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,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 things to please him;it was out of all reason the way they indulged him,and so folks told them.The little Cambremer,seeing that he was never thwarted,grew as vicious as a red ass.When they told pere Cambremer,'Your son has nearly killed little such a one,'he would laugh and say:'Bah!he'll be a bold sailor;he'll command the king's fleets.'--Another time,'Pierre Cambremer,did you know your lad very nearly put out the eye of the little Pougard girl?'--'Ha!he'll like the girls,'said Pierre.Nothing troubled him.At ten years old the little cur fought everybody,and amused himself with cutting the hens'necks off and ripping up the pigs;in fact,you might say he wallowed in blood.
'He'll be a famous soldier,'said Cambremer,'he's got the taste of blood.'Now,you see,"said the fisherman,"I can look back and remember all that--and Cambremer,too,"he added,after a pause."By the time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or sixteen years of age he had come 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 robbed his mother,who didn't dare say a word to his father.Cambremer was an honest man who'd have tramped fifty miles to return two sous that any one had overpaid him on a bill.At last,one day the mother was robbed of everything.During one of his father's fishing-trips Jacques carried 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 hidden from the father,and she feared him--not for herself,you may be sure of that.When Pierre Cambremer came back and saw furniture in his house 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 be arrested in Nantes.He walked there on foot,which is faster than by sea,put his hands on his son,and compelled him to return home.Once here,he did not ask him,'What have you done?'but he said:--"'If you do not conduct yourself properly at home with your mother and me,and go fishing,and behave like an honest man,you and I will have a reckoning.'
"The crazy fellow,counting on his parent's folly,made a face;on which Pierre struck him a blow which sent Jacques to his bed for six weeks.The poor mother nearly died of grief.One night,as she was fast asleep beside her husband,a noise awoke her;she rose up quickly,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,he thought it was the doing of robbers,--as if we ever had any in these parts,where you might carry ten thousand francs in gold from Croisic to Saint-Nazaire without ever being asked what you had in your arms.