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The Fete At Coqueville
by
“See!” said Margot, who had the best eyes of the coast, “it is Fouasse and Rouget who are rowing–The little one is standing up in the bow.”
She called Delphin “the little one” so as not to mention his name. And from then on they followed the course of the bark, trying to account for her strange movements. As the cure said, she appeared to be giving chase to some great fish that might be fleeing before her. That seemed extraordinary. The Emperor pretended that their net was without doubt being carried away. But La Queue cried that they were do-nothings, and that they were just amusing themselves. Quite certain they were not fishing for seals! All the Floches made merry over that joke; while the Mahes, vexed, declared that Rouget was a fine fellow all the same, and that he was risking his skin while others at the least puff of wind preferred terra firma. The Abbe Radiguet was forced to interpose again for there were slaps in the air.
“What ails them?” said Margot abruptly. “They are off again!” They ceased menacing one another, and every eye searched the horizon, The “Baleine” was once more hidden behind the point. This time La Queue himself became uneasy. He could not account for such maneuvres. The fear that Rouget was really in a fair way to catch some fish threw him off his mental balance. No one left the beach, although there was nothing strange to be seen. They stayed there nearly two hours, they watched incessantly for the bark, which appeared from time to time, then disappeared. It finished by not showing itself at all any more. La Queue, enraged, breathing in his heart the abominable wish, declared that she must have sunk; and, as just at that moment Rouget’s wife appeared with Brisemotte, he looked at them both, sneering, while he patted Tupain on the shoulder to console him already for the death of his brother, Fouasse. But he stopped laughing when he caught sight of his daughter Margot, silent and looming, her eyes on the distance; it was quite possibly for Delphin.
“What are you up to over there?” he scolded. “Be off home with you! Mind, Margot!”
She did not stir. Then all at once: “Ah! there they are!”
He gave a cry of surprise. Margot, with her good eyes, swore that she no longer saw a soul in the bark; neither Rouget, nor Fouasse, nor any one! The “Baleine,” as if abandoned, ran before the wind, tacking about every minute, rocking herself with a lazy air.
A west wind had fortunately risen and was driving her toward the land, but with strange caprices which tossed her to right and to left. Then all Coqueville ran down to the shore. One half shouted to the other half, there remained not a girl in the houses to look after the soup. It was a catastrophe; something inexplicable, the strangeness of which completely turned their heads. Marie, the wife of Rouget, after a moment’s reflection, thought it her duty to burst into tears. Tupain succeeded in merely carrying an air of affliction. All the Mahes were in great distress, while the Floches tried to appear conventional. Margot collapsed as if she had her legs broken.
“What are you up to again!” cried La Queue, who stumbled upon her.
“I am tired,” she answered simply.
And she turned her face toward the sea, her cheeks between her hands, shading her eyes with the ends of her fingers, gazing fixedly at the bark rocking itself idly on the waves with the air of a good fellow who has drunk too much.
In the meanwhile suppositions were rife. Perhaps the three men had fallen into the water? Only, all three at a time, that seemed absurd.
La Queue would have liked well to persuade them that the “Baleine” had gone to pieces like a rotten egg; but the boat still held the sea; they shrugged their shoulders. Then, as if the three men had actually perished, he remembered that he was Mayor and spoke of formalities.