OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

THE SAILORS' RENDEZVOUS 255
It all gave the impression of a placid, mediocre existence.
" There was no contract, but we had an understanding, and
everybody knew that we'd end up by getting married. I supplied
the house, the furniture, and the linen. . . . Nothing would have
been altered and we should have been quite comfortable, especially
in three years when he'd have had his pension...."
From the windows one could see the grocer's opposite, the
sloping street and the pavement where children were playing.
" Then last winter he met that woman and everything was
upset. At his age, too! ... Is it possible to get so infatuated
about a creature like that? And he made such a mystery out of it.
He must have gone to Le Havre or somewhere to see her,
because they were never seen together. I felt there was something
in the wind. He bought thinner underwear . . . and even silk
socks once! As there was nothing between us it was none of my
business, and I didn't want to appear to be defending my own
interests. . . ."
A whole side of the dead man's life was cleared up by this
conversation with Madame Bernard. The little man, well on in
years, who came back to port after a fishing trip and spent the winter
living like a good bourgeois with Madame Bernard, who looked
after him and waited for him to marry her.
He ate with her in the dining-room under the portrait of the first
husband with the blond moustache. Then he would go to his room
and read an adventure story.
And suddenly this peaceful existence was disturbed. Another
woman appeared. Captain Fallut began to frequent Le Havre, to
dress better and to shave more closely, even bought silk socks and
hid from his landlady.
But he wasn't married or engaged. He was free, yet he never once
showed himself at Fecamp with the stranger.
Was it la grande passion, life's great adventure arriving rather
late? Or merely a sordid affair?
•
Maigret arrived at the beach and saw his wife sitting on a redstriped
deck-chair, and beside her Marie L^onnec sewing.
Some people were bathing on the beach, which was white in the
sun. A lazy sea. And over there, on the other side of the jetty, the
Ocian lay in the dock, with her cargo of cod still in process of being