appreciation and laughter. But Eusebe by this time
would be lost in his dreams, which had wafted him
far away from la Tarasque and Saint Loup to the
paradise of Mahomet.
Sometimes Madame Roustan would come in and
drink coffee, for although she was always berating
the place, there was just a vague chance that she
might glimpse Goundran. But Goundran seldom went
to cafes these days, for now it was needful that he
should save money — fishing vessels cost a good deal
to run when a man is responsible for his own tackle
— so after awhile Madame Roustan would go home
very angry indeed with the little Elise and her aunt,
whom she blamed for her wasted evening.
Jouse might wander along from the town to get a
breath of salt air at the harbour; he might even stop
for a glass of beer and a small cigarette with the patronne
of la Tarasque. She was stout, beetle-browed, and
courageous in brawls; indeed she had once seized a
drunken sailor by the hair and had dragged him into
the street, whereupon he had burst into tears on her
bosom. When the fun ran so high that it ended in
tempers —for these people were but little removed
from children — the patronne would thump her fist
on the desk, and would threaten to close the bar for
the night, which quite often reduced the chaos to
order. Mere Melanie, they called her, though why
God only knew, for in wedlock she had proved herself
stubbornly sterile. And now that her husband had
been drowned at sea, it was said that she lived with the
little violinist — the little violinist with the hump on
his back who drew such shrill, teasing tunes from his
fiddle. It was also said that she beat him when he
drank, and conversely, that he beat her hard every
night before they retired to their unhallowed couch;
but since neither of the pair ever turned black and
blue it was not at all easy to prove these assertions.
62