The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 3Maupassant, Guy de
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The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 3
Maupassant, Guy de
French fiction -- Translations into English; Short stories, French -- Translations into English
Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a
blaze of fire, and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads.
Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his
waistcoat, and the top of his trousers, while his wife, who felt
choking, was gradually unfastening her dress. The apprentice was shaking
his yellow wig in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to
wine, and as the old grandmother felt drunk, she also felt very stiff
and dignified. As for the girl, she showed nothing, except a peculiar
brightness in her eyes, while the brown skin on the cheeks became more
rosy.
The coffee finished them off; they spoke of singing, and each of them
sang, or repeated a couplet, which the others repeated frantically. Then
they got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were
rather dizzy, were getting the fresh air, the two men, who were
altogether drunk, were performing gymnastic tricks. Heavy, limp, and
with scarlet faces, they hung awkwardly onto the iron rings, without
being able to raise themselves, while their shirts were continually
threatening to leave their trousers, and to flap in the wind like flags.
Meanwhile, the two boating-men had got their skiffs into the water, and
they came back, and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a
row.
"Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?" his wife exclaimed,--"Please
come!"
He merely gave her a drunken look, without understanding what she said.
Then one of the rowers came up, with two fishing-rods in his hand; and
the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great aim of the Parisian
shop-keeper, made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them
to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade, under the bridge,
with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with
the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly close to him.
One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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