The Fishing Hole
"Cuts and wounds which caused death." Such was the charge upon whichLeopold Renard, upholsterer, was summoned before the Court of Assizes.Round him were the principal witnesses, Madame Flameche, widow of thevictim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber.Near the criminal was his wife, dressed in black, an ugly little woman,who looked like a monkey dressed as a lady.This is how Renard (Leopold) recounted the drama."Good heavens, it is a misfortune of which I was the prime victim all thetime, and with which my will has nothing to do. The facts are their owncommentary, Monsieur le President. I am an honest man, a hard-workingman, an upholsterer, living in the same street for the last sixteenyears, known, liked, respected and esteemed by all, as my neighbors cantestify, even the porter's wife, who is not amiable every day. I am fondof work, I am fond of saving, I like honest men and respectableamusements. That is what has ruined me, so much the worse for me; but asmy will had nothing to do with it, I continue to respect myself."Every Sunday for the last five years my wife and I have spent the day atPassy. We get fresh air, and, besides, we are fond of fishing. Oh! weare as fond of it as we are of little onions. Melie inspired me withthat enthusiasm, the jade, and she is more enthusiastic than I am, thescold, seeing that all the mischief in this business is her fault, as youwill see immediately."I am strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me.But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin.Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that shehas some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones for a manin business. But her character! Just ask about it in the neighborhood,and even the porter's wife, who has just sent me about my business--shewill tell you something about it."Every day she used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not putup with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened to her,Monsieur le President, I should have had at least three hand-to-handfights a month . . . ."Madame Renard interrupted him: "And for good reasons, too; they laughbest who laugh last."He turned toward her frankly: "Well, I can't blame you, since you werenot the cause of it."Then, facing the President again, he said:"I will continue. We used to go to Passy every Saturday evening, so asto begin fishing at daybreak the next morning. It is a habit which hasbecome second nature with us, as the saying is. Three years ago thissummer I discovered a place, oh! such a spot. Oh, dear, dear! In theshade, eight feet of water at least and perhaps ten, a hole with cavitiesunder the bank, a regular nest for fish and a paradise for the fisherman.I might look upon that fishing hole as my property, Monsieur lePresident, as I was its Christopher Columbus. Everybody in theneighborhood knew it, without making any opposition. They would say:'That is Renard's place'; and nobody would have gone there, not evenMonsieur Plumeau, who is well known, be it said without any offense, forpoaching on other people's preserves."Well, I returned to this place of which I felt certain, just as if I hadowned it. I had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into Delila,with my wife. Delila is my Norwegian boat, which I had built byFournaire, and which is light and safe. Well, as I said, we got into theboat and we were going to set bait, and for setting bait there is none tobe compared with me, and they all know it. You want to know with what Ibait? I cannot answer that question; it has nothing to do with theaccident. I cannot answer; that is my secret. There are more than threehundred people who have asked me; I have been offered glasses of brandyand liqueur, fried fish, matelotes, to make me tell. But just go and trywhether the chub will come. Ah! they have tempted my stomach to get atmy secret, my recipe. Only my wife knows, and she will not tell it anymore than I will. Is not that so, Melie?"The president of the court interrupted him."Just get to the facts as soon as you can," and the accused continued:"I am getting to them, I am getting to them. Well, on Saturday, July 8,we left by the twenty-five past five train and before dinner we went toset bait as usual. The weather promised to keep fine and I said toMelie: 'All right for tomorrow.' And she replied: 'If looks like it,'We never talk more than that together."And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and that wasthe cause of everything. I said to Melie: 'Look here, Melie, it is fineweather, suppose I drink a bottle of 'Casque a meche'.' That is a weakwhite wine which we have christened so, because if you drink too much ofit it prevents you from sleeping and takes the place of a nightcap. Doyou understand me?"She replied: 'You can do as you please, but you will be ill again andwill not be able to get up tomorrow.' That was true, sensible andprudent, clearsighted, I must confess. Nevertheless I could not resist,and I drank my bottle. It all came from that."Well, I could not sleep. By Jove! it kept me awake till two o'clock inthe morning, and then I went to sleep so soundly that I should not haveheard the angel sounding his trump at the last judgment."In short, my wife woke me at six o'clock and I jumped out of bed,hastily put on my trousers and jersey, washed my face and jumped on boardDelila. But it was too late, for when I arrived at my hole it wasalready occupied! Such a thing had never happened to me in three years,and it made me feel as if I were being robbed under my own eyes. I saidto myself: 'Confound it all! confound it!' And then my wife began to nagat me. 'Eh! what about your 'Casque a meche'? Get along, you drunkard!Are you satisfied, you great fool?' I could say nothing, because it wasall true, but I landed all the same near the spot and tried to profit bywhat was left. Perhaps after all the fellow might catch nothing and goaway."He was a little thin man in white linen coat and waistcoat and a largestraw hat, and his wife, a fat woman, doing embroidery, sat behind him."When she saw us take up our position close to them she murmured: 'Arethere no other places on the river?' My wife, who was furious, replied:'People who have any manners make inquiries about the habits of theneighborhood before occupying reserved spots.'"As I did not want a fuss, I said to her: 'Hold your tongue, Melie. Letthem alone, let them alone; we shall see.'"Well, we fastened Delila under the willows and had landed and werefishing side by side, Melie and I, close to the two others. But here,monsieur, I must enter into details."We had only been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line beganto jerk twice, thrice; and then he pulled out a chub as thick as mythigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, theperspiration stood on my forehead and Melie said to me: 'Well, you sot,did you see that?'"Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeonfishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has takenyour usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied: 'Yes, Monsieur Bru,there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of commonpoliteness.'"The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of awife, either."Here the president interrupted him a second time: "Take care, you areinsulting the widow, Madame Flameche, who is present."Renard made his excuses: "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my angercarried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when thelittle man caught another chub, and another almost immediately, andanother five minutes later."Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling withrage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see thathe is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catchanything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands aretingling, just to think of it.'"But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then thispoacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,Monsieur le President, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring ourprovisions in Delila. But there! At noon the wretch produced a chickenin a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught another chub!"Melie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for ourheart was not in it."Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I readthe Gil Blas in the shade by the side of the water. It is Columbine'sday, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in the Gil Blas.I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by pretending to know thisColumbine. It is not true, for I do not know her and have never seenher, but that does not matter. She writes very well, and then she saysthings that are pretty plain for a woman. She suits me and there are notmany of her sort."Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and veryangry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who arepresent here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on theother side of the river. We knew each other by sight. The little manbegan to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with vexationand his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we will come herealways, Desire.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my back, and MadameRenard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have the blood of achicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her: 'Look here, I wouldrather 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 yourplace! Go, then, Bazaine!'"I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled out abream: Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then my wifebegan 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 setthe bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us back the money wehave spent on bait.'"Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean tocall us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments began tofly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They shouted soloud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank, began to callout by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will interfere withyour husbands' fishing.'"The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if wehad been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on thewater, 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 aregular 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 otherone, 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 hardwhen she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the hair and thenthump! thump! slaps in the face rained down like ripe plums. I shouldhave let them fight it out: women together, men together. It does not doto mix the blows. But the little man in the linen jacket jumped up likea devil and was going to rush at my wife. Ah! no, no, not that, myfriend! I caught the gentleman with the end of my fist, and crash!crash! One on the nose, the other in the stomach. He threw up his armsand legs and fell on his back into the river, just into the hole."I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le President, if Ihad had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the upperhand and was pounding Melie for all she was worth. I know I ought not tohave interfered while the man was in the water, but I never thought thathe would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will cool him.'"I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received wasscratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me fiveminutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I turnedround there was nothing to be seen.The water was as smooth as a lake and the others yonder kept shouting:'Fish him out! fish him out!' It was all very well to say that, but Icannot swim and still less dive."At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks, butover a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom of thehole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the poorlittle man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have swornto. I am innocent, on my honor."The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused wasacquitted.
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