Fishing is a fine-weather sport, a leisure activity, and in this story by Guy de Maupassant, a hobby shared by two friends. Before the war Mssrs. Morissot and Sauvage went to the river regularly; now the area is dangerous, the days are literally not so bright, and they must refrain. The weather itself is here a symbol of war and deprivation, Morissot noting mournfully at the beginning that the day he chances upon his friend on the boulevard “is the first fine day of the year!” Maupassant notes as well that the sky is “a bright, cloudless blue.” The story takes place in early spring – for months to have gone by in the year without a beautiful day is telling, for during these same months France has been subject to Prussian occupation. This also represents the happiness and relief of the friends to run into each other – the only beautiful day of the year is also the first day they will spend together since the beginning of the war. The day they pretend nothing is wrong.