The Salt Smugglers Read Online Free PDF Page B

hearth; — for from that moment on, the catch had gotten much better.
    There is no way that this legend could seem dangerous to you. — It contains not a single mention of the word love.
    Yet I feel quite ambivalent about disclosing what it was I overheard at the seal exhibit at the Versailles fair. I’ll leave it up to you to evaluate the dangers that a narrative of this sort might represent.
    I was, for openers, rather surprised not to discover the seal whom I had seen the previous year. The one currently on display is of another color altogether and far plumper.
    There were two soldiers there from camp Sabory, — a sergeant and a fusilier, both of whom were admiring the seal in the idiom of their regiment, in this case a blend of Alsatian and military slang.
    Expertly following the baton movements of his trainer, the seal had already executed a number of tricks in the water. The sergeant had cast into the pool one of those disdainful glances that are proof that a man has seen many educated seals in his time:
    THE SERGEANT: I bet you couldn’t leap around like that in the waterrrs of the sea.
    THE FUSILIER: Well that would probably depend. I reckon I could if the water wasn’t too cold and I was wearing a fur jacket like this seal.
    THE SERGEANT: What do you mean by a furrr jacket?
    THE FUSILIER: Go ahead sir and just touch it.
    (The sergeant prepares to feel the seal.)
    THE TRAINER: No you don’t! This seal is ferocious when he’s not fed ...
    THE SERGEANT, disdainfully: I’ve seen seals in Algierrrs that were three or four times longer; true, they didn’t
have furrr , but they did have scales ... In fact I don’t think this kind of seal exists in Afrrikerr!
    THE TRAINER: My apologies, Sarge; this here seal was caught in Cape Verde.
    THE SERGEANT: Oh, so he was captured in Cape Verrrde , was he? ... well, that changes everything ... I guess the men who pulled this fish out of the waterrr . . . must have had a tough time of it! ...
    THE TRAINER: As a matter of fact, Sarge, it was me and my brother ... And yes, he was not pleasant to the touch.
    THE SERGEANT, to the fusilier: You see what I told you. 1
    THE FUSILIER, nonplussed by his line of argument, yet nonetheless resigned: You’re right, Sarge, all the way.
    His vanity flattered, the sergeant offered a few coins to see the seal having lunch, for his midday meal depended on the liberality of the visitors.
    Soon, the other spectators also having chipped in, a suitable number of herrings had been collected so that the seal was now ready to show off his tricks in the green-painted pool.
    Â« He’s approaching the edge of the pool, said the trainer. He’s sniffing out the herrings to see if they are fresh ... If they are not, he’ll refuse to put on a good show. »
    The seal seemed to be satisfied and proceeded to say Pappa and Mamma with a Northern accent whose intonations nonetheless did not interfere with intelligibility of the syllables.
    Â« He’s talking Dutch, said the sergeant. I thought you said he had been caught in Cape Verrrde!
    â€” True enough. But even when they swim south they don’t lose their accent ... These are trips they take during the summer, for health reasons, then they return back north, — unless, that is, they are caught, as was the case with this one, so they can get to visit Versailles. »
    After the lessons in phonetics, each of which was rewarded by the ingurgitation of a herring, it was time for a display of gymnastics; — the seal stood up on his tail, whose symmetrical flanges almost resemble human feet; then executed a number of flips and pivots through the water, guided by his trainer’s baton and by the promise of further herrings.
    I admired how much the spirit of the North was at work in these creatures, hybrid though they were. They will only bow to authority if provided with certain guarantees.
    Once the exhibition was over, the trainer showed us