Pauline looked extremely annoyed. The Prouanes had no boat, but made their living by catching crabs and shrimps and gathering mussels. With the additional profits of the vergership they might have lived in decent comfort if it had not been for their drinking habits. The father and mother were often to be seen lying in their doorway stupefied by 'calvados,' the strong, raw, cyder-brandy of Normandy, while the little girl stepped over their legs to drain their glasses. When no 'calvados' was to be had, Prouane drank his daughter's quinine-wine.
'And to think I took so much trouble to make it for you!' said Pauline. 'Well, for the future, I shall keep the bottle here, and you will have to come up every afternoon at five o'clock. And I will give you a little minced raw meat. The doctor has ordered it for you.'
It was next the turn of a big twelve-year-old boy, Cuche's son, a lean and scraggy stripling. Pauline gave him a loaf, some stewed meat, and also a five-franc piece. His was another wretched story. After the destruction of their house Cuche had deserted his wife, and gone to live with a female cousin, and the wife was now taking refuge in an old dilapidated Coastguard watch-house, where she led an immoral life. The lad, who kept with her and shared the little she had, was almost starving, but whenever any suggestion was made of rescuing him from that wretched den he bolted off like a wild goat. Louise turned her head away with an air of disgust when Pauline, without the slightest embarrassment, told her the boy's story. She, Pauline, had grown up in a free unrestrained way, and looked with charity's unflinching eye upon the vices of humanity. Louise, on the other hand, initiated into knowledge of life by ten years spent at boarding-schools, blushed at the ideas which Pauline's words suggested. In her estimation these were matters which people thought of, but should not mention.
'The other little girl there,' Pauline went on, 'that fair-haired little child, who is so rosy and bonny, is the daughter of the Gonins, with whom that rascal Cuche has taken up his quarters. She is nine years old. The Gonins were once very comfortably off, and had a smack of their own, but the father was attacked with paralysis in the legs, a very common complaint in our villages about here, and Cuche, who was only a common seaman to begin with, soon made himself the master. Now the whole house belongs to him, and he bullies the poor old man, who passes his days and nights inside an old coal-chest, while Cuche and the wife lord it over him. I look after the child myself, but I am sorry to say she comes in for a good many cuffings at home, and is unfortunately much too shrewd and noticing.'
Here Pauline stopped and turned to the child to question her.
'How are they all getting on at home?' she asked.
The child had watched Pauline while the latter was explaining matters in an undertone. Her pretty but vicious face smiled slyly at what she guessed was being said.
'Oh, they've beaten him again,' she said, still continuing to smile. 'Last night mother got up and caught hold of a log of wood. Ah! Mademoiselle, it would be very good of you to give father a little wine, for they have put an empty jug by the chest, telling him that he may drink till he bursts.'
Louise made a gesture of disgust. What horrible people! How could Pauline take any interest in such dreadful things? Was it really possible that near a big town like Caen there existed such hideous places, where people lived in that utterly barbarous fashion?[4] For, surely, they could be nothing less than savages, to thus trample under foot all law, both divine and human.
'There! there! I have had quite enough of your young friends,' she said, in a low tone, as she went to sit down near Chanteau. 'I should not mourn for them very much if the sea were to sweep them all away.'