Guy de Maupassant complete short stories volume 2 - Penn State ...

and yet cannot part, linked together by no one knows what
mysterious psychic bonds. She deceives him, he knows it, sobs
and forgives her. He despises and adores her without seeing
that she would be justified in despising him. They are both
atrociously unhappy and yet cannot separate. They cast invectives,
reproaches and abominable accusations at each other from
morning till night, and when they have reached the climax
and are vibrating with rage and hatred, they fall into each other’s
arms and kiss each other ardently.
The girl-man is brave and a coward at the same time. He has,
more than another, the exalted sentiment of honor, but is lacking
in the sense of simple honesty, and, circumstances favoring
him, would defalcate and commit infamies which do not trouble
his conscience, for he obeys without questioning the oscillations
of his ideas, which are always impulsive.
To him it seems permissible and almost right to cheat a haberdasher.
He considers it honorable not to pay his debts, unless
they are gambling debts—that is, somewhat shady. He dupes
people whenever the laws of society admit of his doing so. When
he is short of money he borrows in all ways, not always being
scrupulous as to tricking the lenders, but he would, with sincere
indignation, run his sword through anyone who should
suspect him of only lacking in politeness.
Old Amable
204
OLD OLD AMABLE
AMABLE
PART I
The humid gray sky seemed to weigh down on the vast brown
plain. The odor of autumn, the sad odor of bare, moist lands, of
fallen leaves, of dead grass made the stagnant evening air more
thick and heavy. The peasants were still at work, scattered
through the fields, waiting for the stroke of the Angelus to call
them back to the farmhouses, whose thatched roofs were visible
here and there through the branches of the leafless trees
which protected the apple-gardens against the wind.
At the side of the road, on a heap of clothes, a very small boy
seated with his legs apart was playing with a potato, which he
now and then let fall on his dress, whilst five women were bending
down planting slips of colza in the adjoining plain. With a
slow, continuous movement, all along the mounds of earth
which the plough had just turned up, they drove in sharp
wooden stakes and in the hole thus formed placed the plant,
already a little withered, which sank on one side; then they
patted down the earth and went on with their work.