Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the
village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with
the sea.

Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach.
Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails,
children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking
fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all
this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more
animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.

In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.

To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life--this became, after
a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.

The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well
adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds,
we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the
street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once
having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely
cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew
all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second,
the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles
and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained
admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly,
the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying
them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with
our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know