II
One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by
the wild roaring of the wind! She sat up in her bed, trembling, but,
as she heard nothing more, she lay down again; almost immediately
there was a roar in the chimney which shook the entire house; it
seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of furious animals snorting
and roaring.
Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving
from all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and
all were watching the foaming crests of the breaking waves.
The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin
was among them.
In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the
Jeune-Amélie, was found. The bodies of his sailors were found
near Saint-Valéry, but his body was never recovered. As his vessel
seemed to have been cut in two, his wife expected and feared his return
for a long time, for if there had been a collision he alone might have
been picked up and carried afar off.
Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid
of him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar
or a peddler would enter suddenly.
One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her
husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped
before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose
furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction.
He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with
a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that
can talk like a lawyer, three francs!"
A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said: "You ought to buy
that, you who are rich. It would be good company for you. That bird is
worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always sell it for
twenty or twenty-five!"
Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit
her finger and drew blood.
"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.