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 headdresses of the women came to the surface of that sea. 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.
It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration, giving off that half-human, half-animal odor
which is peculiar to country folks.
this is the exposition because the writer is setting up the
story informing the reader what is going on.
Rising Action
When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a jerky voice, pausing
in the wrong places:
"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all persons present
at the market that there has been lost this morning on the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are requested to return it to the mayor's office at once
or to Maitre Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."
Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull beating of the
drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre
Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.
The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
He asked:
"Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?"
Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table answered:
"Here I am, here I am."
And he followed the corporal.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous
speech.
"Maitre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road, you were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by
Maitre Houlbreque, of Manneville."
The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement frightened already at this suspicion which rested on him, he knew
not why.
"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"
"Yes, YOU."
"I swear I don't even know anything about it."
"You were seen."
"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"
"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."
Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger, said:
"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string here, M'sieu le Maire."
And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the little end of string.
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."
The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside him as if to attest his good faith, repeating:
"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's salvation, I repeat it."
The mayor continued:
"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for some time in the mud to see if a piece of money
had not dropped out of it."
The good man was choking with indignation and fear.
"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an honest man! How can they?"
His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.
He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his testimony. They railed at one another for an
hour. At his own request Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.
At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he would inform the public prosecutor and ask
for orders.
The news had spread. 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. And he began to tell the story of the
string. They did not believe him. They laughed.
He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his acquaintances, beginning over and over again his
tale and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing in them.
They said to him:
"You old rogue!"
He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being believed, and kept on telling his story.
The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where
he had picked up the string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.
That evening he made the round of the village of Breaute for the purpose of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.
He brooded over it all night long.
The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at
Ymauville, returned the pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbreque, of Manneville.
This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not knowing how to read, he had carried it home and
given it to his master.
The news spread to the environs. Maitre Hauchecorne was informed. He started off at once and began to relate his
story with the denoument. He was triumphant.
"What grieved me," said he, "was not the thing itself, do you understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing
does you so much harm as being in disgrace for lying."
All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the people who passed, at the cabaret to the people
who drank and next Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was easy now,
and yet something worried him without his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they listened. They
did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks behind his back.
On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville, prompted solely by the need of telling his story.
Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him pass. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let hire finish, and giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach
cried in his face: "Oh, you great rogue!" Then he turned his heel upon him.
Maitre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy. Why had they called him "great rogue"?
When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain the whole affair.
A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
"Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string."
Hauchecorne stammered:
"But since they found it again, the pocketbook!"
But the other continued:
"Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another who returns it. And no one the wiser."
This is the rising action because its when the porblem starts
to come on to the main character
Climax
The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of having had the pocketbook brought back by
an accomplice, by a confederate.
This the climax because it is the high turning point in the
story
Falling Action
He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.
He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more cast down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps,
capable of having done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a good trick. He was dimly conscious that it
was impossible to prove his innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck to the heart by the injustice
of the suspicion.
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. The more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less he was believed.
"Those are liars proofs," they said behind his back.
He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless efforts.
He was visibly wasting away.
Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign
tell his story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of December he took to his bed.
This is the falling action because this is when the protagonist
deals with the problem
Resolution
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He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony, he protested his innocence, repeating:
"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is, M'sieu le Maire."
This is the resolution because it is after climax and the loose ends are tied up |
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