[11] From "Thirty Years of Paris." Translated by Laura Ensor.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Born in 1850, died in 1893; educated at Rouen; trained in literary matters by Flaubert; wrote an unsuccessful play in 1879 and then a short story, "Boule de Suif," which attracted marked attention, and was followed by a great number of short and long stories, including "Mademoiselle Fifi" in 1882, "Pierre et Jean" in 1888, and "Notre Cœur" in 1890.
MADAME JEANNE'S LAST DAYS[12]
Jeanne did not go out any more. She hardly bestirred herself. She got up every morning at the same time; looked out of the window at the weather, and then went down-stairs, and sat before the fire in the hall. Here she would think of the happy years of Paul's childhood, when he had worked in the salad-bed, kneeling side by side in the soft ground with Aunt Lison, the two women rivals in their effort to amuse the child, and seeing who could root up the young plants most skilfully.
So musing, her lips would murmur, "Poulet, Poulet! my little Poulet"—as if she were speaking to him; and, her reverie broken as she spoke, she would try during whole hours to write in the air the letters which formed the boy's name. She would trace them slowly before the fire, imagining that she really saw them; then believing that her eyes had deceived her, she would rewrite the capital P again, her arm trembling with fatigue, forcing herself to trace the name to the end; then when she had finished it she would begin over again. At last she could not write it any more. She would muddle everything—form other words, and exhaust herself almost to idiocy.
Ever since her childhood just one habit had clung to her—that of jumping up out of bed the moment she had drunk her morning coffee. She was inordinately fond of that way of breakfasting, and the privation would have been felt more than anything else. Each morning she would await Rosalie's arrival with extraordinary impatience; and as soon as the cup was put upon the table at her side, she would sit up and empty it almost greedily, and then, throwing off her robe, she would begin to dress herself at once.