Une Vie, a Piece of String and Other Stories

by Guy de Maupassant

And the carpenter went back and sat down by the side of the ditch
again. He waited there for a long time, watching the country people
pass and looking for a kind, compassionate face before he renewed his
request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was
adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said,
"for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in
my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read
the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging
is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you
that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly
I shall have you arrested."

Randel, who was getting angry, replied: "Have me arrested if you like;
I should prefer it, for, at any rate, I should not die of hunger." And
he went back and sat down by the side of his ditch again, and in about
a quarter of an hour two gendarmes appeared on the road. They were
walking slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining
hats, their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to
frighten evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew
that they were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was
seized with a sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and
to have his revenge later.

They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the
goose step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have
noticed him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly,
and the brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?"
"I am resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If
I had to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more
than an hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is
that?" "In La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did
you leave it?" "To look for work."

The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "Give them to me."

Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those
poor, worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave
them to the soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and
then, having seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to
Randel with the dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than
himself has tricked.

After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not
even a sou!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then
you beg?" And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."

Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act
of vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I
command you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever
you please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even
before he had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me
up; that will at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."

And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be
seen through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service
was about to begin when they went through the village. The square was
full of people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal
pass. He was being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and
female peasants looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with
hatred in their eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his
skin with their nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked
each other whether he had committed murder or robbery. The butcher,
who was an ex-spahi, declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist
thought that he recognized him as the man who had that very morning
passed a bad half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared
that he was the murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been
looking for for six months.

In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the
schoolmaster by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so
here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you
locked up. Well, brigadier, what is he charged with?"

"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without
any resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of
begging, but he is provided with good testimonials, and his papers are
all in order."