The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-14
THE DROWNED NAN.


Every one in Fecamp knew the story OF
Mother Patin. She had certainly not been
happy with her man, had Mother Patin,
for her man used to beat her, when he was
| alive, as they thresh the wheat on the
threshing floors.
He was master of fishing smack, and
had married her long ago because she was
pleasant, although she was poor.
Patin, a good sailor, but brutal, fire.
quented the drinking shop of old Auban,
where he drank regularly every day his
| four or five little nips, and on days of luck
| at sea, eight or ten or even more, just &C
cording to how good he felt, as he said.
The drink was served to patrons by old
| Auban's daughter, brown girl, good to
| look at, and who drew custom by her pleas
| ant manners solely-for no one had ever
| limited word against her.
Patin, when he came into the shop, was
content with looking at her, and his con-
versation was polite, the civil remarks of a
| decent fellow. After he had drunk his
| first glass of brandy he began to find her
more attractive: at the second he winked
his eye at her; at the third he would say,
'If only you liked, Mamzelle Desiree''-
| without ever finishing his sentence; with
| the fourth he tried to catch her by the
skirts, to kiss her; and when he went as
| high as ten her father brought him the
other ones.
| The old wine seller, who was up to all
| the tricks, sent Desiree round among the
| tables to stimulate the orders; and Desiree,
who was net her fathers favorite for moth
ing, fitted in and out among the custom
ers, joking with them, with laughing
mouth and swapping eye.
What with drinking his little nips, Patin
became so used to the face of Desiree that
he kept thinking of her even out at sea,
when he was casting his nets, far out,
windy nights and calm, nights of moon
light and nights of cloud. He thought on
her, gripping the helm in the stern of his
boat, while his four comrades were sleep
ing, their heads on their arms. He saw
her, always smiling, pouring him the yell
low brandy with a swing Of the shoulder,
then saying as she went:
"There! Does that suit your"
And at last, keeping her thus in eye and
mind, he was seized with such longing to
marry her that, unable to fight any longer
against it, he asked for her hand.
He was well off, owner of his boat, of his
nets and of house at the foot of the hill
on the Reserve, while old Auban had moth
ing. So he was received with enthusiasm,
and the wedding came off at the earliest
possible day, both parties wishing to hurry
matters for different reasons.
But three days after the marriage Patin
was utterly unable to conceive how he
could have thought Desiree different from
any other woman. Well, he must have
been fool! to tie himself up with a girl
without a cent who had bewitched him
with her rum, for sure, liquor that she'd
put some filthy charm into for him.
And he swore, up and down the tide,
breaking his pipe between his teeth, abus-
ing his outfit; and having cursed copiously
in all the customary terms at everything
he could think of, he spit forth the rest of
his choler on the fish and the Holsters
taken one by one from his nets, never
throwing them into the basket without an
accompaniment of scolding and bad names
Then, home again, having within reach
of tongue and hand his wife, old Auban's
girl, it was not long before he was treating
her like the lowest of the low in his speech.
Then. as she heard him resignedly, used to
that sort of thing already from her father
he grew exasperated at her silence, and one
evening struck her. After that their life
was frightful.
For ten years they talked of nothing else
on the Reserve but the furnishings Patin
gave his wife, and his way of swearing at
her whenever he addressed her. He swore,
in fact, in an individual style, with rich
ness of vocabulary and a sorority of organ
equaled by no other man in Fecamp
From the moment his boat appeared at the
entrance of the harbor, coming back from
the fishing, they awaited the first voley he
would launch from his deck to the jetty as
soon as he saw the white cap of his help
mate.
He stood up in the stern, steering, his
eye ahead or ON the sail when the sea was
high, and, spite of the prescriptions of
the narrow and difficult channel, spite of
the waves from the deep that piled up in it
like mountains, he sought to make out
among the women waiting for the fishers
Under the spray of the surges, his own old
Auban's girl, the jade!
Then, when hesaw her, for all the clamor
of the waves and wind, he turned out on
her string of abuse, with such a strength
of throat that every nelaughed, although
they were honestly sorry for her. Then
way of discharging his ballast of civili- |
ties, as he called it, all the while unloading
his fish, that drew around his tying up
place all the rapscallions and ioafers OF the /
port.
1t came out of his mouth sometimes ike /
cannon shots, short and awful, sometimes /
like peals OF thunder that rolled out for /
FIVE minutes such hurricane of objurga-
tons that he seemed to have in his lungs /
all the storms of heaven.
Then when be was off his boat and found /
himself face TO face with her, in the middle I
of a crowd Of idlers and fishwomen, he /
fshed out OF the bottom of his hold 1
whole new cargo of insults and abuse, and /
escorted her home with these, she in front, /
he behind; she crying, he shouting.
Alone with her, the doors shut, he struck /
her on the slightest pretext. Anything /
was enough 20 make him lift his hand, and /
once began he never stopped, casting then /
in her face the real grounds of his hate.
With each slap, with each thump he vo-
ciferated: "Ahi ye penniless wench! ali!
We ragged, hungry jadel a pretty thing
did the day ever washed my mouth with
the rotgut Of your thief OF father"
She lived poor woman, in state OF in
cessant terror, in a constant tremble OF
soul and body. in affrighted expectation of
outrage and blows And this lasted for
ten years. She was so timorous that she
would grow pale when talking TO any one,
and hethought OF nothing save the beat
ings hanging over her, and she had become
lean, dry and yellow.
/