Sunday 7 January 1894
The storm was battering the Normandy coast. It had swept through the British Isles, attacked the Pas de Calais and had now reached the Cotentin peninsula, where it was venting its full force on the La Hague headland.
Corentin Jourdan lay fully dressed on his four-poster bedlistening to the great gusts and squalls shaking the walls. The fire flickered. A piece of canvas hung from the mantelpiece to stop the smoke filling the room. The flames threw bright, fleeting tongues of light onto the copper cistern and the old grandfather clock. Two carved birds’ heads seemed about to fly away from the corners of the wardrobe. A raucous miaowing briefly made itself heard above the tumult: the terrified cat was scratching at the front door.Corentin sat up. A ball of dirty fur with a pink nose and curly whiskers hurtled in through the cat flap and burrowed into the warmth of the eiderdown.
‘Now, Gilliatt, is that any way for an old ship’s mascot tobehave? There’s nothing to get excited about!’
An explosion of noise drowned out his words: the thatched roof of the shed had just been torn off. Corentin grew more and more anxious as he heard the tempest attack his stock of dry logs, and he tried to calculate the damage. He would have to get the roof seen to by old Pignol, a real
