At Bezons the river could be seen. The banks were lined with people, many men in frock-coats and others in blouses, women, children, and even young girls; they were all fishing.
Patissot immediately started for the dam where his friend Boivin was waiting. The latter greeted him rather coldly. He had just become acquainted with a big, fat man about fifty years old, having a sunburned countenance, who seemed very well informed on all fishing matters. The three men hired a boat and settled themselves almost under the fall of the dam, where the largest number of fish is generally found. Boivin was ready at once, and having baited his hook he threw it in the river and watched, motionless, with rapt attention, the bobbing of the tiny buoy. Occasionally he would pull the line out of the water and throw it in again further away. The fat man, after throwing his well-baited hooks, laid the rod by his side, filled his pipe and lighted it, folded his arms, and, without glancing once at the cork, dreamily fell to watching the water. Patissot tried to fasten his baits to the hooks, but they burst every time. After a few minutes he hailed Boivin: “Monsieur Boivin, would you be kind enough to put these creatures on the hooks? I have tried, but cannot succeed.” Boivin lifted his head. “I would request you not to interrupt me, Monsieur Patissot; we are not here for pleasure.” He baited the line, however, and Patissot threw it into the river, carefully imitating his friend’s motions.
The boat pitched recklessly, shaken by the waves and spun around like a top by the current, though it was anchored at both ends; and Patissot, absorbed in the sport, felt vaguely uncomfortable and dizzy.
They had taken nothing as yet; Père Boivin was getting very nervous and was shaking his head despairingly, and Patissot was very greatly affected thereby; only the fat man sat motionless and continued to smoke quietly, without paying the slightest attention to his line. At last, Patissot, becoming quite downhearted, turned to him and remarked sadly:
“They don’t bite, do they?”
He simply replied:
“No, they don’t!”
Patissot considered him with surprise.
“Do you sometimes make a good haul?”
“Never!”
“What! never?”
The fat man, smoking like a factory chimney, let out the following words which filled his neighbor with consternation:
“You see, I wouldn’t like it a bit if they did bite. I don’t come here to fish, but merely because I like the spot; you get a good shaking up, as you do on the sea. If I take a rod along, I only do it to appear like the rest of them.”
Monsieur Patissot quite to the contrary, was feeling miserable. His discomfort, at first ill defined, was increasing and taking on a definite form. He felt indeed, as if he were on the ocean and decidedly seasick.
After the first attack had passed off, he proposed that they should leave, but Boivin became furious at this suggestion and almost annihilated him. The fat man, however, moved by pity, insisted on returning, and when Patissot’s dizziness was dispelled they bethought themselves of breakfast.
Two restaurants were near at hand. One was quite small and looked like a beer-garden, being patronized by the poorer class of fishermen. The other, called Le Châlet des Tilleuls, looked like a cottage, and drew the élite of the sportsmen. The two hosts, born enemies, watched each other with keen hatred across a field that separated them, on which the house of the dam-keeper and garde-pêche was built. Of these two officials, one was in favor of the beer-garden and the other of the cottage, and the dissensions of those isolated houses reproduced the history of the entire human race.
Boivin, who patronized the beer-garden, wished to go there, saying: “The service is excellent and it’s cheap; you will see. Anyway, Monsieur Patissot, don’t hope to get me intoxicated, as you did last Sunday; my wife was furious, and swears that she will never forgive you!”
The fat man declared that Les Tilleuls was the only place for him, because, he said, it was a fine house where the cooking was as good as in the best Paris restaurants. “As you please,” replied Boivin, “I’m going where I always go.” And he departed. Vexed at his friend, Patissot followed the fat man.
They breakfasted together, exchanged their views on various subjects, communicated their impressions, and discovered that they were made for each other.
After breakfast everyone went back to fish, but the two new friends started to walk along the bank and stopped near the railway bridge. They threw out their lines and began to talk. The fish still refused to bite, but Patissot had become resigned.
A family came up. The father wore a beard and carried an immensely long rod; three boys of different sizes were carrying poles of various lengths, according to age; and the portly mother gracefully held a charming rod decorated at the handle with a ribbon. The father bowed.
“Is this spot favorable, gentlemen?” he inquired.
Patissot was going to speak when his friend answered:
“Fine!”
The whole family smiled and settled around the two fishermen. Patissot felt then an overpowering desire to catch something, just one fish of any kind, if only as big as a fly, so as to win the consideration of these people; and he began to handle his rod as he had seen Boivin handle his that morning. He would let the cork follow the stream to the end of the line, then gave a jerk and pulled the hook out of the river; then describing a large circle in the air, he would throw it in a little farther away.
He was thinking he had mastered the trick of throwing the line gracefully, when suddenly the rod that he had just jerked with a rapid wrist motion caught somewhere behind him. He pulled; a scream rent the air, and he beheld fastened to one of the hooks and traveling
