The Drunkard
I
A northerly gale was blowing, sweeping across the sky vast wintry clouds, black and heavy, which in their passage flung furious showers of rain upon the earth.
The raging sea roared and shook the coast, hurling shorewards great slow-moving, frothing waves, which were shattered with the noise of a cannon. They came on quite quietly, one after another, mountain-high; at each squall they flung in the air the white foam of their crests like the sweat from monstrous heads.
The hurricane was sucked into the little valley of Yport; it whistled and moaned, tearing the slates from the roofs, smashing the shutters, throwing down chimneys, hurling such violent gusts along the streets that it was impossible to walk without clinging to the walls, and children would have been swept away like leaves and whisked over the houses into the fields.
The fishing-boats had been hauled up on dry land, for fear of the sea that at high tide would strip the beach clean, and some sailors, sheltered behind the round bellies of the vessels lying on their sides, were watching the fury of sky and sea.
Gradually they went away, for night was falling on the storm, wrapping in darkness the raging ocean and all the strife of angry elements.
Two men still remained, their hands in their pockets, their backs stooped under the squalls, their woollen caps crammed down to their eyes, two tall Norman fishermen, their necks fringed with bristling beards, their skins burnt by the salt gusts of the open sea, their eyes blue, with a black speck in the centre, the piercing eyes of sailors who see to the edge of the horizon, like birds of prey.
“Come along, Jérémie,” said one of them. “We’ll pass away the time playing dominoes. I’ll pay.”
But the other still hesitated, tempted by the game and the brandy, knowing well that he would get drunk again if he went into Parmelle’s, and held back, too, by the thought of his wife left all alone in the cottage.
“Anyone would say you’d made a bet to fuddle me every night. Tell me, now, what good does it do you, for you always pay?” he asked.
He laughed none the less at the idea of all the brandy he had drunk at another’s expense; he laughed the happy laugh of a Norman getting something for nothing.
His friend Mathurin still held him by the arm.
“Come along, Jérémie. It’s no night to go home with nothing warm in your belly. What are you afraid of? Won’t your old woman warm your bed for you?”
“Only the other night I couldn’t find the door at all,” replied Jérémie. “They pretty well fished me out of the brook in front of our place.”
The old scoundrel laughed again at the thought of it, and went quietly towards Parmelle’s café, where the lighted windows gleamed; he went forward, dragged by Mathurin and pushed by the wind, incapable of resisting the double force.
The low room was full of sailors, smoke, and clamour. All the men, clad in woollen jerseys, their elbows on the tables, were shouting to make themselves heard. The more drinkers that came in, the louder it was necessary to yell through the din of voices and the click of dominoes on marble, with the inevitable result that the uproar grew worse and worse.
Jérémie and Mathurin went and sat down in a corner and began a game; one after another the glasses of brandy disappeared in the depths of their throats.
Then they played more games, drank more brandy. Mathurin went on pouring it out, winking at the proprietor, a stout man with a face as red as fire, who was chuckling delightedly as if he were enjoying an interminable joke; and Jérémie went on swallowing the brandy, nodding his head, giving vent to a laughter like the roaring of a wild beast, staring at his comrade with a besotted, happy air.
All the company were going home. Each time that one of them opened the outer door in order to leave, a gust of wind entered the café, driving the thick smoke from the pipes into mad swirls, swinging the lamps at the end of their chains until the flames flickered; and then suddenly they would hear the heavy shock of a breaking wave and the howling of the gale.
Jérémie, his collar unfastened, was lolling drunkenly, one leg thrust out and one arm hanging down; in the other hand he held his dominoes.
They were by now left alone with the proprietor, who had come up to them with the sharpest interest.
“Well, Jérémie,” he asked, “does it feel good, inside? Has all the stuff you’ve poured down freshened you up, eh?”
“The more goes down,” spluttered Jérémie, “the drier it gets, in there.”
The innkeeper cast a sly glance at Mathurin.
“And what about your brother, Mathurin?” he said. “Where is he at the moment?”
“He’s warm all right, don’t you worry,” replied the sailor, shaking with silent laughter.
And the two of them looked at Jérémie, who triumphantly put down the double six, announcing:
“There’s the boss.”
When they had finished their game, the proprietor announced:
“Well, boys, I’m going to pack up. I’ll leave you the lamp and the bottle; there’s a franc’s worth of stuff still left in it. Lock the street door, Mathurin, won’t you, and slip the key under the shutter like you did the other night?”
“Right you are, don’t worry,” replied Mathurin.
Parmelle shook hands with his two belated customers, and stumped up the wooden stairs. For several minutes his heavy step resounded through the little house; then a loud bump announced that he had just got into bed.
The two men went on playing; from time to time the fury of the gale momentarily increased in violence; it shook the door and made the walls tremble. The two tipplers would raise their heads as though someone were coming in; then Mathurin would take the bottle and fill up Jérémie’s glass. But suddenly the clock over the counter struck twelve. Its husky chime resembled the clashing of saucepans, and the strokes resounded for a long time, jingling like old iron.
Promptly Mathurin rose, like a sailor whose watch is finished:
“Come along, Jérémie, we must vamose.”
The other set himself in motion with more difficulty, got his balance by leaning on the table; then reached the door and opened it while his companion was turning out the lamp.
When they were in the street Mathurin locked up the tavern and said:
“Well, good night; see you tomorrow.”
And he vanished in the darkness.
II
Jérémie advanced three steps, then wavered, thrust out his hands, found a wall to hold him upright, and went on again with tottering steps. Now and then a squall, rushing up the narrow street, hurled him forward into a run for several paces; then, when the violence of the swirling blast died down, he halted abruptly, his forward impulse lost, and began to waver drunkenly again upon his wayward legs.
Instinctively he went towards his own home, as birds towards their nest. He recognised his door at last and began to fumble at it in order to find the lock and put his key in it. He could not find the hole, and began to swear in a low voice. Then he knocked upon the door with his fists, calling to his wife to come and help him.
“Mélina! hi! Mélina!”
As he leant against the door to keep himself from falling, it yielded and swung open, and Jérémie, losing his support, collapsed into his house, and rolled on to his nose in the middle of his own dwelling-place. He felt something heavy pass over his body and escape into the night.
He did not move, overwhelmed with fright, bewildered, in terror of the devil, of ghosts, of all the mysterious works of darkness; for a long time he waited without daring to stir. But as he saw there were no further signs of movement, he recovered a little of his wits, the muddled wits of a hard drinker.
He sat up very softly. Again he waited for a long time, and at last, plucking up courage, murmured:
“Mélina!”
His wife did not answer.
A sudden misgiving crossed his darkened brain, an undefined misgiving, a vague suspicion. He did not move, he stayed there sitting on the ground, in the dark, ransacking his thoughts, brooding over unfinished speculations as unsteady as his feet.
Again he asked:
“Tell me who it was, Mélina. Tell me who it was. I won’t do anything to you.”
He waited. No voice rose in the darkness. He was thinking aloud, now.
“I’ve had a drop to drink, I have. I’ve had a drop to drink. It was him that treated me, the lubber; he did it, so as I wouldn’t go home. I’ve had a drop to drink.”
And then he went on in his former manner.
“Tell me who it was, Mélina, or I’ll do you a mischief.”
After another pause of waiting, he went on with the slow, obstinate logic of a drunken man.
“It was him that kept me at that swab Parmelle’s place; and all the other nights too, so as I mightn’t go home. He’s plotting with someone. Oh, the stinking swine!”
Slowly he rose to his knees. Blind rage was taking possession of him, mingling with the fumes of the liquor.
“Tell me who it was, Mélina,” he repeated, “or I’ll bash your head in, I give you fair warning!”
He was standing upright now, shaking all over in a blaze of fury, as though the alcohol in his body had caught fire in his veins. He made a step forward, bumped into a chair, snatched it up, walked on, reached the bed, fumbled at it, and felt under the clothes the warm body of his wife.
Then, mad with rage, he snarled:
“Oh! So you were there all the time, you slut, and wouldn’t answer!”
And, raising the chair he grasped in his strong fist, the sailor dashed it down in front of him with exasperated fury. A scream came wildly from the bed, a mad piercing scream. Then he began to beat at it like a thresher in a barn. Soon nothing stirred. The chair broke to pieces, but one leg remained in his hand, and he went on, panting.
Suddenly he stopped and asked:
“Now will you say who it was?”
Mélina did not answer.
At that, worn out with fatigue, besotted by his own violence, he sat down again on the ground, stretched himself to his full length, and went to sleep.
When dawn appeared, a neighbour, noticing that the door was open, came in. He found Jérémie snoring on the floor, where lay the remains of a chair, and, in the bed, a mess of blood and flesh.