Original Short Stories — Volume 02Maupassant, Guy de
General
Original Short Stories — Volume 02
Maupassant, Guy de
Short stories, French -- Translations into English
“She did not move now on her state chair, but sat just as if she had
been put there for the crowd to look at. She could not move, nor conceal
herself, nor hide her face. Her eyelids blinked quickly, as if a vivid
light were shining on them, and she breathed heavily, like a horse that
is going up a steep hill, so that it almost broke one's heart to see
her. Meanwhile, however, Monsieur Hamot had seized the ruffian by the
throat, and they were rolling on the ground together, amid a scene of
indescribable confusion, and the ceremony was interrupted.
“An hour later, as the Hamots were returning home, the young woman, who
had not uttered a word since the insult, but who was trembling as if all
her nerves had been set in motion by springs, suddenly sprang over
the parapet of the bridge and threw herself into the river before her
husband could prevent her. The water is very deep under the arches,
and it was two hours before her body was recovered. Of course, she was
dead.”
The narrator stopped and then added:
“It was, perhaps, the best thing she could do under the circumstances.
There are some things which cannot be wiped out, and now you understand
why the clergy refused to have her taken into church. Ah! If it had been
a religious funeral the whole town would have been present, but you can
understand that her suicide added to the other affair and made families
abstain from attending her funeral; and then, it is not an easy matter
here to attend a funeral which is performed without religious rites.”
We passed through the cemetery gates and I waited, much moved by what
I had heard, until the coffin had been lowered into the grave, before I
went up to the poor fellow who was sobbing violently, to press his hand
warmly. He looked at me in surprise through his tears and then said:
“Thank you, monsieur.” And I was not sorry that I had followed the
funeral.
THE QUESTION OF LATIN
This subject of Latin that has been dinned into our ears for some time
past recalls to my mind a story--a story of my youth.
I was finishing my studies with a teacher, in a big central town, at
the Institution Robineau, celebrated through the entire province for the
special attention paid there to the study of Latin.
For the past ten years, the Robineau Institute beat the imperial lycee
of the town at every competitive examination, and all the colleges of
the subprefecture, and these constant successes were due, they said, to
an usher, a simple usher, M. Piquedent, or rather Pere Piquedent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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