and
waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that
every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he arrived
at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the fish, in such
an expressive manner that he attracted around him all the loafers of
the neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes like shots from a
cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of thunder, which roll
and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of oaths that he seemed to
have in his lungs one of the storms of the Eternal Father.

When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,
surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a
new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in front,
he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.

At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her on
the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him raise
his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he would throw
into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow he would roar:
"There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you pauper! What a bright
thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your rascal of a father's
apology for brandy."

The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of body
and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.

This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale
whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the blows
with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more yellow and
drier than a smoked fish.

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 hear 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 wave.

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-Amelie,
was found. The bodies of his sailors were found near Saint-Valery, but
his body was never recove