No More Learning

With the calendars came to her an idea that soon became a
sort of obsession; terrible, incessant, inexorable. She would try to
remember just whatever she had done from day to day during
all her life. She pinned the calendars against the walls and on
the carpet one after the other — those faded pieces of cardboard;
and so she came to pass hours face to face with them, continually
asking herself, “Now let me see, - what was it happened to me
that month ? ”
She had checked certain memorable days in the course of her
life, hence now and then she was able to recall the episodes of
an entire month, bringing them up one by one, grouping them
together, connecting one by another all those little matters which
had preceded or followed some important event. She succeeded
by sheer force of attention, by force of memory and of concen-
trated will, in bringing back to mind almost completely her two
first years at Peuples. Far-away souvenirs of her life returned to


## p. 9812 (#220) ###########################################

9812
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
her with a singular facility, and with a kind of relief in them;
but the later years gradually seemed to lose themselves in a
mist, - to become mixed one with another: and so Jeanne would
remain now and then an indefinite time, her head bowed toward
one of the calendars, her mind spellbound by the past, without
being able to remember whether it was in this or that calendar
that such or such a remembrance ought to be decided. She
ranged them around the room like the religious pictures that
point out the Way of the Cross in a church, - these tableaux
of days that were no more. Then she would abruptly set down
her chair before one of them; and there she would sit until
night came, immobile, staring at it, buried in her vague re-
searches.
All at once, when the sap began to awaken in the boughs
beneath the warmth of the sun; when the crops began to spring
up in the fields, the trees to become verdant; when the apple-
trees in the orchard swelled out roundly like rosy balls, and per-
fumed the plain,--then a great counter-agitation came over her;
she could not seem to stay still. She went and came; she left
the house and returned to it twenty times a day, and even took
now and then a stroll the length of the farming tracts, excited
to a sort of fever of regret. The sight of a daisy blossoming in
a tuft of grass, the flash of a ray of sun slipping down between
the leaves, the glittering of a strip of water in which the blue
sky was mirrored, -all moved her; awakened a tenderness in
her; gave her sensations very far away, like an echo of her
emotions as a young girl, when she went dreaming about the
country-side.
One morning the faithful Rosalie came later than usual into
her room, and said, setting down upon the table the bowl of cof-
fee: Come now, drink this. Denis is down-stairs waiting for us
at the door. We will go over to Peuples to-day: I've got some
business to attend to over there. ”
Jeanne thought that she was going to faint, so deep was her
emotion at the sound of that name, at the thought of going to
the home of her girlhood. She dressed herself, trembling with
emotion, frightened and tremulous at the mere idea of seeing
again that dear house.
A radiant sky spread out above over all the world; the horse,
in fits and starts of liveliness, sometimes went almost at a gallop.
When they entered into the commune of Etouvent, Jeanne could


## p. 9813 (#221) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9813
hardly breathe, so much did her heart beat; and when she saw
from a distance the brick pillars of the boundary-line of her old
home, she exclaimed in a low voice two or three times, and as if
in spite of herself, “Qh! --oh! -oh! ” as if before things that
threatened to revolutionize all her heart.
They left the wagon with the Couillard family: then, while
Rosalie and her son went off to attend to their business, the care-
takers offered Jeanne the chance of taking a little turn around
the château, the present owners of it being absent; so they gave
her the keys.
Alone she set out; and when she was fairly before the old
manor house by the seaside, she stopped to look at its outside
once again. It had changed in nothing outside. The large,
grayish building that day showed upon its old walls the smile of
the sunshine. All the shutters were closed.
A bit of a dead branch fell from above upon her dress. She
raised her eyes. It came from the plane-tree. She drew near
the big tree with its smooth, pale bark; she caressed it with her
hand almost as if it had been an animal. Her foot struck some-
thing in the grass,-a fragment of rotten wood; lo! it was the
last fragment of the very bench on which she had sat so often
with those of her own family about her, so many years ago; the
very bench which had been set in place on the same day that
Julien had made his first visit.
She turned then to the double doors of the vestibule of the
house, and she had great trouble to open them; for the heavy
key, grown rusty, refused to turn in the lock. At length the
lock yielded with a heavy grinding of its springs; and the door,
a little obstinate itself, gave her entrance with a cloud of dust.
At once, and almost running, she went up-stairs to find what
had been her own room. She could hardly recognize it, hung
as it was with a light new paper: but throwing open a window,
she looked out and stood motionless, stirred even to the depth of
her being at the sight of all that landscape so much beloved; the
thicket, the elm-trees, the flat reaches, and the sea dotted with
brown sails, seeming motionless in the distance.
She began prowling about the great empty, lonely dwelling.
She even stopped to look at the discolorations on the walls; spots
familiar to her eyes. Once she stood before a little hole crushed
in the plaster by her father himself; who had often amused him-
self with making passages at arms, cane in hand, against the
partition wall, when he would happen to be passing this spot.


## p. 9814 (#222) ###########################################

9814
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Her mother's room -in it she found, stuck behind the door
in a dark corner near the bed, a fine gold hairpin; one which
she herself had stuck there so long ago, and which she had often
tried to find during the past years. Nobody had ever come across
it. She drew it out as a relic beyond all price, and kissed it,
and carried it away with her. Everywhere about the house she
walked, recognizing almost invisible marks in the hangings of
the rooms that had not been changed; she made out once more
those curious faces that a childish imagination gives often to the
patterns and stuffs, to marbles, and to shadings of the ceilings,
grown dingy with time. On she walked, with soundless footsteps,
wholly alone in the immense, silent house, as one who crosses a
cemetery. All her life was buried in it.
She went down-stairs to the drawing-room. It was sombre
behind the closed shutters: for some time she could not distin-
guish anything; then her eyes became accustomed to the darkness.
She recognized, little by little, the tall hangings with their pat-
terns of birds flitting about. Two arm-chairs were set before the
chimney, as if people had just quitted them; and even the odor
of the room, an odor which it had always kept, – that old vague,
sweet odor belonging to some old houses, - entered Jeanne's very
being, enwrapt her in souvenirs, intoxicated her memory. She
remained gasping, breathing in that breath of the past, and with
her eyes fixed upon those two chairs; for suddenly, in a sort of
hallucination which gave place to a positive idea, she saw — as
she had so often seen them - her father and her mother, sitting
there warming their feet by the fire. She drew back terrified,
struck her back against the edge of the door, caught at it to
keep herself from falling, but with her eyes still fixed upon the
chairs.
The vision disappeared. She remained forgetful of everything
during some moments; then slowly she recovered her self-pos-
session, and would have fled from the room, fearful of losing her
very senses. By chance, her glance fell against the door-post on
which she chanced to be leaning; and lo! before her eyes were
the marks that had been made to keep track of Poulet's height
as he was growing up!
The little marks climbed the painted wood with unequal in-
tervals; figures traced with the penknife noted down the different
ages and growths during the boy's life. Sometimes the jottings
were in the handwriting of her father, a large hand; sometimes
they were in her own smaller hand; sometimes in that of Aunt


## p. 9815 (#223) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9815
Lison, a little tremulous. It seemed to her that the child of
other days was actually there, standing before her with his blond
hair, pressing his little forehead against the wall so that his
height could be measured; and the Baron was crying, “Why,
Jeanne! he has grown a whole centimetre since six weeks ago! '
She kissed the piece of wood in a frenzy of love and desolate-
ness.
But some one was calling her from outside. It was Rosalie's
voice: “Madame Jeanne, Madame Jeanne! We are waiting for
you, to have luncheon. ” She hurried away from the room half
out of her senses. She hardly understood anything that the oth-
ers said to her at luncheon. She ate the things that they put
on her plate; she listened without knowing what she heard, talk-
ing mechanically with the farming-women, who inquired about
her health; she let them embrace her, and herself saluted the
cheeks that were held out to her; and then got into the wagon
again.
When the high roof of the château was lost to her sight
across the trees, she felt in her very heart a direful wrench. It
seemed to her in her innermost spirit that now she had said
farewell forever to her old home!
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature, by
E. Irenæus Stevenson
A NORMANDY OUTING: JEAN ROLAND'S LOVE-MAKING
From Pierre and Jean. Copyright 1890, by Hugh Craig. Published by
Home Book Company
T"
HE harvest was ripe. Beside the dull green of the clover
and the bright green of the beets, the yellow stalks of
wheat illuminated the plains with a tawny golden gleam.
They seemed to have imbibed the sunlight that fell upon them.
Here and there the reapers were at work; and in the fields
attacked by the scythe the laborers were seen, swinging rhythmi-
cally as they swept the huge, wing-shaped blade over the surface
of the ground.
After a drive of two hours, the break turned to the left,
passed near a windmill in motion,- a gray melancholy wreck,
half rotten and condemned, the last survivor of the old mills, -


## p. 9816 (#224) ###########################################

9816
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
and then entered a pretty court-yard and drew up before a gay
little house, a celebrated inn of the district.
They started out, net on shoulder and basket on back. Ma-
dame Rosémilly was charming in this costume, with an unex-
pected, rustic, fearless style of beauty.
The petticoat borrowed from Alphonsine, coquettishly raised
and held by a few stitches, so as to enable the wearer to run
and leap without fear among the rocks, displayed her ankle and
the lower part of the calf — the firm calf of a woman at once
agile and strong. Her figure was loose, to leave all her move-
ments easy; and she had found, to cover her head, an immense
gardener's hat of yellow straw, with enormous flaps, to which a
sprig of tamarisk, holding one side cocked up, gave the daunt-
less air of a dashing mousquetaire.
Jean, since receiving his legacy, had asked himself every day
whether he should marry her or no. Every time he saw her,
he felt decided to make her his wife; but when he was alone,
he thought that meanwhile there was time to reflect.
She was
now not as rich as he was, for she possessed only twelve thou-
sand francs a year; — but in real-estate farms, and lots in Havre
on the docks, and these might in time be worth a large sum.
Their fortunes, then, were almost equivalent; and the young
widow assuredly pleased him much.
As he saw her walking before him on this day, he thought,
«Well, I must decide. Beyond question, I could not do bet-
ter. ”
They followed the slope of a little valley, descending from the
village to the cliff; and the cliff at the end of this valley looked
down on the sea from a height of nearly three hundred feet.
Framed in by the green coast, sinking away to the left and
right, a spacious triangle of water, silvery blue in the sunlight,
was visible; and a sail, scarcely perceptible, looked like an insect
down below. The sky, filled with radiance, was so blended with
the water that the eye could not distinguish where one ended and
the other began; and the two ladies, who were in front of the
three men, cast on this clear horizon the clear outline of their
compact figures.
Jean, with ardent glance, saw speeding before him the enti-
cing hat of Madame Rosémilly. Every movement urged him to
those decisive resolutions which the timid and the hesitating take
abruptly. The warm air, in which was blended the scent of the


## p. 9817 (#225) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9817
coast, of the reeds, the clover, the grasses, and the marine odor
of the rocks exposed by the tide, animated him with a gentle
intoxication; and he decided, more and more at every step, at
every second, at every look he cast on the graceful outline of
the young woman - he decided to hesitate no longer, to tell her
that he loved her and wanted to marry her. The fishing party
would be of service: it would render a tête-à-tête more easy; and
besides, it would furnish a pretty background, a pretty scene for
words of love, with their feet in a basin of limpid water, as they
watched the long feelers of the shrimps darting through the sea.
weeds.
When they reached the end of the valley at the edge of the
bluff, they perceived a little path that ran down the cliff; and
below them, between the sea and the foot of the precipice, about
half-way down, a wondrous chaos of enormous rocks, that had
fallen or been hurled down, heaped on each other on
a kind
of grassy broken plain which disappeared toward the south, and
which had been formed by ancient landslips. In the long strip
of brushwood and turf, tossed, one might say, by the throes of a
volcano, the fallen rocks resembled the ruins of a great vanished
city that once on a time had looked down on the ocean, itself
dominated by the white and endless wall of the cliff.
“How beautiful! ” said Madame Rosémilly, pausing.
Jean joined her, and with beating heart offered his hand to
guide her down the narrow steps cut in the rock.
They went on in front; while Beausire, stiffening himself on
his short legs, held out his bent arm to Madame Roland, who
was dazed by the blank depth.
Roland and Pierre came last; and the doctor had to support
his father, who was so troubled by vertigo that he sat down, and
thus slid from step to step.
The young people, who descended at the head of the party,
went rapidly, and suddenly caught sight of a streamlet of pure
water springing from a little hole in the cliff, by the side of a
wooden bench, which formed a resting-place about the middle of
the slope. The streamlet at first spread into a basin about the
size of a wash-hand bowl, which it had excavated for itself; and
then, falling in a cascade of about two feet in height, flowed
across the path where a carpet of cress had grown, and then
disappeared in the reeds and grass, across the level where the
landslips were heaped up.
"How thirsty I am! ” cried Madame Rosémilly.


## p. 9818 (#226) ###########################################

9818
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
)
But how to drink? She tried to collect in the hollow of her
hand the water which escaped between her fingers. Jean had a
bright idea; he placed a stone in the road, and she knelt on it to
drink from the very source with her lips, which were thus raised
to the same height.
When she raised her head, covered with glittering drops
sprinkled by thousands over her face, her hair, her eyelashes, her
bust, - Jean, bending toward her, whispered:-
“How pretty you are! ”
She replied in the tone one assumes to scold a child:
“Will you hold your tongue ? ”
These were the first words of flirtation which they had ex-
changed.
“Come,” said Jean, rather discomfited, “let us be off before
they overtake us. "
In fact, he was aware that Captain Beausire was quite close
to them, and was descending backwards in order to support
Madame Roland with both hands; while, higher up and farther
away, M. Roland, in a sitting posture, was dragging himself down
by his feet and elbows with the speed of a tortoise, and Pierre
went before him to superintend his movements.
The path became less steep, and formed now a sloping road
that skirted the enormous blocks that had fallen from above.
Madame Rosémilly and Jean began to run, and were soon on the
shingle. They crossed it to gain the rocks, which extended in a
long and flat surface covered with seaweed, in which innumerable
flashes of water glittered. The tide was low and far out, behind
this slimy plain of sea-wrack with its shining green and black
growths.
Jean rolled up his trousers to the knee and his sleeves to the
elbow, so as to wet himself with impunity, and cried “Forward! ”
as he boldly leaped into the first pool that presented itself.
With more prudence, though with equal determination to wade
into the water at once, the young woman went around the narrow
basin with timid steps,- for she slipped on the slimy weeds.
"Do you see anything ? ” she said.
“Yes, I see your face reflected in the water.
“If you only see that, you will not have any fishing to boast
of. ”
He said in a tender voice:
"Ah, that is fishing I shall prefer over all!
She laughed.
»
»


## p. 9819 (#227) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9819
((
« Try, then, and you'll see how it slips through your net. ”
Well, if you like — »
“I should like to see you catch some prawns — and nothing
more — just at present. ”
“You are cruel. Let us go farther: there is nothing here. ”
He offered her his hand to steady her on the greasy rocks.
She leaned on it rather timidly; and he, all at once, felt himself
invaded by love, throbbing with desire, hungering for her, as if
the passion that was germinating in him had waited for that day
to burst forth.
They soon arrived at a deeper crevice, where, beneath the
rippling water flowing to the distant sea by an invisible fissure,
long, fine, strangely colored seaweeds, with tresses of rose and
green, floated as if they were swimming.
Madame Rosémilly exclaimed:-
“Look, look, I see one — a big one, a very big one, down
there! »
He perceived it in turn, and went down into the crevice,
although the water wet him to the waist.
But the creature, moving its long feelers, quietly retired be-
fore the net. Jean drove it toward the wreck, sure of catching
it there. When it found itself blockaded, it made a sudden dash
over the net, crossed the pool, and disappeared.
The young woman, who was watching in panting eagerness
his attempt, could not refrain from crying: -
"Ah, clumsy!
He was vexed, and without thinking, dragged his net through
a pool full of weeds. As he raised it to the surface, he saw in it
three large transparent prawns, which had been blindly dragged
from their invisible hiding-place.
He presented them in triumph to Madame Rosémilly, who
dared not touch them for fear of the sharp, tooth-like point which
arms their heads. At last she decided to take them; and seiz-
ing between two of her fingers the thin end of their beard, she
placed them one after the other in her basket, with some weed
to keep them alive.
Then, on finding a shallower piece of water, she entered it
with hesitating steps, and catching her breath as the cold struck
her feet, began to fish herself. She was skillful and cunning,
with a supple wrist and a sportman's instinct. At about every
cast she brought out some victims, deceived and surprised by
the ingenious slowness with which she swept the pool.
»


## p. 9820 (#228) ###########################################

9820
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
»
Jean was taking nothing; but he followed her step by step,
touched her dress, bent over her, pretended to be in despair at
his awkwardness, and wished her to teach him.
«Show me how," he said; « show me! ”
Then, as their two faces were reflected one beside the other
in the clear water, which the deep-growing seaweeds formed into
a limpid mirror, Jean smiled at the face so near his which looked
up to him from below; and at times threw to it, from the tips
of his fingers, a kiss which seemed to fall on it.
“You are very tiresome,” the young woman said. “My dear
fellow, never do two things at the same time. ”
He replied:-
“I am only doing one. I love you. "
She drew herself up erect, and said in a serious tone:
Come
now, what is the matter with you for the last ten
minutes? Have you lost your head ? »
“No, I have not lost my head. I love you, and at last dare
to tell you so. "
They were now standing in the pool of sea-water that rose
nearly to their knees, and with their dripping hands leaning on
their nets, looked into the depth of each other's eyes.
She resumed in a playful and rather annoyed tone: -
“You are badly advised to speak to me thus at this moment.
Could you not wait another day, and not spoil my fishing ? ”
He replied:-
“Pardon me, but I could not keep silence. I have loved you
a long time. To-day you have made me lose my senses. ”
Then she seemed at once to take her resolution, and to resign
herself to talk business and renounce amusement.
"Let us sit on this rock," she said: “we shall be able to talk
quietly. ”
They climbed on a rock a little higher; and when they were
settled, side by side, their feet hanging down in the full sunshine,
she rejoined:-
My friend, you are not a child, and I am not a girl. Both
of us know what we are about, and can weigh all the conse-
quences of our acts. If you decide to-day to declare your love
to me, I suppose naturally you wish to marry me. ”
He had scarcely expected such a clear statement of the situa-
tion, and answered sheepishly: –
“Why, yes! ”
“ Have you spoken to your father and mother ? »
(
»


## p. 9821 (#229) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9821
“No. I wished to know if you would accept me. ”
She extended to him her hand, which was still wet, and as he
placed his own in it with fervor -
"I am willing,” she said. “I believe you good and loyal.
But do not forget that I would not displease your parents. ”
"Do you think that my mother has foreseen nothing, and that
she would love you as she does if she did not desire a marriage
between us ? »
" True: I am rather confused. "
They were silent. On his part, he was astonished that she
was so little confused and so reasonable. He had expected some
pretty airs and graces, refusals which say yes, a whole coquettish
comedy of love blended with fishing and the splashing of water.
And it was all over; he felt himself bound and married in a
score of words. They had nothing more to say to each other,
since they were in full accord; and they both now remained
somewhat embarrassed at what had passed so rapidly between
them, perhaps even somewhat confused, - not daring to speak
further, not daring to fish further, not knowing what to do.
Translation of Hugh Craig.
THE PIECE OF STRING
From «The Odd Number. Copyright 1889, by Harper & Brothers
I'
T WAS market day, and over all the roads round Goderville the
peasants and their wives were coming towards the town. The
men walked easily, lurching the whole body forward at every
step. Their long legs were twisted and deformed by the slow,
painful labors of the country: by bending over to plow, which
is what also makes their left shoulders too high and their figures
crooked; and by reaping corn, which obliges them for steadiness'
sake to spread their knees too wide. Their starched blue blouses,
shining as though varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with
little patterns of white stitch-work, and blown up big around
their bony bodies, seemed exactly like balloons about to soar, but
putting forth a head, 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, beating it over the
back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, went their
wives, carrying large baskets from which came forth the heads


## p. 9822 (#230) ###########################################

9822
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
of chickens or of ducks. These women walked with steps far
shorter and quicker than the men; their figures, withered and
upright, were adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over their
flat bosoms; and they enveloped their heads each in a white
cloth, close fastened round the hair and surmounted by a cap.
Now a char-à-banc passed by, drawn by a jerky-paced nag. It
shook up strangely the two men on the seat. And the woman
at the bottom of the cart held fast to its sides to lessen the hard
joltings.
In the market place at Goderville was a great crowd, a min-
gled multitude of men and beasts. The horns of the cattle, the
high and long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the head-dresses
of the women, came to the surface of that sea. And voices
clamorous, sharp, shrill, made a continuous and savage din. Above
it a huge burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry
yokel would sometimes sound, and sometimes a long bellow from
a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay, and of perspira-
tion; giving off that half human, half animal odor which is pecul-
iar to the men of the fields.
Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goder.
ville, and was taking his way towards the square, when he
perceived on the ground a little piece of string. Maître Hauche-
corne, economical like 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 with rheumatism. He
took the bit of thin cord from the ground, and was carefully pre-
paring to roll it up when he saw Maître Malandain the harness-
maker on his doorstep, looking at him. They had once had a
quarrel about a halter, and they had remained angry, bearing
malice on both sides. Maître Hauchecorne was overcome with a
sort of shame at being seen by his enemy looking in the dirt so
for a bit of string. He quickly hid his find beneath his blouse;
then in the pocket of his breeches; then pretended to be still
looking for something on the ground which he did not discover;
and at last went off towards the market-place, with his head bent
forward, and a body almost doubled in two by rheumatic pains.
He lost himself immediately in the crowd, which was clamor-
ous, slow, and agitated by interminable bargains. The peasants
examined the cows, went off, came back, always in great per-
plexity and fear of being cheated, never quite daring to decide,


## p. 9823 (#231) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9823
spying at the eye of the seller, trying ceaselessly to discover the
tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet,
had pulled out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, tied by
the legs, with eyes scared, with combs scarlet.
They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices, with a
dry manner, with an impassive face; or suddenly, perhaps, decid-
ing to take the lower price which was offered, they cried out to
the customer, who was departing slowly:-
“All right: I'll let you have them, Maît' 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, char-à-bancs, tilburies, tilt-carts which have no name, yel-
low with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose in the dirt
and their rear in the air,
Just opposite to where the diners were at table, the huge
fireplace, full of clear flame, threw a lively heat on the backs of
those who sat along 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 gushing over crisp
brown skin, took wing from the hearth, kindled merriment, caused
mouths to water.
All the aristocracy of the plow were eating there, at Maît'
Jourdain's, the innkeeper's,-a dealer in horses also, and a sharp
fellow who had made a pretty penny in his day.
The dishes were passed round, were emptied, with jugs of
yellow cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and
his sales. They asked news about the crops.
The weather was
good for green stuffs, but a little wet for wheat.
All of a sudden the drum rolled in the court before the house.
Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on his feet
at once and ran to the door, to the windows, with his mouth still
full, and his napkin in his hand.
When the public crier had finished his tattoo, he called forth
in a jerky voice, making his pauses out of time:-
“Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general
to all
-persons present at the market, that there has been lost


## p. 9824 (#232) ###########################################

9824
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
this morning, on the Beuzeville road, between – nine and ten
o'clock, a pocket-book of black leather, containing five hundred
francs and business papers. You are requested to return it— to
the mayor's office at once, or to Maître Fortuné Houlbrèque of
Manneville. There will be fifty francs reward. ”
Then the man departed. They heard once more at a distance
the dull beatings on the drum, and the faint voice of the crier.
Then they began to talk of this event, reckoning up the
chances which Maître Houlbrèque had of finding or of not find-
ing his pocket-book again.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gen-
darmes appeared on the threshold.
He asked:-
"Is Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, here? ”
Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table,
answered:-
«Here I am. ”
And the corporal resumed:-
“Maître Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to come with
me to the mayor's office ? M. le Maire would like to speak to
you. ”
The peasant, surprised and uneasy, gulped down his little glass
of cognac, got up, and — even worse bent over than in the morn-
ing, since the first steps after a rest were always particularly dif-
ficult — started off, repeating :
“Here I am, here I am. ”
And he followed the corporal.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an arm-chair. He
was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
"Maître Hauchecorne," said he, “this morning, on the Beuze-
ville road, you were seen to pick up the pocket-book lost by
Maître Houlbrèque of Manneville. ”
The countryman, speechless, gazed at the mayor; frightened
already by this suspicion, which rested on him he knew not why.
“I-I picked up that pocket-book ? »
“Yes, you. ”
"I swear I didn't even know nothing about it at all. ”
« You were seen. ”
They saw me – me? Who is that who saw me?
"M. Malandain, the harness-maker. ”
>
(
ac
>


## p. 9825 (#233) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9825
Then the old man remembered, understood, and reddening
with anger:
:-
"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, Maître Hauchecorne, that
M. Malandain, who is a man worthy of credit, has mistaken this
string for a pocket-book. ”
The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spit as if to attest
his good faith, repeating: -
For all that, it is the truth of the good God, the blessed
truth, M'sieu' le Maire. There! on my soul and my salvation I
repeat it. ”
The mayor continued:
"After picking up the thing in question, you even looked
for some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not
dropped out of it. ”
The good man was suffocated with indignation and with fear.
“If they can say —! If they can say such lies as that to slan-
der an honest man! If they can say — ! ”
He might protest, he was not believed.
He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and
sustained his testimony. They abused one another for an hour.
.
At his own request, Maître 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 in-
dignation 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.
They said to him:-
You old rogue, va ! ”
XVII-615
(C


## p. 9826 (#234) ###########################################

9826
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
And he grew angry, exasperated, feverish, in despair at not
being believed; and always telling his story.
The night came. It was time to go home. He set out with
three of his neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where
he had picked up the end of string; and all the way he talked
of his adventure.
That evening he made the round in the village of Bréauté, so
as to tell every one. He met only unbelievers.
He was ill of it all night long.
The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a
farm hand of Maître Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville,
returned the pocket-book and its contents to Maître Houlbrèque
of Manneville.
This man said that he had indeed 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. Maître Hauchecorne was
informed. He put himself at once upon the go, and began to
relate his story as completed by the dénouement. He triumphed.
“,
“What grieved me," said he was not the thing itself, do
you understand; but it was the lies. There's 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 the 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 tittle-tattle behind
his back.
On Tuesday of the next week he went to market at Goder-
ville, prompted entirely by the need of telling his story.
Malandain, standing on his door-step, began to laugh as he
saw him pass. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish,
and giving him a punch in the pit of his stomach, cried in his
face:
“Oh you great rogue, va ! » Then turned his heel upon him.
Maître 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.


## p. 9827 (#235) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9827
A horse-dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
“Get out, get out, you old scamp: I know all about your
string! ”
Hauchecorne stammered:
« But since they found it again, the pocket-book — ! ”
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 peasant was choked. He understood at last. They accused
him of having had the pocket-book brought back by an accom-
plice, 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 ashamed and indignant, choked with rage, with
confusion; the more cast down since from his Norman cunning,
he was perhaps capable of having done what they accused him
of, and even of boasting of it as a good trick. His innocence
dimly seemed to him impossible to prove, his craftiness being
so well known. And he felt himself struck to the heart by the
injustice of the suspicion.
Then he began anew to tell of his adventure, lengthening his
recital every day, each time adding new proofs, more energetic
protestations, and more solemn oaths which he thought of, which
he prepared in his hours of solitude, his mind being entirely
occupied by the story of the string. The more complicated his
defense, 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 his heart. He exhausted himself
in useless efforts.
He was visibly wasting away.
The jokers now made 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, struck at
the root, grew weak.
About the end of December he took to his bed.
He died early in January, and in the delirium of the 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. »
Translation of Jonathan Sturges.


## p. 9828 (#236) ###########################################

9828
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
(1805-1870)
REDERICK DENISON MAURICE takes high rank among the reli-
gious teachers of this century, more by virtue of what he
was than of what he wrote. He is of those elect souls
whose insight becomes a guiding force both to themselves and to
their fellows. Of a generation which knew Carlyle and Mill and
Darwin, which was given over to the dry-rot of intellectual despair
in all matters concerning the religious life of man, Maurice seemed
born out of due time. He belonged apparently to an earlier or to a
later day. Yet by force, not of his intellect
but of his faith, he succeeded in turning
many of his contemporaries to the Christ-
ian ideal which haunted him throughout his
life, and which perpetually dominated his
nineteenth-century inheritance of skepti-
cism. Unlike Newman, with whom he was
associated at Oxford, Maurice was content
to find in the Church of England, as in all
churches, only a partial realization of his
ideal of righteousness. He is of those who
believe that the whole truth can never
be revealed to one generation. He shares
FREDERICK D. MAURICE the Platonic belief that the vision of God
becomes gradually apparent through many
This liberalism was the mainspring of his power as a reli-
gious teacher.
His early training had enlarged his sympathies and prepared the
way for his future ministrations. He was born in 1805 of a Unitarian
father, and of a mother who adhered to the doctrines of Calvin. His
first religious problem was to reconcile these differences of faith.
Later his education at Cambridge deepened within him the evangeli-
cal sympathies, which made him long to unite the world under one
banner as Sons of God. Upon leaving Cambridge he undertook the
editorship of the Athenæum in London, and while engaged upon
this work became a member of the Church of England. His resi-
dence at Oxford was the natural outcome of this step.
The strong-
hold of mediævalism was then vital with the presence of Newman,

æons.
a


## p. 9829 (#237) ###########################################

FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
9829
of Pusey, of Keble, and of others who were seeking with passionate
eagerness a refuge from the insistent doubts and difficulties of the
age. The spirit of the age was then trying all men through the re-
ligious faculty. Maurice, as if anticipating the Christianity of the
twentieth century, found the key to all problems, not in an infalli-
ble church nor in infallible reason, but in the everlasting love and
fatherhood of God, and in the universal sonship of men. Cambridge
had increased his liberality; Oxford deepened his idealism. Maurice
would exclude no man, whether Jew, Turk, infidel, or heretic, from
the Divine family; yet in his exalted worship of Jesus he was linked
to the mediaval mystic. This rare combination gave him charm, and
drew to him thoughtful and cultured men who were too large for
narrowed and dogmatic Christianity, yet who longed to give expres-
sion to the soul of worship within them. It drew to him also the
workingmen of London. After Maurice left Oxford he was appointed
to the chaplaincy of Guy's Hospital in London. He held also the
chairs of history, literature, and divinity in King's College, and the
chaplaincy of Lincoln's Inn and of St. Peter's. During his long resi-
dence in London, from 1834 until 1866, the broad and fervent religious
spirit of Maurice found expression in social work. The man who
would knit together all the kindreds of the world in the bonds of
Divine fellowship could not limit his ministrations to certain classes
of society. He was in strong sympathy with workingmen, believing
that their lack of education by no means debarred them from the
apprehension of the highest spiritual truths. His foundation of the
Workingman's College was the outcome of this sympathy. He founded
also Queen's College for women; and thus established still further his
claim to be ranked with the prophets of his time. In 1866 he became
professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. He died in 1872.
Frederick Denison Maurice was the author of many religious
works, but his pre-eminent power is in his sermons. His Lectures
on Ecclesiastical History, his Theological Essays,' his Kingdom of
Christ,' his Unity of the New Testament,' have literary value in
proportion as they exhibit the spirit of the preacher. In his ser-
mons the luminous spirituality of Maurice and his strength as a writer
find completest expression. The man himself can be most closely
approached in his sensitive and thoughtful letters to his friends.


## p. 9830 (#238) ###########################################

9830
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
FROM A LETTER TO REV. J. DE LA TOUCHE
I
-
HOLDOR House, DORKING, April 14th, 1863.
Do not know whether you will think me less or more fitted
to enter into that tremendous difficulty of which you speak
in your last letter, when I tell you that I was brought up
a Unitarian, and that I have distinctly and deliberately accepted
the belief which is expressed in the Nicene Creed as the only
satisfaction of the infinite want which Unitarianism awakened in
me; yes, and as the only vindication of the truth which Unitari.
anism taught me.
You feel that our Lord is a man in the most perfect sense
of the word. You cannot convince yourself that he is more.
No, nor will any arguments convince you that he is more. For
what do you mean by that more? Is it a Jupiter Tonans whom
you are investing with the name of God ? is it to him you pray
when you say
Our Father which art in heaven”? Is God
a Father,— really and actually a Father? is he in heaven, far
away from our conceptions and confusions,- one whom we can-
not make in the likeness of anything above, around, beneath us?
Or is all this a dream ? is there no God, no father?