The Return
The sea is fretting the shore with small recurring waves. Small white clouds pass rapidly across the wide blue sky, swept along like birds by the swift wind; and the village, in a fold of a valley which descends to the sea, lies drowsing in the sun. By the side of the road, at the very entrance to the village, stands the lonely dwelling of the Martin-Lévesques. It is a small fisherman’s cottage with clay walls and a roof of thatch made gay with tufts of blue iris. There is a square patch of front garden the size of a pocket-handkerchief, containing onions, some cabbages, parsley, and chevril, and separated from the road by a hedge.
The man is away fishing, and his wife is sitting in front of the house, mending the meshes of a large brown net spread upon the wall like a gigantic spider’s web. A little girl of fourteen is sitting near the gate in a cane chair tilted back and supported against the fence; she is mending linen, miserable stuff already well darned and patched. Another girl a year younger is rocking in her arms a tiny child still too young to walk or talk, and two mites of two and three are squatting on the ground, opposite each other, digging in the earth with clumsy fingers and throwing handfuls of dust in one another’s faces.
No one speaks. Only the baby that is being rocked to sleep cries incessantly in a weak, thin, small voice. A cat is asleep on the windowsill; some faded pinks at the foot of the wall make a fine patch of white blossom, over which hovers a drowsy swarm of flies.
The little girl sewing by the gate cries out abruptly:
“Mother!”
“What is it?” her mother answers.
“He’s here again.”
Ever since the morning they have been uneasy, for a man has been prowling round the house, an old man who looks like a beggar. They saw him as they were taking their father to his ship, to see him on board. He was sitting in the ditch opposite their gate. Then, when they came back from the seashore, they saw him still looking at the house.
He looked ill and very wretched. For more than an hour he had not stirred; then, seeing that they looked on him as a bad character, he had got up and gone off, dragging one leg behind him.
But before long they had seen him return with his weary limp, and he had sat down again, a little farther off this time, as though to spy upon them.
The mother and the little girls were afraid. The mother was particularly uneasy, for she was by nature timid, and her husband, Lévesque, was not due back from the sea before nightfall.
Her husband’s name was Lévesque, and hers was Martin, and the pair had been baptised Martin-Lévesque. This is why: her first husband had been a sailor named Martin who went every summer to the Newfoundland cod-fisheries. After two years of married life she had borne him a little daughter and was six months gone with another child, when her husband’s ship, the Two Sisters, a three-masted barque from Dieppe, disappeared.
No news of it was ever heard, no member of the crew returned, and it was thought lost with all hands.
For ten years Madame Martin waited for her man, having a hard struggle to bring up the two children. Then, as she was a fine strong woman, a local fisherman named Lévesque, a widower with one son, asked her to marry him. She consented, and bore him two other children in three years.
Their life was hard and laborious. Bread was dear, and meat almost unknown in the household. Sometimes they were in debt to the baker, in the winter, during the stormy months. But the children grew up strong; the neighbours said:
“They’re good folk, the Martin-Lévesques. She’s as hard as nails, and there’s no better fisherman than Lévesque.”
The little girl sitting by the fence went on:
“He looks as though he knew us. Perhaps he’s some beggar from Épreville or Auzebosc.”
But the mother was sure of the truth. No, no, he wasn’t a local man, that was certain.
As he remained motionless as a log, his eyes fixed obstinately upon the cottage, Madame Martin lost her temper; fear lending her courage, she seized a spade and went out in front of the gate.
“What are you doing there?” she cried to the vagabond.
“I’m taking the air,” he replied in a hoarse voice. “Am I doing you any harm?”
“What are you playing the spy for round my house?” she replied.
“I’m doing no one any harm,” he answered. “Can’t I sit down by the roadside?”
Not finding an answer, she went back into the house.
Slowly the day dragged by. Round about midday the man disappeared. But near five o’clock he wandered past once more. He was not seen again that evening.
Lévesque came home at nightfall and was told of the affair.
“Some dirty rascal slinking about the place,” he decided.
He went to bed with no anxiety, while his wife dreamed of this tramp who had stared at her with such strange eyes.
When dawn came a gale was blowing, and the sailor, seeing that he could not put out to sea, helped his wife to mend the nets.
About nine o’clock the eldest girl, one of Martin’s children, who had gone out for some bread, ran in with a scared face, and cried:
“He’s back again, mother.”
Her mother felt a prick of excitement; very pale, she said to her husband:
“Go and tell him not to spy on us like this, Lévesque; it’s fairly getting on my nerves.”
Lévesque was a big fisherman with a brick-red face, a thick red beard, blue eyes with gleaming black pupils, and a strong neck always well wrapped up in a woollen scarf, to protect him from the wind and rain of the open sea. He went out calmly and marched up to the tramp.
And they began to talk.
The mother and children watched from the distance, trembling with excitement.
Suddenly the unknown man got up and accompanied Lévesque towards the house.
Madame Martin recoiled from him in terror. Her husband said:
“Give him a bit of bread and a mug of cider; he hasn’t had a bite since the day before yesterday.”
The two of them entered the cottage, followed by the woman and the children. The tramp sat down and began to eat, his head lowered before their gaze.
The mother stood and stared at him; the two eldest daughters, Martin’s children, leaned against the door, one of them holding the youngest child, and stared eagerly at him. The two mites sitting among the cinders in the fireplace stopped playing with the black pot, as though to join in gaping at the stranger.
Lévesque sat down and asked him:
“Then you’ve come from far?”
“From Cette.”
“On foot, like that?”
“Yes. When you’ve no money, you must.”
“Where are you going?”
“I was going here.”
“Know anyone in these parts?”
“Maybe.”
They were silent. He ate slowly, although ravenous, and took a sip of cider between each mouthful of bread. His face was worn and wrinkled, full of hollows, and he had the air of a man who has suffered greatly.
Lévesque asked him abruptly:
“What’s your name?”
He answered without raising his head:
“My name is Martin.”
A strange shudder ran through the mother. She made a step forward as though to get a closer view of the vagabond, and remained standing in front of him, her arms hanging down and her mouth open. No one spoke another word. At last Lévesque said:
“Are you from these parts?”
“Yes, I’m from these parts.”
And as he at last raised his head, his eyes met the woman’s and remained gazing at them; it was as though their glances were riveted together.
Suddenly she said in an altered voice, low and trembling:
“Is it you, husband?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he said slowly.
He did not move, but continued to munch his bread.
Lévesque, surprised rather than excited, stammered:
“It’s you, Martin?”
“Yes, it’s me,” said the other simply.
“Where have you come from?” asked the second husband.
He told his story:
“From the coast of Africa. We foundered on a reef. Three of us got away, Picard, Vatinel, and me.
“Then we were caught by savages, who kept us twelve years. Picard and Vatinel are dead. An English traveller rescued me and brought me back to Cette. And here I am.”
Madame Martin had begun to cry, hiding her face in her apron.
“What are we to do now?” said Lévesque.
“Is it you that’s her husband?” asked Martin.
“Yes, it’s me,” replied Lévesque.
They looked at one another and were silent.
Then Martin turned to the circle of children round him and, nodding towards the two girls, asked:
“Are they mine?”
“Yes, they’re yours,” said Lévesque.
He did not get up; he did not kiss them. He only said:
“God, they’re big!”
“What are we to do?” repeated Lévesque.
Martin, perplexed, had no idea. Finally he made up his mind:
“I’ll do as you wish. I don’t want to wrong you. But it’s annoying when I think of the house. I’ve two children, you’ve three; let’s each keep our own. As for the mother, is she yours, or shall I have her? I agree to whatever you like, but as for the house, that’s mine, for my father left it me, I was born in it, and the lawyer’s got the papers about it.”
Madame Martin was still crying, stifling her short gasps in the blue canvas of her apron. The two tall girls had drawn nearer and were looking uneasily at their father.
He had finished eating, and said in his turn:
“What are we to do?”
Lévesque had an idea:
“We must get the rector. He’ll decide.”
Martin rose, and as he went towards his wife she flung herself upon his breast, sobbing:
“It’s you, husband! Martin, my poor Martin, it’s you!”
She held him in her arms, suddenly stirred by a breath of the past, by an anguished rush of memories that reminded her of her youth and of her first kisses.
Martin, much affected, kissed her bonnet. The two children by the fireplace both began to cry when they heard their mother cry, and the youngest of all, in the arms of the younger Martin daughter, howled in a shrill voice like a fife out of tune.
Lévesque stood up and waited.
“Come on,” he said. “We must get it put straight.”
Martin let go of his wife and, as he was looking at his two daughters, their mother said:
“You might kiss your da.”
They came up together, dry-eyed, surprised, a little frightened. He kissed them one after another, on both cheeks, with a loud, smacking kiss. The baby, seeing the stranger draw near, screamed so violently that it nearly fell into convulsions.
Then the two men went out together.
As they passed the Café du Commerce, Lévesque asked:
“How about a little drink?”
“Yes, I could do with some,” declared Martin. They went in and sat down in the room, which was still empty. Lévesque shouted:
“Hey, there, Chicot, two double brandies, and the best! It’s Martin, he’s come back; Martin, you know, my wife’s man; Martin of the Two Sisters, that was lost.”
The barman came up, three glasses in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other, a red-faced, podgy, potbellied man. In a calm voice he asked:
“Ah! Here you are, then, are you, Martin?”
Martin answered:
“Yes, here I am.”