Classic from the year 2009 in the subject Romance Languages - French
Literature, language: English, abstract: Chapter 1 "Tschah!" exclaimed
old Roland suddenly, after he had remained motionless for a quarter of
an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, while now and again he very
slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea. Mme. Roland, dozing in the
stern by the side of Mme. Rosémilly, who had been invited to join the
fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head to look at her husband,
said: "Well, well! Gerome." And the old fellow replied in a fury: "They
do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only men should
ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it is too late." His
two sons, Pierre and Jean, who each held a line twisted round his
forefinger, one to port and one to starboard, both began to laugh, and
Jean remarked: "You are not very polite to our guest, father." M. Roland
was abashed, and apologized. "I beg your pardon, Mme. Rosémilly, but
that is just like me. I invite ladies because I like to be with them,
and then, as soon as I feel the water beneath me, I think of nothing but
the fish." Mme. Roland was now quite awake, and gazing with a softened
look at the wide horizon of cliff and sea. "You have had good sport, all
the same," she murmured. But her husband shook his head in denial,
though at the same time he glanced complacently at the basket where the
fish caught by the three men were still breathing spasmodically, with a
low rustle of clammy scales and struggling fins, and dull, ineffectual
efforts, gasping in the fatal air. Old Roland took the basket between
his knees and tilted it up, making the silver heap of creatures slide to
the edge that he might see those lying at the bottom, and their
death-throes became more convulsive, while the strong smell of their
bodies, a wholesome reek of brine, came up from the full depths of the
creel. The old fisherman sniffed it eagerly, as we smell at roses, and
exclaimed: "Cristi! But they are
