“Ma! I was small then,” began the fisherman apologetically, as if he would be less awkward now. “It was in my grandfather’s bragozzo, one night in March. We were blown on to the Punta dei Sabbioni, and the boat broke in two.” He stopped as if there were nothing more to say.
“Well, what happened? How did you get ashore?”
“God knows,” replied the fisherman. “We fell into the water, and after a while I woke up with men rubbing me. My grandfather was there, too. My father and my brother were drowned.”
“And then?”
“What was there to do then? We went home.”
The picture of this common little seashore drama flared up in the painter’s imagination. He was impatient that it should be told him so barely. He wanted a hundred details, and he could not think how to bring them out.
“What did your mother do?” he asked, desperate.
“What do women do? She cried.”
“Did they find your father and brother?”
“My father, yes; but not my brother. This makes one feel sleepy after being in the water, doesn’t it?” He closed his eyes, turning a little his head from the sun.