ng as _that_,"
he added, marking a line on his thumb, "and hair like the cherubim. When
you ask her: 'Tell me, Perotte' (That's how we say Pierette in these
parts," he remarked, interrupting himself; "she is vowed to Saint
Pierre; Cambremer is named Pierre, and he was her godfather)--'Tell
me, Perotte, what does your uncle say to you?'--'He says nothing to me,
nothing.'--'Well, then, what does he do to you?' 'He kisses me on the
forehead, Sundays.'--'Are you afraid of him?'--'Ah, no, no; isn't he 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 well say 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 it a
mania; is it crime, is it--"

"Eh, monsieur, there's no one but my father and I who know the real
truth. My late mother was servant in the family of a lawyer to whom
Cambremer told all by order of the priest, who wouldn't give him
absolution until he had done so--at least, that's what the folks of
the port say. My poor mother overheard Cambremer without trying to;
the lawyer's kitchen was close to the office, and that's how she heard.
She's dead, and so is the lawyer. My mother made us promise, my father
and I, not to talk about the matter to the folks of the neighborhood;
but I can tell you my hair stood on end the night she told 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 the
Cambremers, who from father to son have always been sailors; their name
says it--the sea bends under them. Pierre was a deep-sea fisherman. He
had boats, and fished for sardine, also for the big fishes, and sold
them to dealers. He'd have charted a large vessel and trawled for cod
if he hadn't loved his wife so much; she was a fine woman, a Brouin
of Guerande, with a good heart. She loved Cambremer so much that she
couldn't bear to have her man leave her for longer than to fish sardine.
They lived over there, look!" said the fisherman, going up a hillock to
show us an island in the little Mediterranean between the dunes where
we were walking and the marshes of Guerande. "You can see the house from
here. It belonged to him. Jacquette Brouin and Cambremer had only one
son,