Afloat (Sur l'eau)

by Guy de Maupassant

To the right of the channel, Sainte-Maxime, a little white port, is mirrored in the water which reflects the houses topsy-turvy, and reproduces them as distinctly as on shore. Opposite, Saint-Tropez appears, guarded by an old fort.

At seven o'clock Bel-Ami anchored by the quay, at the side of the little steamboat which carries on the service with Saint-Raphaël. The only means of communication between this isolated little port, and the rest of the world is by this Lion de Mer, an old pleasure yacht, which runs in connection with a venerable diligence, that carries the letters, and travels at night by the one road which crosses the mountains.

This is one of those charming and simple daughters of the sea, one of those nice modest little towns; which, fed upon fish and sea air, and breeder of sailors, is as much a produce of the sea as any shell. On the jetty, stands a bronze statue of the Bailli de Suffren.

The pervading smell is one of fish and smoking tar, of brine and hulls. The stones in the streets glitter like pearls, with the scales of the sardines, and along the walls of the port, a population of lame and paralysed old sailors bask in the sun, on the stone benches. From time to time they talk of past voyages, and of those they have known in bygone days, the grandfathers of the small boys running yonder. Their hands and faces are wrinkled, tanned, browned, dried by the wind, by fatigue, by the spray, by the heat of the tropics and by the icy cold of Northern seas, for they have seen, in their roamings over the ocean, the ins and outs of the world, every aspect of the earth and of all latitudes. In front of them, propped upon a stick, passes and repasses the old captain of the merchant service, who formerly commanded the Trois-Soeurs, or the Deux-Amis, or the Marie-Louise or the Jeune-Clémentine.

All salute him, like soldiers answering the roll-call, with a litany of "Good day, captain," modulated in many tones.

This is a true land of the sea, a brave little town, briny and courageous, which fought in days of yore against the Saracens, against the Duc d'Anjou, against the wild corsairs, against the Connétable de Bourbon, and Charles-Quint, and the Duc de Savoie, and the Duc d'Epernon. In 1637, the inhabitants, fathers of these peaceful citizens, without any assistance repelled the Spanish fleet, and every year they renew with surprising realism, the representation of the attack and their defence, filling the town with noisy bustle and clamour, strangely recalling the great popular festivities of the middle ages.

In 1813, the town likewise repulsed an English flotilla, that had been sent against it.

Now it is a fishing town, and the produce of its fisheries supplies the greater part of the coast with tunny, sardines, loups, rock-lobsters, and all the pretty fish of this blue sea.