Ги де Мопассан
Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant
THE PIECE OF STRING
It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long, crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes the left-shoulder higher, and bends their figures side-ways; from reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope. And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth, enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.
Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.
In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled multitude of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high, long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the head-dresses of the women came to the surface of that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration, giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to country folks.
Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, had just arrived at Goderville and was making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a little piece of string. Maitre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and was carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maitre Malandain, the harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever since. Maitre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being seen by his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches, pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in two by rheumatic pains.
He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows, went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together, with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.
They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the smaller price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was starting to go away:
“All right, I’ll let you have them, Mait’ Anthime.”
Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.
At Jourdain’s the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast court was filled with vehicles of every sort – wagons, gigs, chars-a-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name, yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose on the ground and their rear in the air.
Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace, with its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those who sat at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens, with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast meat and of gravy flowing over crisp brown skin arose from the hearth, kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.
All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Mait’ Jourdain’s, the innkeeper’s, a dealer in horses also and a sharp fellow who had made a great deal of money in his day.
The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales. They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens, but too wet for grain.
Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house. Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and napkins in their hand.
When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a jerky voice, pausing in the wrong places:
“Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o’clock, a black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are requested to return it to the mayor’s office at once or to Maitre Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward.”
Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
He asked:
“Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?”
Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table answered:
“Here I am, here I am.”
And he followed the corporal.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
“Maitre Hauchecorne,” said he, “this morning on the Beuzeville road, you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maitre Houlbreque, of Manneville.”
The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement frightened already at this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.
“I – I picked up that pocketbook?”
“Yes, YOU.”
“I swear I don’t even know anything about it.”
“You were seen.”
“I was seen – I? Who saw me?”
“M. Malandain, the harness-maker.”
Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger, said:
“Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string here, M’sieu le Maire.”
And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the little end of string.
But the mayor incredulously shook his head:
“You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain, who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for a pocketbook.”
The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
“For all that, it is God’s truth, M’sieu le Maire. There! On my soul’s salvation, I repeat it.”
The mayor continued:
“After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of it.”
The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
“How can they tell – how can they tell such lies as that to slander an honest man! How can they?”
His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.
The news had spread. When he left the mayor’s office the old man was surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered. And he began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe him. They laughed.
He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing in them.
They said to him:
“You old rogue!”
He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being believed, and kept on telling his story.
The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
That evening he made the round of the village of Breaute for the purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
He brooded over it all night long.
The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbreque, of Manneville.
This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his master.
The news spread to the environs. Maitre Hauchecorne was informed. He started off at once and began to relate his story with the denoument. He was triumphant.
“What grieved me,” said he, “was not the thing itself, do you understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so much harm as being in disgrace for lying.”
All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks behind his back.
On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville, prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him pass. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let hire finish, and giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach cried in his face: “Oh, you great rogue!” Then he turned his heel upon him.
Maitre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy. Why had they called him “great rogue”?
When seated at table in Jourdain’s tavern he began again to explain the whole affair.
A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
“Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string.”
Hauchecorne stammered:
“But since they found it again, the pocketbook!”
But the other continued:
“Hold your tongue, daddy; there’s one who finds it and there’s another who returns it. And no one the wiser.”
The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a confederate.
He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a good trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day, each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less he was believed.
“Those are liars proofs,” they said behind his back.
He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless efforts.
He was visibly wasting away.
Jokers would make him tell the story of “the piece of string” to amuse them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of December he took to his bed.
He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony, he protested his innocence, repeating:
“A little bit of string – a little bit of string. See, here it is, M’sieu le Maire.”
VOLUME IX
TOINE
He was known for thirty miles round was father Toine – fat Toine, Toine-my-extra, Antoine Macheble, nicknamed Burnt-Brandy – the innkeeper of Tournevent.
It was he who had made famous this hamlet buried in a niche in the valley that led down to the sea, a poor little peasants’ hamlet consisting of ten Norman cottages surrounded by ditches and trees.
The houses were hidden behind a curve which had given the place the name of Tournevent. It seemed to have sought shelter in this ravine overgrown with grass and rushes, from the keen, salt sea wind – the ocean wind that devours and burns like fire, that drys up and withers like the sharpest frost of winter, just as birds seek shelter in the furrows of the fields in time of storm.
But the whole hamlet seemed to be the property of Antoine Macheble, nicknamed Burnt-Brandy, who was called also Toine, or Toine-My-Extra-Special, the latter in consequence of a phrase current in his mouth:
“My Extra-Special is the best in France:”
His “Extra-Special” was, of course, his cognac.
For the last twenty years he had served the whole countryside with his Extra-Special and his “Burnt-Brandy,” for whenever he was asked: “What shall I drink, Toine?” he invariably answered: “A burnt-brandy, my son-in-law; that warms the inside and clears the head – there’s nothing better for your body.”
He called everyone his son-in-law, though he had no daughter, either married or to be married.
Well known indeed was Toine Burnt-Brandy, the stoutest man in all Normandy. His little house seemed ridiculously small, far too small and too low to hold him; and when people saw him standing at his door, as he did all day long, they asked one another how he could possibly get through the door. But he went in whenever a customer appeared, for it was only right that Toine should be invited to take his thimbleful of whatever was drunk in his wine shop.
His inn bore the sign: “The Friends’ Meeting-Place” – and old Toine was, indeed, the friend of all. His customers came from Fecamp and Montvilliers, just for the fun of seeing him and hearing him talk; for fat Toine would have made a tombstone laugh. He had a way of chaffing people without offending them, or of winking to express what he didn’t say, of slapping his thighs when he was merry in such a way as to make you hold your sides, laughing. And then, merely to see him drink was a curiosity. He drank everything that was offered him, his roguish eyes twinkling, both with the enjoyment of drinking and at the thought of the money he was taking in. His was a double pleasure: first, that of drinking; and second, that of piling up the cash.
You should have heard him quarrelling with his wife! It was worth paying for to see them together. They had wrangled all the thirty years they had been married; but Toine was good-humored, while his better-half grew angry. She was a tall peasant woman, who walked with long steps like a stork, and had a head resembling that of an angry screech-owl. She spent her time rearing chickens in a little poultry-yard behind the inn, and she was noted for her success in fattening them for the table.
Whenever the gentry of Fecamp gave a dinner they always had at least one of Madame Toine’s chickens to be in the fashion.
But she was born ill-tempered, and she went through life in a mood of perpetual discontent. Annoyed at everyone, she seemed to be particularly annoyed at her husband. She disliked his gaiety, his reputation, his rude health, his embonpoint. She treated him as a good-for-nothing creature because he earned his money without working, and as a glutton because he ate and drank as much as ten ordinary men; and not a day went by without her declaring spitefully:
“You’d be better in the stye along with the pigs! You’re so fat it makes me sick to look at you!”
And she would shout in his face:
“Wait! Wait a bit! We’ll see! You’ll burst one of these fine days like a sack of corn-you old bloat, you!”
Toine would laugh heartily, patting his corpulent person, and replying:
“Well, well, old hen, why don’t you fatten up your chickens like that? just try!”
And, rolling his sleeves back from his enormous arm, he said:
“That would make a fine wing now, wouldn’t it?”
And the customers, doubled up with laughter, would thump the table with their fists and stamp their feet on the floor.
The old woman, mad with rage, would repeat:
“Wait a bit! Wait a bit! You’ll see what’ll happen. He’ll burst like a sack of grain!”
And off she would go, amid the jeers and laughter of the drinkers.
Toine was, in fact, an astonishing sight, he was so fat, so heavy, so red. He was one of those enormous beings with whom Death seems to be amusing himself – playing perfidious tricks and pranks, investing with an irresistibly comic air his slow work of destruction. Instead of manifesting his approach, as with others, in white hairs, in emaciation, in wrinkles, in the gradual collapse which makes the onlookers say: “Gad! how he has changed!” he took a malicious pleasure in fattening Toine, in making him monstrous and absurd, in tingeing his face with a deep crimson, in giving him the appearance of superhuman health, and the changes he inflicts on all were in the case of Toine laughable, comic, amusing, instead of being painful and distressing to witness.
“Wait a bit! Wait a bit!” said his wife. “You’ll see.”
At last Toine had an apoplectic fit, and was paralyzed in consequence. The giant was put to bed in the little room behind the partition of the drinking-room that he might hear what was said and talk to his friends, for his head was quite clear although his enormous body was helplessly inert. It was hoped at first that his immense legs would regain some degree of power; but this hope soon disappeared, and Toine spent his days and nights in the bed, which was only made up once a week, with the help of four neighbors who lifted the innkeeper, each holding a limb, while his mattress was turned.
He kept his spirits, nevertheless; but his gaiety was of a different kind – more timid, more humble; and he lived in a constant, childlike fear of his wife, who grumbled from morning till night:
“Look at him there – the great glutton! the good-for-nothing creature, the old boozer! Serve him right, serve him right!”
He no longer answered her. He contented himself with winking behind the old woman’s back, and turning over on his other side – the only movement of which he was now capable. He called this exercise a “tack to the north” or a “tack to the south.”
His great distraction nowadays was to listen to the conversations in the bar, and to shout through the wall when he recognized a friend’s voice:
“Hallo, my son-in-law! Is that you, Celestin?”
And Celestin Maloisel answered:
“Yes, it’s me, Toine. Are you getting about again yet, old fellow?”
“Not exactly getting about,” answered Toine. “But I haven’t grown thin; my carcass is still good.”
Soon he got into the way of asking his intimates into his room to keep him company, although it grieved him to see that they had to drink without him. It pained him to the quick that his customers should be drinking without him.
“That’s what hurts worst of all,” he would say: “that I cannot drink my Extra-Special any more. I can put up with everything else, but going without drink is the very deuce.”
Then his wife’s screech-owl face would appear at the window, and she would break in with the words:
“Look at him! Look at him now, the good-for-nothing wretch! I’ve got to feed him and wash him just as if he were a pig!”
And when the old woman had gone, a cock with red feathers would sometimes fly up to the window sill and looking into the room with his round inquisitive eye, would begin to crow loudly. Occasionally, too, a few hens would flutter as far as the foot of the bed, seeking crumbs on the floor. Toine’s friends soon deserted the drinking room to come and chat every afternoon beside the invalid’s bed. Helpless though he was, the jovial Toine still provided them with amusement. He would have made the devil himself laugh. Three men were regular in their attendance at the bedside: Celestin Maloisel, a tall, thin fellow, somewhat gnarled, like the trunk of an apple-tree; Prosper Horslaville, a withered little man with a ferret nose, cunning as a fox; and Cesaire Paumelle, who never spoke, but who enjoyed Toine’s society all the same.
They brought a plank from the yard, propped it upon the edge of the bed, and played dominoes from two till six.
But Toine’s wife soon became insufferable. She could not endure that her fat, lazy husband should amuse himself at games while lying in his bed; and whenever she caught him beginning a game she pounced furiously on the dominoes, overturned the plank, and carried all away into the bar, declaring that it was quite enough to have to feed that fat, lazy pig without seeing him amusing himself, as if to annoy poor people who had to work hard all day long.
Celestin Maloisel and Cesaire Paumelle bent their heads to the storm, but Prosper Horslaville egged on the old woman, and was only amused at her wrath.
One day, when she was more angry than usual, he said:
“Do you know what I’d do if I were you?”
She fixed her owl’s eyes on him, and waited for his next words.
Prosper went on:
“Your man is as hot as an oven, and he never leaves his bed – well, I’d make him hatch some eggs.”
She was struck dumb at the suggestion, thinking that Prosper could not possibly be in earnest. But he continued:
“I’d put five under one arm, and five under the other, the same day that I set a hen. They’d all come out at the same time; then I’d take your husband’s chickens to the hen to bring up with her own. You’d rear a fine lot that way.”
“Could it be done?” asked the astonished old woman.
“Could it be done?” echoed the man. “Why not? Since eggs can be hatched in a warm box why shouldn’t they be hatched in a warm bed?”
She was struck by this reasoning, and went away soothed and reflective.
A week later she entered Toine’s room with her apron full of eggs, and said:
“I’ve just put the yellow hen on ten eggs. Here are ten for you; try not to break them.”
“What do you want?” asked the amazed Toine.
“I want you to hatch them, you lazy creature!” she answered.
He laughed at first; then, finding she was serious, he got angry, and refused absolutely to have the eggs put under his great arms, that the warmth of his body might hatch them.
But the old woman declared wrathfully:
“You’ll get no dinner as long as you won’t have them. You’ll see what’ll happen.”
Tome was uneasy, but answered nothing.
When twelve o’clock struck, he called out:
“Hullo, mother, is the soup ready?”
“There’s no soup for you, lazy-bones,” cried the old woman from her kitchen.
He thought she must be joking, and waited a while. Then he begged, implored, swore, “tacked to the north” and “tacked to the south,” and beat on the wall with his fists, but had to consent at last to five eggs being placed against his left side; after which he had his soup.
When his friends arrived that afternoon they thought he must be ill, he seemed so constrained and queer.
They started the daily game of dominoes. But Tome appeared to take no pleasure in it, and reached forth his hand very slowly, and with great precaution.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” asked Horslaville.
“I have a sort of stiffness in the shoulder,” answered Toine.
Suddenly they heard people come into the inn. The players were silent.
It was the mayor with the deputy. They ordered two glasses of Extra-Special, and began to discuss local affairs. As they were talking in somewhat low tones Toine wanted to put his ear to the wall, and, forgetting all about his eggs, he made a sudden “tack to the north,” which had the effect of plunging him into the midst of an omelette.
At the loud oath he swore his wife came hurrying into the room, and, guessing what had happened, stripped the bedclothes from him with lightning rapidity. She stood at first without moving or uttering a syllable, speechless with indignation at sight of the yellow poultice sticking to her husband’s side.
Then, trembling with fury, she threw herself on the paralytic, showering on him blows such as those with which she cleaned her linen on the seashore. Tome’s three friends were choking with laughter, coughing, spluttering and shouting, and the fat innkeeper himself warded his wife’s attacks with all the prudence of which he was capable, that he might not also break the five eggs at his other side.
Tome was conquered. He had to hatch eggs, he had to give up his games of dominoes and renounce movement of any sort, for the old woman angrily deprived him of food whenever he broke an egg.
He lay on his back, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, motionless, his arms raised like wings, warming against his body the rudimentary chickens enclosed in their white shells.
He spoke now only in hushed tones; as if he feared a noise as much as motion, and he took a feverish interest in the yellow hen who was accomplishing in the poultry-yard the same task as he.
“Has the yellow hen eaten her food all right?” he would ask his wife.
And the old woman went from her fowls to her husband and from her husband to her fowls, devoured by anxiety as to the welfare of the little chickens who were maturing in the bed and in the nest.
The country people who knew the story came, agog with curiosity, to ask news of Toine. They entered his room on tiptoe, as one enters a sick-chamber, and asked:
“Well! how goes it?”
“All right,” said Toine; “only it keeps me fearfully hot.”
One morning his wife entered in a state of great excitement, and declared:
“The yellow hen has seven chickens! Three of the eggs were addled.”
Toine’s heart beat painfully. How many would he have?
“Will it soon be over?” he asked, with the anguish of a woman who is about to become a mother.
“It’s to be hoped so!” answered the old woman crossly, haunted by fear of failure.
They waited. Friends of Toine who had got wind that his time was drawing near arrived, and filled the little room.
Nothing else was talked about in the neighboring cottages. Inquirers asked one another for news as they stood at their doors.
About three o’clock Toine fell asleep. He slumbered half his time nowadays. He was suddenly awakened by an unaccustomed tickling under his right arm. He put his left hand on the spot, and seized a little creature covered with yellow down, which fluttered in his hand.
His emotion was so great that he cried out, and let go his hold of the chicken, which ran over his chest. The bar was full of people at the time. The customers rushed to Toine’s room, and made a circle round him as they would round a travelling showman; while Madame Toine picked up the chicken, which had taken refuge under her husband’s beard.
No one spoke, so great was the tension. It was a warm April day. Outside the window the yellow hen could be heard calling to her newly-fledged brood.
Toine, who was perspiring with emotion and anxiety, murmured:
“I have another now – under the left arm.”
His’ wife plunged her great bony hand into the bed, and pulled out a second chicken with all the care of a midwife.
The neighbors wanted to see it. It was passed from one to another, and examined as if it were a phenomenon.
For twenty minutes no more hatched out, then four emerged at the same moment from their shells.
There was a great commotion among the lookers-on. And Toine smiled with satisfaction, beginning to take pride in this unusual sort of paternity. There were not many like him! Truly, he was a remarkable specimen of humanity!
“That makes six!” he declared. “Great heavens, what a christening we’ll have!”
And a loud laugh rose from all present. Newcomers filled the bar. They asked one another:
“How many are there?”
“Six.”
Toine’s wife took this new family to the hen, who clucked loudly, bristled her feathers, and spread her wings wide to shelter her growing brood of little ones.
“There’s one more!” cried Toine.
He was mistaken. There were three! It was an unalloyed triumph! The last chicken broke through its shell at seven o’clock in the evening. All the eggs were good! And Toine, beside himself with joy, his brood hatched out, exultant, kissed the tiny creature on the back, almost suffocating it. He wanted to keep it in his bed until morning, moved by a mother’s tenderness toward the tiny being which he had brought to life, but the old woman carried it away like the others, turning a deaf ear to her husband’s entreaties.
The delighted spectators went off to spread the news of the event, and Horslaville, who was the last to go, asked:
“You’ll invite me when the first is cooked, won’t you, Toine?”
At this idea a smile overspread the fat man’s face, and he answered:
“Certainly I’ll invite you, my son-in-law.”
