She was a fat, jolly woman in those days, and she liked to see children pleased and happy around her. In this she was in no way exceptional, in Saint-Féliu or anywhere else, but she was exceptional for Saint-Féliu in that she succeeded – succeeded, that is, in making them pleased and happy when they were with her. It was not that she was clever – far from that. She was rather a stupid woman, and given to long spells of absence, during which she would stare in front of her like a glazed cow, thinking of nothing at all; but by some gift of being she was better at the management of a child than any woman in the quarter. It may have been her plumpness, for fat people are said to be calm of spirit, or it may have been some natural sweetness, but whatever the cause, the house never knew those screaming, tearing scenes that broke out three or four times a day somewhere along the street, those horribly commonplace rows in which a woman, dark with hatred and anger, may be seen dragging a child by the arm, flailing at its head, and screaming, screaming, screaming a great piercing flood of abuse, sarcasm and loathing right into its convulsed and wretched little face. These scenes were so ordinary in Saint-Féliu that anyone turning to stare would be known at once for a foreigner.

***

Dominique could not be shocked by what she had seen for all her life – could not react from the normal – but she was exceptional, and she remained exceptional. She did not batter her little girl about, she did not pull her hair, she did not slap her legs and shriek abuse at her – her voice did not even possess the bitter scolding note of the daily shrew. this was something so rare that it would have earned her the dislike of the street (no people are quicker to resent an implied criticism) if it had not been for the fact that Madeleine was, in general, somewhat less irritating than the other children: therefore, of course, there was no virtue in Dominique’s not beating her. Not that Madeleine was what could by any distortion of the term be called a good child, whatever the neighbors might say: she was dirty (when she was a little girl), untruthful, and dishonest. But being less battered, she was less dirty, untruthful, and dishonest than the rest. Certainly she was less irritating, for not only was she endowed with a happy, affectionate nature, but also with a mother who was protected from the smaller vexations of the world by well-ordered nerves and a high degree of mental calm: for in the matter of irritation, it is essential that there whould be two people present; the worst-bred ape of a child cannot be irritating alone in a howling wilderness, and Madeleine, even at the worst, could not provoke a mother removed by a boundless expanse of absence, sitting at her counter or leaning on it, with her eyes round, wide open, and fixed upon nothing, nothing whatever.

***

Yes, that would be his Uncle Thomas, called Menjé-Pé, a fanatical fisherman: he was fishing now. He was one of the few in the family who still had a current nick-name, Fish-eater, and who did not mind it: for most of the family the called-names had been left behind a generation ago. But Menjé-Pé was something of a throwback; was it because he always spoke Catalan or was it because he was a simple that they still called him Menjé-Pé? Not the latter, for Uncl Joseph was gaga, and he had no nickname. He was flailing about. Had he caught something? No. In all probability he had just caught up his hook and lead and lost them. Sixty years ago Menjé-Pé had started fishing; he was fourteen then, and he had the zeal and the lack of skill of his age. He still had the same zeal, but somehow he had avoided gaining any skill: he caught nothing but idiot fish.

***

‘Oh, you are not going to start your piece of democracy again, are you, Alain? Of course, I know one has to say all kinds of fine things in public, but no one really believes it, do they? Except the lower classes. They are very good people, often, astonishingly good when you consider what kind of lives they lead, bt it is just hypocritical nonsense to pretend that they are not brutish, insensitive, gross, and terribly, terribly limited. There is just as much difference between a man of an educated family that has had money for two or three generations and a laborer as there is between a white man and one of your Hottentots, as anyone knows who has lived or worked among them.’

‘Is Madeleine a Hottentot?’

‘No. But her relations are: and staying here, Xavier would of necessity marry them all. (…)’

The Catalans (Patrick O’Brian).