The Toilers of the Sea Read Online Free PDF

loose paving, and you find yourself in a bedouin town: hovels, potholes, streets with broken paving, burned-out gable ends, ruined houses, empty rooms without doors or windows in which grass grows, beams traversing the street, piles of rubble blocking the way, here and there a shack that is still inhabited, naked small boys, pale-faced women: you might think yourself in Zaatcha. 13 In St. Peter Port a watchmaker is a montrier; an auctioneer is an
encanteur;
a housepainter is a
picturier;
a building worker is a
plâtrier;
a foot doctor is a
chiropodiste;
a cook is a
couque;
to knock at the door is to
taper à l’hû.
Mrs. Pescott is
agente de douanes et
fournisseure de navires
(customs agent and ship’s chandler). A barber told his customers of the death of Wellington in these words:
Le com
mandant des soudards 14 est mort. Women go from door to door selling trifling wares bought in bazaars and markets: this is called
chiner.
The chineuses, who are very poor, are lucky if they earn a few doubles 15 in a day. A remark by one
chineuse
is significant: “You know, I’ve done well: I’ve set aside seven sous this week.” A friend of mine, encountering another
chineuse,
gave her five francs, whereupon she said: “Thank you, sir: now I’ll be able to buy wholesale.”
    In June the yachts begin to arrive, and the bay is filled with pleasure craft, most of them schooner-rigged, with some steam yachts. Some yachts may well cost their owner a hundred thousand francs a month. Cricket prospers, while boxing declines. Temperance societies are active; and, it must be said, they perform a useful function. They hold processions, carrying banners in an almost masonic display that softens the hearts even of the innkeepers. Barmaids can be heard saying, as they serve customers overfond of drink: “Have a glass, not a bottle.”
    The population is healthy, handsome, and well-behaved. The town prison is very often empty. At Christmas the jailer, if he has prisoners, gives them a small family banquet. The local architecture has its peculiarities, of which it is tenacious. The town of St. Peter Port is faithful to the queen, to the Bible, and to sash windows. In summer the men bathe naked. Swimming trunks are an indecency: they attract attention. Mothers excel in dressing their children: it is pretty to see the variety of toilettes they so skillfully devise for the little ones. Children go about alone in the streets, showing a sweet and touching confidence. Small children take the babies. In the matter of fashion Guernsey copies Paris, though not always: sometimes vivid reds or harsh blues reveal the English alliance. Nevertheless we have heard a local dress-maker, advising a fashionable Guernsey lady, say: “I think a ladylike and genteel color is best.”
    Guernsey is renowned for the work of its ship’s carpenters: the Careening Hard is lined with ships under repair. Vessels are hauled ashore to the sound of a flute. The flute player, say the master carpenters, is a better worker than the workmen. St. Peter Port has a Pollet 16 like Dieppe and a Strand like London. A respectable gentleman would not be seen in the street with a book or a portfolio under his arm, but he will go to the market on Saturday carrying a basket. A visit by a royal personage provided a pretext for erecting a tower. 17 The dead are buried within the town. College Street runs past two cemeteries, one on either side. Built into a wall is a tomb of 1610. L’Hyvreuse is a little square planted with grass and trees that can stand comparison with the most beautiful gardens in Paris’s Champs-Élysées, with the additional bonus of the sea. In the windows of the elegant shopping mall known as the Arcades can be seen advertisements such as this: “On sale here, the perfume recommended by the 6th Artillery Regiment.”
    The town is traversed in every direction by drays laden with barrels of beer and sacks of