Louis Gallait, Belgian
The Gorton’s Fisherman, Breaking It to His Wife That He’s Banging Mrs. Paul, 1848
Oil on panel
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Los Angeles, CA, USA
Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here, here, and here, perhaps in addition to what's in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// The fisherman cautioned his bride
that they’d have to wait here ‘til low tide.
She was bored and dismayed
and was willing to wade,
but her clothing would shrink as it dried.
/// Plus, the baby was finally sleeping.
(Until now, he’d been screeching and weeping.)
So they sat in the sand.
The horizon he scanned,
while she counted the hours slowly creeping.
/// He looked off, with a thousand-yard stare.
She gazed inward, of him unaware.
The babe peacefully snoozed
as the parents both used
this time planning a torrid affair.
/// But these people were plain fisher-folk.
Dreams of romance would go up in smoke.
He’d return to his fishing
and his wife, to her wishing.
Of their fantasies, neither one spoke.
/// Thus they lived all their lives in regret,
missing soulmates they never had met.
The child, now an adult,
had to weekly consult
with a shrink for his glum mal de tête.
/// Clearly “Fisherman’s Family” refers
to this trio, but here it occurs
to the fisherman’s wife,
looking back on her life,
that the kid in her lap isn’t hers.
/// He’d go fishing for months at a stretch.
She’d be happily free of the letch,
who enjoyed having sex,
(aboard ship, below decks),
but never with her, the chaste wretch.
/// And so, how is this child here on earth?
(Surely not a repeat virgin birth.)
Bastard child of a whore,
it was left at her door.
And she took it in, seeking self-worth.
/// When the seaman came home the next night,
he believed it was his (he’s not bright).
The child gets all her love,
she thanks Heaven above,
but she prays God her husband to smite.