A Piece of String — Vocabulary
Guy de Maupassant
translated by: McMaster, Henderson, Quesada, et.al.
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It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the town.†4 more

The good man was choking with indignation and fear.†2 more

They had once had a quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever since.†

Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at once and ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and napkins in their hand.†

But the mayor incredulously shook his head: "You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain, who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for a pocketbook."†

At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.†

And the sharp, shrill, barking voices made a continuous, wild din, while above it occasionally rose a huge burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a prolonged bellow from a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.†

And just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks.†

These women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth, enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.†

When he left the mayor's office the old man was surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or mocking, as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered.†

He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his testimony.†

They accused him of having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a confederate.†

At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast court was filled with vehicles of every sort—wagons, gigs, chars-à-bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name, yellow with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose, on the ground and their rear in the air.†

He was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.†

He quickly hid it beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches pocket, then pretended to be still looking for something on the ground which he did not discover and finally went off toward the market-place, his head bent forward and his body almost doubled in two by rheumatic pains.†

He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day, each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude, for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string.†

He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face: "Oh, you great rogue!"†

Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens, with pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast meat and of gravy flowing ever crisp brown skin arose from the hearth, kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.†

He was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.

He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his testimony.†