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

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truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said much to me, but when I<br />

looked in the glass, I also un<strong>de</strong>rstood quite well that I no longer<br />

appealed to any one!<br />

“Well, I ma<strong>de</strong> up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion<br />

into the country, to the place where we had first become<br />

acquainted. He agreed without mistrusting anything, and we<br />

arrived here this morning, about nine o’clock.<br />

“I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a<br />

woman’s heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my<br />

husband as he is at present, but just as he was formerly! That I<br />

will swear to you, monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was<br />

crazy. I began to kiss him, and he was more surprised than if I<br />

had tried to mur<strong>de</strong>r him. He kept saying to me: ‘Why, you must<br />

be mad! You are mad this morning! What is the matter with<br />

you?’ I did not listen to him, I only listened to my own heart,<br />

and I ma<strong>de</strong> him come into the wood with me. That is all. I<br />

have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth.”<br />

The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled,<br />

and said: “Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our<br />

forests, be more discreet.”<br />

Martine<br />

88<br />

MAR MARTINE MAR TINE<br />

It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home<br />

from church along the by-road that led to his house when he<br />

saw ahead of him Martine, who was also going home.<br />

Her father walked besi<strong>de</strong> his daughter with the important<br />

gait of a rich farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a <strong>short</strong><br />

coat of gray cloth and on his head a round-topped hat with<br />

wi<strong>de</strong> brim.<br />

She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week,<br />

walked along erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoul<strong>de</strong>rs<br />

and prominent hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a<br />

hat trimmed with flowers, ma<strong>de</strong> by a milliner at Yvetot, and<br />

displayed the back of her full, round, supple neck, red<strong>de</strong>ned by<br />

the sun and air, on which fluttered little stray locks of hair.<br />

Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved,<br />

without, however, having ever noticed it more closely than he<br />

did now.<br />

Sud<strong>de</strong>nly he said: “Nom d’un nom, she is a fine girl, all the<br />

same, that Martine.” He watched her as she walked, admiring<br />

her hastily, feeling a <strong>de</strong>sire taking possession of him. He did

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