Original Short Stories – Volume 09. Guy de Maupassant

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СКАЧАТЬ his wife’s screech-owl face would appear at the window, and she would break in with the words:

      “Look at him! Look at him now, the good-for-nothing wretch! I’ve got to feed him and wash him just as if he were a pig!”

      And when the old woman had gone, a cock with red feathers would sometimes fly up to the window sill and looking into the room with his round inquisitive eye, would begin to crow loudly. Occasionally, too, a few hens would flutter as far as the foot of the bed, seeking crumbs on the floor. Toine’s friends soon deserted the drinking room to come and chat every afternoon beside the invalid’s bed. Helpless though he was, the jovial Toine still provided them with amusement. He would have made the devil himself laugh. Three men were regular in their attendance at the bedside: Celestin Maloisel, a tall, thin fellow, somewhat gnarled, like the trunk of an apple-tree; Prosper Horslaville, a withered little man with a ferret nose, cunning as a fox; and Cesaire Paumelle, who never spoke, but who enjoyed Toine’s society all the same.

      They brought a plank from the yard, propped it upon the edge of the bed, and played dominoes from two till six.

      But Toine’s wife soon became insufferable. She could not endure that her fat, lazy husband should amuse himself at games while lying in his bed; and whenever she caught him beginning a game she pounced furiously on the dominoes, overturned the plank, and carried all away into the bar, declaring that it was quite enough to have to feed that fat, lazy pig without seeing him amusing himself, as if to annoy poor people who had to work hard all day long.

      Celestin Maloisel and Cesaire Paumelle bent their heads to the storm, but Prosper Horslaville egged on the old woman, and was only amused at her wrath.

      One day, when she was more angry than usual, he said:

      “Do you know what I’d do if I were you?”

      She fixed her owl’s eyes on him, and waited for his next words.

      Prosper went on:

      “Your man is as hot as an oven, and he never leaves his bed – well, I’d make him hatch some eggs.”

      She was struck dumb at the suggestion, thinking that Prosper could not possibly be in earnest. But he continued:

      “I’d put five under one arm, and five under the other, the same day that I set a hen. They’d all come out at the same time; then I’d take your husband’s chickens to the hen to bring up with her own. You’d rear a fine lot that way.”

      “Could it be done?” asked the astonished old woman.

      “Could it be done?” echoed the man. “Why not? Since eggs can be hatched in a warm box why shouldn’t they be hatched in a warm bed?”

      She was struck by this reasoning, and went away soothed and reflective.

      A week later she entered Toine’s room with her apron full of eggs, and said:

      “I’ve just put the yellow hen on ten eggs. Here are ten for you; try not to break them.”

      “What do you want?” asked the amazed Toine.

      “I want you to hatch them, you lazy creature!” she answered.

      He laughed at first; then, finding she was serious, he got angry, and refused absolutely to have the eggs put under his great arms, that the warmth of his body might hatch them.

      But the old woman declared wrathfully:

      “You’ll get no dinner as long as you won’t have them. You’ll see what’ll happen.”

      Tome was uneasy, but answered nothing.

      When twelve o’clock struck, he called out:

      “Hullo, mother, is the soup ready?”

      “There’s no soup for you, lazy-bones,” cried the old woman from her kitchen.

      He thought she must be joking, and waited a while. Then he begged, implored, swore, “tacked to the north” and “tacked to the south,” and beat on the wall with his fists, but had to consent at last to five eggs being placed against his left side; after which he had his soup.

      When his friends arrived that afternoon they thought he must be ill, he seemed so constrained and queer.

      They started the daily game of dominoes. But Tome appeared to take no pleasure in it, and reached forth his hand very slowly, and with great precaution.

      “What’s wrong with your arm?” asked Horslaville.

      “I have a sort of stiffness in the shoulder,” answered Toine.

      Suddenly they heard people come into the inn. The players were silent.

      It was the mayor with the deputy. They ordered two glasses of Extra-Special, and began to discuss local affairs. As they were talking in somewhat low tones Toine wanted to put his ear to the wall, and, forgetting all about his eggs, he made a sudden “tack to the north,” which had the effect of plunging him into the midst of an omelette.

      At the loud oath he swore his wife came hurrying into the room, and, guessing what had happened, stripped the bedclothes from him with lightning rapidity. She stood at first without moving or uttering a syllable, speechless with indignation at sight of the yellow poultice sticking to her husband’s side.

      Then, trembling with fury, she threw herself on the paralytic, showering on him blows such as those with which she cleaned her linen on the seashore. Tome’s three friends were choking with laughter, coughing, spluttering and shouting, and the fat innkeeper himself warded his wife’s attacks with all the prudence of which he was capable, that he might not also break the five eggs at his other side.

      Tome was conquered. He had to hatch eggs, he had to give up his games of dominoes and renounce movement of any sort, for the old woman angrily deprived him of food whenever he broke an egg.

      He lay on his back, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, motionless, his arms raised like wings, warming against his body the rudimentary chickens enclosed in their white shells.

      He spoke now only in hushed tones; as if he feared a noise as much as motion, and he took a feverish interest in the yellow hen who was accomplishing in the poultry-yard the same task as he.

      “Has the yellow hen eaten her food all right?” he would ask his wife.

      And the old woman went from her fowls to her husband and from her husband to her fowls, devoured by anxiety as to the welfare of the little chickens who were maturing in the bed and in the nest.

      The country people who knew the story came, agog with curiosity, to ask news of Toine. They entered his room on tiptoe, as one enters a sick-chamber, and asked:

      “Well! how goes it?”

      “All right,” said Toine; “only it keeps me fearfully hot.”

      One morning his wife entered in a state of great excitement, and declared:

      “The yellow hen has seven chickens! Three of the eggs were addled.”

      Toine’s heart beat painfully. How many would he have?

      “Will it soon be over?” he asked, with the anguish of a woman СКАЧАТЬ