"Never fear, and keep up a good heart," said he, in a strange kind of voice. You would never guess what he did, and perhaps will hardly believe when I tell you.
Ordinarily a very temperate, steady man, he astonished the company by giving out that he intended to throw a little life into the fête. On this he ordered wine and cider, and lastly a plentiful supply of brandy.
In a very little time he was helplessly drunk, or at least pretended to be so. As the evening wore on, he got from bad to worse, insulted and quarrelled with the men, and fairly disgusted the women. The village was in an uproar, and there was not a soul who did not speak in strong terms of the disgraceful conduct of Jaques. At the earnest entreaty of the worthy [{118}] fellow we kept our counsel, and accordingly the new marriage was at once broken off.
The rest of my story you know almost as well as I do myself. You see my life from day to day. You can picture to yourself my sorrow and my unhappy position. You can see how little she has changed.
And yet we can never be more to one another than we are now. Never. Never! We are married, and yet we are not. We are separated, alas, here on earth, but we must be united in heaven. Think of the years that have passed, and think how happy we might have been, and what a thread there was between our present existence and the life we long to lead. God's will be done!
Poor Pierre here let his head fall into his hands, and wept in silence.
How could I comfort the poor fellow?
It was not the kind of grief that needed consolation, and so I let him weep on.
All at once a breeze sprung up and filled the sails. Pierre immediately roused himself, but soon relapsed into his accustomed calm quiet manner.
Both the other sailors now came on deck, the nets were thrown over, and the business of the night began.