The Salt Smugglers Read Online Free PDF

because it printed the description of a passion, — a very genuine passion for that matter, — that was evoked in the course of the narrative of a journey to Greenland.
    This might well prevent me from entertaining you with a very curious episode which I have just observed at Versailles, — where I had traveled in order to see whether the library of this city contained the work I am in search of.
    The library is situated in one of the buildings of the castle. And I was able to verify the fact that, — like many of the Parisian libraries, — it was still closed for the summer holidays.
    As I made my way back from the castle along the allée de Saint-Cloud, I found myself in the midst of a fair which is annually held here during this month.
    My eyes were automatically drawn to an immense billboard advertising the performance of an educated seal.
    I had seen this same seal in Paris the previous year, — and I had admired the eloquence with which he said pappa-mamma and had nuzzled up to his young trainer, — all of whose commands he faithfully followed.
    I have always had a tender spot for seals, ever since I heard the following anecdote recounted in Holland:
    This is not a novel, — if one is to believe the Dutch. — These animals act as guide dogs to fishermen; their heads are canine, their eyes bovine, and their whiskers feline. — During fishing season, they follow alongside the boats and herd in the fish when the fishermen are having a hard time catching them.
    These mammals are quite sensitive to the winter cold and every fisherman has his own seal whom he allows to flop around in his house and who, more often than not, curls up by the hearth, waiting for a morsel bubbling in the pot.

THE STORY OF A SEAL
    Once there was a fisherman and his wife. They were very poor, — it had been a bad year and there was not enough food to go around for their family. The fisherman said to his wife: « This seal is eating all the food of our children. I think I’ll take him out to the sea and throw him back in. He’ll join up with his companions; during the winter, they all retire to into their sea-caves on beds of algae and manage to find fish to eat in feeding-grounds known only to them. »
    The fisherman’s wife pleaded with her husband to have mercy on the seal. — But soon the thought that her children might die of hunger caused her to desist.

    At the break of dawn the fisherman placed the seal in the bottom of his boat and, having sailed several leagues out to sea, deposited it on an island. The seal started gamboling about with his fellow creatures without realizing that the boat was leaving him in the lurch.
    Upon returning to his house, the fisherman sighed at the loss of his companion. — But the seal had beaten him back home and lay there waiting for him, drying out in front of the hearth. — The family put up with their hunger for another few days, but unable to stand his children’s cries of distress, the fisherman grew stronger in his resolve.
    This time he sailed far further out to sea and tossed the seal into the waves, far from the shore.
    With his fins, shaped almost like hands, the seal repeatedly tried to grasp hold of the gunwales of the boat. Exasperated, the fisherman lifted up one of his oars and slammed it down, smashing one of the fins. The seal let out a plaintive cry that was almost human and disappeared into the waves, stained red with his blood.
    The fisherman returned home heart-broken. — This time there was no seal to greet him at the hearth.
    But that same night, the fisherman heard cries in the street. He thought that someone was being murdered and rushed out to help.
    There was the seal on his doorstep. It had dragged itself to his house and was whimpering piteously, — holding the bloodied stump of its fin skyward.
    They took the seal in, dressed its wound, and never again did they think of exiling it from the family