Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant (top ten ebook reader .txt) 📗

Then, along the hull of the boat, which suddenly heeled over and was running at top speed, there was a soft, crisp sound of water hissing and rushing past. The prow ripped up the sea like the share of a plough gone mad, and the yielding water it turned up curled over and fell white with foam, as the ploughed soil, heavy and brown, rolls and falls in a ridge. At each wave they met⁠—and there was a short, chopping sea⁠—the Pearl shivered from the point of the bowsprit to the rudder, which trembled under Pierre’s hand; when the wind blew harder in gusts, the swell rose to the gunwale as if it would overflow into the boat. A coal brig from Liverpool was lying at anchor, waiting for the tide; they made a sweep round her stern and went to look at each of the vessels in the roads one after another; then they put further out to look at the unfolding line of coast.

For three hours Pierre, easy, calm, and happy, wandered to and fro over the dancing waters, guiding the thing of wood and canvas, which came and went at his will, under the pressure of his hand, as if it were a swift and docile winged creature.

He was lost in daydreams, the dreams one has on horseback or on the deck of a boat; thinking of his future, which should be brilliant, and the joys of living intelligently. On the morrow he would ask his brother to lend him fifteen hundred francs for three months, that he might settle at once in the pretty rooms on the Boulevard François, 1er.

Suddenly the sailor said: “The fog is coming up, M’sieu Pierre. We must go in.”

He looked up and saw to the northward a gray shade, filmy but dense, blotting out the sky and covering the sea; it was sweeping down on them like a cloud fallen from above. He tacked for land and made for the pier, scudding before the wind and followed by the flying fog, which gained upon them. When it reached the Pearl, wrapping her in its intangible density, a cold shudder ran over Pierre’s limbs, and a smell of smoke and mould, the peculiar smell of a sea-fog, made him close his mouth that he might not taste the cold, wet vapour. By the time the boat was at her usual moorings in the harbour the whole town was buried in this fine mist, which did not fall but yet wetted everything like rain, and glided and rolled along the roofs and streets like the flow of a river. Pierre, with his hands and feet frozen, made haste home and threw himself on his bed to take a nap till dinnertime. When he made his appearance in the dining-room his mother was saying to Jean:

“The glass corridor will be lovely. We will fill it with flowers. You will see. I will undertake to care for them and renew them. When you give a party the effect will be quite fairy-like.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” the doctor asked.

“Of a delightful apartment I have just taken for your brother. It is quite a find; an entresol looking out on two streets. There are two drawing-rooms, a glass passage, and a little circular dining-room, perfectly charming for a bachelor’s quarters.”

Pierre turned pale. His anger seemed to press on his heart.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Boulevard François, 1er.”

There was no possibility for doubt. He took his seat in such a state of exasperation that he longed to exclaim: “This is really too much! Is there nothing for anyone but him?”

His mother, beaming, went on talking: “And only fancy, I got it for two thousand eight hundred francs a year. They asked three thousand, but I got a reduction of two hundred francs on taking for three, six, or nine years. Your brother will be delightfully housed there. An elegant home is enough to make the fortune of a lawyer. It attracts clients, charms them, holds them fast, commands respect, and shows them that a man who lives in such good style expects a good price for his words.”

She was silent for a few seconds and then went on:

“We must look out for something suitable for you; much less pretentious, since you have nothing, but nice and pretty all the same. I assure you it will be to your advantage.”

Pierre replied contemptuously:

“For me! Oh, I shall make my way by hard work and learning.”

But his mother insisted: “Yes, but I assure you that to be well lodged will be of use to you nevertheless.”

About halfway through the meal he suddenly asked:

“How did you first come to know this man Maréchal?”

Old Roland looked up and racked his memory:

“Wait a bit; I scarcely recollect. It is such an old story now. Ah, yes, I remember. It was your mother who made the acquaintance with him in the shop, was it not, Louise? He first came to order something, and then he called frequently. We knew him as a customer before we knew him as a friend.”

Pierre, who was eating beans, sticking his fork into them one by one as if he were spitting them, went on:

“And when was it that you made his acquaintance?”

Again Roland sat thinking, but he could remember no more and appealed to his wife’s better memory.

“In what year was it, Louise? You surely have not forgotten, you who remember everything. Let me see⁠—it was in⁠—in⁠—in fifty-five or fifty-six? Try to remember. You ought to know better than I.”

She did in fact think it over for some minutes, and then replied in a steady voice and with calm decision:

“It was in fifty-eight, old man. Pierre was three years old. I am quite sure that I am not mistaken, for it was in that year that the child had scarlet fever, and Maréchal, whom we knew then but very little, was of the greatest service to us.”

Roland exclaimed:

“To be sure⁠—very