scratched and tore her flesh with its claws
and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her hands.
She threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy of one
possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a little
green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she wrapped it
in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her nightgown, barefoot;
she crossed the dock, against which the choppy waves of the sea were
beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop this little, dead thing,
which looked like so much grass. Then she returned, threw herself on her
knees before the empty cage, and, overcome by what she had done, kneeled
and prayed for forgiveness, as if she had committed some heinous crime.

THE PIECE OF STRING

It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the
peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked
slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,
crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes the
left-shoulder higher, and bends their figures side-ways; from reaping
the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep on
their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished,
ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design and
blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like balloons about
to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.

Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope. 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.

Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up
strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the
cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.

In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled multitude
of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high, long-napped hats of
wealthy peasants, the head-dresses of the women came to the surface of
that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices made a continuous