz and Croisic. " "With pleasure, " he said. "Go straight before you, along the path youare 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. Thismeeting maintained us in our previous mental condition; but itlessened our gay lightheartedness. "Poor man!" said Pauline, with that accent which removes from thecompassion of a woman all that is mortifying in human pity, "ought wenot 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 neverknow how keen our sympathy for them is, any more than the world willknow how beautiful are their lives; they are laying up their treasuresin heaven. " "Oh, how poor this country is!" she said, pointing to a field enclosedby a dry stone wall, which was covered with droppings of cow's dungapplied symmetrically. "I asked a peasant-woman who was busy stickingthem on, why it was done; she answered that she was making fuel. Couldyou have imagined that when those patches of dung have dried, humanbeings would collect them, store them, and use them for fuel? Duringthe winter, they are even sold as peat is sold. And what do yousuppose the best dressmaker in the place can earn?--five sous a day!"adding, after a pause, "and her food. " "But see, " I said, "how the winds from the sea bend or destroyeverything. There are no trees. Fragments of wreckage or old vesselsthat are broken up are sold to those who can afford to buy; for costsof transportation are too heavy to allow them to use the firewood withwhich Brittany abounds. This region is fine for none but noble souls;persons without sentiments could never live here; poets and barnaclesalone should inhabit it. All that ever brought a population to thisrock were the salt-marshes and the factory which prepares the salt. Onone side the sea; on the other, sand; above, illimitable space. " We had now passed the town, and had reached the species of desertwhich separates Croisic from the village of Batz. Imagine, my dearuncle, a barren track of miles covered with the glittering sand of theseashore. Here and there a few rocks lifted their heads; you mighthave thought them gigantic animals couchant on the dunes. Along thecoast were reefs, around which the water foamed and sparkled, givingthem the appearance of great white roses, floating on the liquidsurface or resting on the shore. Seeing this barren tract with theocean on one side, and on the other the arm of the sea which runs upbetween Croisic and the rocky shore of Guerande, at the base of whichlay the salt marshes, denuded of vegetation, I looked at Pauline andasked her if she felt the courage to face the burning sun and thestrength to walk through sand. "I have boots, " she said. "Let us go, " and she pointed to the tower ofBatz, which arrested the eye by its immense pile placed there like apyramid; but a slender, delicately outlined pyramid, a pyramid sopoetically ornate that the imagination figured in it the earliest ruinof a great Asiatic city. We advanced a few steps and sat down upon the portion of a large rockwhich was still in the shade. But it was now eleven o'clock, and theshadow, which ceased at our feet, was disappearing rapidly. "How beautiful this silence!" she said to me; "and how the depth of itis deepened by the rhythmic quiver of the wave upon the shore. " "If you will give your understanding to the three immensities whichsurround us, the water, the air, and the sands, and listen exclusivelyto the repeating sounds of flux and reflux, " I answered her, "you willnot be able to endure their speech; you will think it is uttering athought which will annihilate you. Last evening, at sunset, I had thatsensation; and it exhausted me. " "Oh! let us talk, let us talk, " she said, after a long pause. "Iunderstand it. No orator was ever more terrible. I think, " shecontinued, presently, "that I perceive the causes of the harmonieswhich surround us. This landscape, which has but three marked colors, --the brilliant yellow of the sands, the blue of the sky, the evengreen of the sea, --is grand without being savage; it is immense, yetnot a desert; it is monotonous, but it does not weary; it has onlythree elements, and yet it is varied. " "Women alone know how to render such impressions, " I said. "You wouldbe the despair of a poet, dear soul that I divine so well!" "The extreme heat of mid-day casts into those three expressions of theinfinite an all-powerful color, " said Pauline, smiling. "I can hereconceive the poesy and the passion of the East. " "And I can perceive its despair. " "Yes, " she said, "this dune is a cloister, --a sublime cloister. " We now heard the hurried steps of our guide; he had put on his Sundayclothes. We addressed a few ordinary words to him; he seemed to thinkthat our mood had changed, and with that reserve that comes of misery, he kept silence. Though from time to time we pressed each other'shands that we might feel the mutual flow of our ideas and impressions, we walked along for half an hour in silence, either because we wereoppressed by the heat which rose in waves from the burning sands, orbecause the difficulty of walking absorbed our attention. Likechildren, we held each other's hands; in fact, we could hardly havemade a dozen steps had we walked arm in arm. The path which led toBatz was not so much as traced. A gust of wind was enough to effaceall tracks left by the hoofs of horses or the wheels of carts; but thepractised eye of our guide could recognize by scraps of mud or thedung of cattle the road that crossed that desert, now descendingtowards the sea, then rising landward according to either the fall ofthe ground or the necessity of rounding some breastwork of rock. Bymid-day, we were only half way. "We will stop to rest over there, " I said, pointing to a promontory ofrocks sufficiently high to make it probable we should find a grotto. The fisherman, who heard me and saw the direction in which I pointed, shook his head, and said, -- "Some one is there. All those who come from the village of Batz toCroisic, or from Croisic to Batz, go round that place; they never passit. " These words were said in a low voice, and seemed to indicate amystery. "Who is he, --a robber, a murderer?" Our guide answered only by drawing a deep breath, which redoubled ourcuriosity. "But if we pass that way, would any harm happen to us?" "Oh, no!" "Will you go with us?" "No, monsieur. " "We will go, if you assure us there is no danger. " "I do not say so, " replied the fisherman, hastily. "I only say that hewho is there will say nothing to you, and do you no harm. He never somuch as moves from his place. " "Who is it?" "A man. " Never were two syllables pronounced in so tragic a manner. At thismoment we were about fifty feet from the rocky eminence, whichextended a long reef into the sea. Our guide took a path which led himround the base of the rock. We ourselves continued our way over it;but Pauline took my arm. Our guide hastened his steps in order to meetus on the other side, where the two paths came together again. This circumstance excited our curiosity, which soon became so keenthat our hearts were beating as if with a sense of fear. In spite ofthe heat of the day, and the fatigue caused by toiling through thesand, our souls were still surrendered to the softness unspeakable ofour exquisite ecstasy. They were filled with that pure pleasure whichcannot be described unless we liken it to the joy of listening toenchanting music, Mozart's "Audiamo mio ben, " for instance. When twopure sentiments blend together, what is that but two sweet voicessinging? To be able to appreciate properly the emotion that held us, it would be necessary to share the state of half sensuous delight intowhich the events of the morning had plunged us. Admire for a long timesome pretty dove with iridescent colors, perched on a swaying branchabove a spring, and you will give a cry of pain when you see a hawkswooping down upon her, driving its steel claws into her breast, andbearing her away with murderous rapidity. When we had advanced a stepor two into an open space which lay before what seemed to be a grotto, a sort of esplanade placed a hundred feet above the ocean, andprotected from its fury by buttresses of rock, we suddenly experiencedan electrical shudder, something resembling the shock of a suddennoise awaking us in the dead of night. We saw, sitting on a vast granite boulder, a man who looked at us. Hisglance, like that of the flash of a cannon, came from two bloodshoteyes, and his stoical immobility could be compared only to theimmutable granite masses that surrounded him. His eyes moved slowly, his body remaining rigid as though he were petrified. Then, havingcast upon us that look which struck us like a blow, he turned his eyesonce more to the limitless ocean, and gazed upon it, in spite of itsdazzling light, as eagles gaze at the sun, without lowering hiseyelids. Try to remember, dear uncle, one of those old oaks, whoseknotty trunks, from which the branches have been lopped, rise withweird power in some lonely place, and you will have an image of thisman. Here was a ruined Herculean frame, the face of an Olympian Jove, destroyed by age, by hard sea toil, by grief, by common food, andblackened as it were by lightning. Looking at his hard and hairyhands, I saw that the sinews stood out like cords of iron. Everythingabout him denoted strength of constitution. I noticed in a corner ofthe grotto a quantity of moss, and on a sort of ledge carved by natureon the granite, a loaf of bread, which covered the mouth of anearthenware jug. Never had my imagination, when it carried me to thedeserts where early Christian anchorites spent their lives, depictedto my mind a form more grandly religious nor more horribly repentantthan that of this man. You, who have a life-long experience of theconfessional, dear uncle, you may never, perhaps, have seen so awful aremorse, --remorse sunk in the waves of prayer, the ceaselesssupplication of a mute despair. This fisherman, this mariner, thishard, coarse Breton, was sublime through some hidden emotion. Hadthose eyes wept? That hand, moulded for an unwrought statue, had itstruck? That ragged brow, where savage honor was imprinted, and onwhich strength had left vestiges of the gentleness which is anattribute of all true strength, that forehead furrowed with wrinkles, was it in harmony with the heart within? Why was this man in thegranite? Why was the granite in the man? Which was the man, which wasthe granite? A world of fancies came into our minds. As our guide hadprophesied, we passed in silence, rapidly; when he met us he saw ouremotion of mingled terror and astonishment, but he made no boast ofthe truth of his prediction; he merely said, -- "You have seen him. " "Who is that man?" "They call him the Man of the Vow. " You can imagine the movement with which our two heads turned at onceto our guide. He was a simple-hearted fellow; he understood at onceour mute inquiry, and here follows what he told us; I shall try togive it as best I can in his own language, retaining his popularparlance. "Madame, folks from Croisic and those from Batz think this man isguilty of something, and is doing a penance ordered by a famous rectorto whom he confessed his sin somewhere beyond Nantes. Others thinkthat Cambremer, that's his name, casts an evil fate on those who comewithin his air, and so they always look which way the wind is beforethey pass this rock. If it's nor'-westerly they wouldn't go by, no, not if their errand was to get a bit of the true cross; they'd goback, frightened. Others--they are the rich folks of Croisic--they saythat Cambremer has made a vow, and that's why people call him the Manof the Vow. He is there night and day, he never leaves the place. Allthese sayings have some truth in them. See there, " he continued, turning round to show us a thing we had not remarked, "look at thatwooden cross he has set up there, to the left, to show that he has puthimself under the protection of God and the holy Virgin and thesaints. But the fear that people have of him keeps him as safe as ifhe were guarded by a troop of soldiers. He has never said one wordsince he locked himself up in the open air in this way; he lives onbread and water, which is brought to him every morning by hisbrother's daughter, a little lass about twelve years old to whom hehas left his property, a pretty creature, gentle as a lamb, a nicelittle girl, so pleasant. She has such blue eyes, long as _that_, " headded, marking a line on his thumb, "and hair like the cherubim. Whenyou ask her: 'Tell me, Perotte' (That's how we say Pierette in theseparts, " he remarked, interrupting himself; "she is vowed to SaintPierre; Cambremer is named Pierre, and he was her godfather)--'Tellme, Perotte, what does your uncle say to you?'--'He says nothing tome, nothing. '--'Well, then, what does he do to you?' 'He kisses me onthe forehead, Sundays. '--'Are you afraid of him?'--'Ah, no, no; isn'the my godfather? he wouldn't have anybody but me bring him his food. 'Perotte declares that he smiles when she comes; but you might as wellsay the sun shines in a fog; he's as gloomy as a cloudy day. " "But, " I said to him, "you excite our curiosity without satisfying it. Do you know what brought him there? Was it grief, or repentance; is ita mania; is it crime, is it--" "Eh, monsieur, there's no one but my father and I who know the realtruth. My late mother was servant in the family of a lawyer to whomCambremer told all by order of the priest, who wouldn't give himabsolution until he had done so--at least, that's what the folks ofthe port say. My poor mother overheard Cambremer without trying to;the lawyer's kitchen was close to the office, and that's how sheheard. She's dead, and so is the lawyer. My mother made us promise, myfather and I, not to talk about the matter to the folks of theneighborhood; but I can tell you my hair stood on end the night shetold us the tale. " "Well, my man, tell it to us now, and we won't speak of it. " The fisherman looked at us; then he continued: "Pierre Cambremer, whom you have seen there, is the eldest of theCambremers, who from father to son have always been sailors; theirname says it--the sea bends under them. Pierre was a deep-seafisherman. He had boats, and fished for sardine, also for the bigfishes, and sold them to dealers. He'd have charted a large vessel andtrawled for cod if he hadn't loved his wife so much; she was a finewoman, a Brouin of Guerande, with a good heart. She loved Cambremer somuch that she couldn't bear to have her man leave her for longer thanto fish sardine. They lived over there, look!" said the fisherman, going up a hillock to show us an island in the little Mediterraneanbetween the dunes where we were walking and the marshes of Guerande. "You can see the house from here. It belonged to him. Jacquette Brouinand Cambremer had only one son, a lad they loved--how shall I say?--well, they loved him like an only child, they were mad about him. How many times we have seen them at fairs buying all sorts of thingsto please him; it was out of all reason the way they indulged him, andso folks told them. The little Cambremer, seeing that he was neverthwarted, grew as vicious as a red ass. When they told pere Cambremer, 'Your son has nearly killed little such a one, ' he would laugh andsay: 'Bah! he'll be a bold sailor; he'll command the king's fleets. '--Another time, 'Pierre Cambremer, did you know your lad very nearlyput out the eye of the little Pougard girl?'--'Ha! he'll like thegirls, ' said Pierre. Nothing troubled him. At ten years old the littlecur fought everybody, and amused himself with cutting the hens' necksoff and ripping up the pigs; in fact, you might say he wallowed inblood. 'He'll be a famous soldier, ' said Cambremer, 'he's got the tasteof blood. ' Now, you see, " said the fisherman, "I can look back andremember all that--and Cambremer, too, " he added, after a pause. "Bythe time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or sixteen years of age he hadcome to be--what shall I say?--a shark. He amused himself at Guerande, and was after the girls at Savenay. Then he wanted money. He robbedhis mother, who didn't dare say a word to his father. Cambremer was anhonest man who'd have tramped fifty miles to return two sous that anyone had overpaid him on a bill. At last, one day the mother was robbedof everything. During one of his father's fishing-trips Jacquescarried off all she had, furniture, pots and pans, sheets, linen, everything; he sold it to go to Nantes and carry on his capers there. The poor mother wept day and night. This time it couldn't be hiddenfrom the father, and she feared him--not for herself, you may be sureof that. When Pierre Cambremer came back and saw furniture in hishouse which the neighbors had lent to his wife, he said, -- "'What is all this?' "The poor woman, more dead than alive, replied: "'We have been robbed. ' "'Where is Jacques?' "'Jacques is off amusing himself. ' "No one knew where the scoundrel was. "'He amuses himself too much, ' said Pierre. "Six months later the poor father heard that his son was about to bearrested in Nantes. He walked there on foot, which is faster than bysea, put his hands on his son, and compelled him to return home. Oncehere, he did not ask him, 'What have you done?' but he said:-- "'If you do not conduct yourself properly at home with your mother andme, and go fishing, and behave like an honest man, you and I will havea reckoning. ' "The crazy fellow, counting on his parent's folly, made a face; onwhich Pierre struck him a blow which sent Jacques to his bed for sixweeks. The poor mother nearly died of grief. One night, as she wasfast asleep beside her husband, a noise awoke her; she rose upquickly, and was stabbed in the arm with a knife. She cried out loud, and when Pierre Cambremer struck a light and saw his wife wounded, hethought it was the doing of robbers, --as if we ever had any in theseparts, where you might carry ten thousand francs in gold from Croisicto Saint-Nazaire without ever being asked what you had in your arms. Pierre looked for his son, but he could not find him. In the morning, if that monster didn't have the face to come home, saying he hadstayed at Batz all night! I should tell you that the mother had notknown where to hide her money. Cambremer put his with Monsieur Dupotelat Croisic. Their son's follies had by this time cost them so muchthat they were half-ruined, and that was hard for folks who once hadtwelve thousand francs, and who owned their island. No one ever knewwhat Cambremer paid at Nantes to get his son away from there. Bad luckseemed to follow the family. Troubles fell upon Cambremer's brother, he needed help. Pierre said, to console him, that Jacques and Perotte(the brother's daughter) could be married. Then, to help JosephCambremer to earn his bread, Pierre took him with him a-fishing; forthe poor man was now obliged to live by his daily labor. His wife wasdead of the fever, and money was owing for Perotte's nursing. The wifeof Pierre Cambremer owed about one hundred francs to divers personsfor the little girl, --linen, clothes, and what not, --and it so chancedthat she had sewed a bit of Spanish gold into her mattress for anest-egg toward paying off that money. It was wrapped in paper, and onthe paper was written by her: 'For Perotte. ' Jacquette Brouin had hada fine education; she could write like a clerk, and had taught her sonto write too. I can't tell you how it was that the villain scented thegold, stole it, and went off to Croisic to enjoy himself. PierreCambremer, as if it was ordained, came back that day in his boat; ashe landed he saw a bit of paper floating in the water, and he pickedit up, looked at it, and carried it to his wife, who fell down as ifdead, seeing her own writing. Cambremer said nothing, but he went toCroisic, and heard that his son was in a billiard room; so then hewent to the mistress of the cafe, and said to her:-- "'I told Jacques not to use a piece of gold with which he will payyou; give it back to me, and I'll give you white money in place ofit. ' "The good woman did as she was told. Cambremer took the money and justsaid 'Good, ' and then he went home. So far, all the town knows that;but now comes what I alone know, though others have always had somesuspicion of it. As I say, Cambremer came home; he told his wife toclean up their chamber, which is on the lower floor; he made a fire, lit two candles, placed two chairs on one side of the hearth, and astool on the other. Then he told his wife to bring him hiswedding-clothes, and ordered her to put on hers. He dressed himself. When dressed, he fetched his brother, and told him to watch before thedoor, and warn him of any noise on either of the beaches, --that ofCroisic, or that of Guerande. Then he loaded a gun, and placed it at acorner of the fireplace. Jacques came home late; he had drunk andgambled till ten o'clock, and had to get back by way of the Carnoufpoint. His uncle heard his hail, and he went over and fetched him, butsaid nothing. When Jacques entered the house, his father said tohim, -- "'Sit there, ' pointing to the stool. 'You are, ' he said, 'before yourfather and mother, whom you have offended, and who will now judgeyou. ' "At this Jacques began to howl, for his father's face was alldistorted. His mother was rigid as an oar. "'If you shout, if you stir, if you do not sit still on that stool, 'said Pierre, aiming the gun at him, 'I will shoot you like a dog. ' "Jacques was mute as a fish. The mother said nothing. "'Here, ' said Pierre, 'is a piece of paper which wrapped a Spanishgold piece. That piece of gold was in your mother's bed; she aloneknew where it was. I found that paper in the water when I landed hereto-day. You gave a piece of Spanish gold this night to Mere Fleurant, and your mother's piece is no longer in her bed. Explain all this. ' "Jacques said he had not taken his mother's money, and that the goldpiece was one he had brought from Nantes. "'I am glad of it, ' said Pierre; 'now prove it. ' "'I had it all along. ' "'You did not take the gold piece belonging to your mother?' "'No. ' "'Will you swear it on your eternal life?' "He was about to swear; his mother raised her eyes to him, and said:-- "'Jacques, my child, take care; do not swear if it is not true; youcan repent, you can amend; there is still time. ' "And she wept. "'You are a this and a that, ' he said; 'you have always wanted to ruinme. ' "Cambremer turned white and said, -- "'Such language to your mother increases your crime. Come, to thepoint! Will you swear?' "'Yes. ' "'Then, ' Pierre said, 'was there upon your gold piece the little crosswhich the sardine merchant who paid it to me scratched on ours?' "Jacques broke down and wept. "'Enough, ' said Pierre. 'I shall not speak to you of the crimes youhave committed before this. I do not choose that a Cambremer shoulddie on a scaffold. Say your prayers and make haste. A priest is comingto confess you. ' "The mother had left the room; she could not hear her son condemned. After she had gone, Joseph Cambremer, the uncle, brought in the rectorof Piriac, to whom Jacques would say nothing. He was shrewd; he knewhis father would not kill him until he had made his confession. "'Thank you, and excuse us, ' said Cambremer to the priest, when he sawJacques' obstinacy. 'I wished to give a lesson to my son, and will askyou to say nothing about it. As for you, ' he said to Jacques, 'if youdo not amend, the next offence you commit will be your last; I shallend it without confession. ' "And he sent him to bed. The lad thought he could still get round hisfather. He slept. His father watched. When he saw that his son wassoundly asleep, he covered his mouth with tow, blindfolded himtightly, bound him hand and foot--'He raged, he wept blood, ' my motherheard Cambremer say to the lawyer. The mother threw herself at thefather's feet. "'He is judged and condemned, ' replied Pierre; 'you must now help mecarry him to the boat. ' "She refused; and Cambremer carried him alone; he laid him in thebottom of the boat, tied a stone to his neck, took the oars and rowedout of the cove to the open sea, till he came to the rock where he nowis. When the poor mother, who had come up here with herbrother-in-law, cried out, 'Mercy, mercy!' it was like throwing a stoneat a wolf. There was a moon, and she saw the father casting her soninto the water; her son, the child of her womb, and as there was nowind, she heard _blouf_! and then nothing--neither sound nor bubble. Ah!the sea is a fine keeper of what it gets. Rowing inshore to stop hiswife's cries, Cambremer found her half-dead. The two brothers couldn'tcarry her the whole distance home, so they had to put her into theboat which had just served to kill her son, and they rowed back roundthe tower by the channel of Croisic. Well, well! the belle Brouin, asthey called her, didn't last a week. She died begging her husband toburn that accursed boat. Oh, he did it! As for him, he became I don'tknow what; he staggered about like a man who can't carry his wine. Then he went away and was gone ten days, and after he returned he puthimself where you saw him, and since he has been there he has neversaid one word. " The fisherman related this history rapidly and more simply than I canwrite it. The lower classes make few comments as they relate a thing;they tell the fact that strikes them, and present it as they felt it. This tale was made as sharply incisive as the blow of an axe. "I shall not go to Batz, " said Pauline, when we came to the uppershore of the lake. We returned to Croisic by the salt marshes, through the labyrinth ofwhich we were guided by our fisherman, now as silent as ourselves. Theinclination of our souls was changed. We were both plunged into gloomyreflections, saddened by the recital of a drama which explained thesudden presentiment which had seized us on seeing Cambremer. Each ofus had enough knowledge of life to divine all that our guide had nottold of that triple existence. The anguish of those three beings roseup before us as if we had seen it in a drama, culminating in that ofthe father expiating his crime. We dared not look at the rock wheresat the fatal man who held the whole countryside in awe. A few cloudsdimmed the skies; mists were creeping up from the horizon. We walkedthrough a landscape more bitterly gloomy than any our eyes had everrested on, a nature that seemed sickly, suffering, covered with saltycrust, the eczema, it might be called, of earth. Here, the soil wasmapped out in squares of unequal size and shape, all encased withenormous ridges or embankments of gray earth and filled with water, tothe surface of which the salt scum rises. These gullies, made by thehand of man, are again divided by causeways, along which the laborerspass, armed with long rakes, with which they drag this scum to thebank, heaping it on platforms placed at equal distances when the saltis fit to handle. For two hours we skirted the edge of this melancholy checkerboard, where salt has stifled all forms of vegetation, and where no one evercomes but a few "paludiers, " the local name given to the laborers ofthe salt marshes. These men, or rather this clan of Bretons, wear aspecial costume: a white jacket, something like that of brewers. Theymarry among themselves. There is no instance of a girl of the tribehaving ever married any man who was not a paludier. The horrible aspects of these marshes, these sloughs, the mud of whichwas systematically raked, the dull gray earth that the Breton floraheld in horror, were in keeping with the gloom that filled our souls. When we reached a spot where we crossed an arm of the sea, which nodoubt serves to feed the stagnant salt-pools, we noticed with reliefthe puny vegetation which sprouted through the sand of the beach. Aswe crossed, we saw the island on which the Cambremers had lived; butwe turned away our heads. Arriving at the hotel, we noticed a billiard-table, and finding thatit was the only billiard-table in Croisic, we made our preparations toleave during the night. The next day we went to Guerande. Pauline wasstill sad, and I myself felt a return of that fever of the brain whichwill destroy me. I was so cruelly tortured by the visions that came tome of those three lives, that Pauline said at last, -- "Louis, write it all down; that will change the nature of the feverwithin you. " So I have written you this narrative, dear uncle; but the shock ofsuch an event has made me lose the calmness I was beginning to gainfrom sea-bathing and our stay in this place. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Note: A Drama on the Seashore is also known as A Seaside Tragedy andis referred to by that title in other addendums. Cambremer, Pierre Beatrix Lambert, Louis Louis Lambert A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Lefebvre Louis Lambert Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de Louis Lambert The Vicar of Tours