Harvard Classics
This quaint old French verse, written under one of Holbein’s pictures, is profoundly melancholy. The engraving represents a laborer driving his plow through the middle of a field. Beyond him stretches a vast horizon, dotted with wretched huts; the sun is sinking behind the hil...
“He would probably have been in the way in the place where I am going. At least Father Maurice thought so. On the other hand, I should have thought it well to see how they recei...
2. Chapter 2“Germain,” said his father-in-law one day, “you must decide about marrying again. It is almost two years now since you lost my daughter, and your eldest boy is seven years old!...
4. Chapter 4“Not at all,” said little Marie; “I warrant that I can cook them for you under the cinders without a taste of smoke. Have you never caught larks in the fields, and cooked them b...
6. Chapter 6He made inquiries at the neighboring house. The shepherdess and child had been seen. As the boy had left Belair suddenly, carelessly dressed, with his blouse torn, and his littl...
5. Chapter 5“Yes I am, Germain; I hear you perfectly,” answered little Marie, “but I am thinking over what my mother used to tell me so often: that a woman of sixty is to be pitied greatly...
7. Chapter 7“I have spoken to her but once,” replied Germain. “That was when we were together at Fourche, and since then I haven’t said a single word. Her refusal gave me so much pain that...
8. Chapter 8_The Hemp-dresser_: “That will never do. We are disgusted, and don’t pity you at all. It is my opinion that you are drunk, that you need nothing, and that you only wish to come...
1. Chapter 1This quaint old French verse, written under one of Holbein’s pictures, is profoundly melancholy. The engraving represents a laborer driving his plow through the middle of a fiel...
9. Chapter 9“Wretched man,” she cries, “see the misery to which your wickedness has brought us. I have to spend all my time sewing and working for you, mending your clothes. You tear and be...