l, and then she says
things that are pretty plain for a woman. She suits me and there are not
many of her sort.

"Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and very
angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who are
present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on the
other side of the river. We knew each other by sight. The little man
began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with vexation
and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we will come here
always, Desire.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my back, and Madame
Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have the blood of a
chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her: 'Look here, I would
rather go away or I shall be doing something foolish.'

"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my
nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender
your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'

"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled out
a bream: Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then my
wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see her
tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing that
we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us back the
money we have spent on bait.'

"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean
to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments began
to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They shouted so
loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank, began to call
out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will interfere with
your husbands' fishing.'

"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if we
had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on the
water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the same.
'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a regular
jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.

"Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other
one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol. Whack,
whack! Melie got two of them. But she was furious, and she hits hard
when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the hair and then
thump! thump! slaps in the face rained down like ripe plums. I should
have let