You can read it here. It begins,
May 8. What a lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which covers and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country; I am fond of living here because I am attached to it by deep roots, the profound and delicate roots which attach a man to the soil on which his ancestors were born and died, to their traditions, their usages, their food, the local expressions, the peculiar language of the peasants, the smell of the soil, the hamlets, and to the atmosphere itself.
You can have it read to you:
The story was written in 1887. About 4 years later the author was committed to a private asylum after a suicide attempt. He died there the following year at age 42.
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I have read this, and some other Maupassant stories. We had to read "Ball of fat" in school - and at least I appreciated it - and I believe that the film "Stagecoach" with John Wayne was an adaption of that story. A true classic. I was not aware of his tragic ending, though.
ReplyDeleteWe studied de Maupassant stories in school, too, but I hadn't read any in years and hadn't read this one. I didn't know his personal history either. syphilis, bummer
DeleteI knew I'd be late, but when I started visiting, I couldn't get anything to load. I rebooted six times, then my mouse quit working. It's really, really hard to work without a mouse. I had to remember how to use the control and arrow keys to get what I needed.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, the links are not something I can use at the moment, but it's really sad that a person in the prime of their life would die so young and in what must have been a not-so-nice place..
My husband and younger son rarely use a mouse, but I can't manage without one. I hope that a private asylum would've been ok, but I don't know what private facilities were like in the late 1800s.
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