Like Death by Guy de Maupassant

Author:Guy de Maupassant
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781681270330
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2017-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

2

THE COUNTESS and her daughter, dressed in black crepe, had just seated themselves opposite each other for lunch in the large room at Roncières. Ancestral portraits, artlessly presenting one in a cuirass, another in a leather jerkin, this one in the powdered costume of an officer of the gardes françaises, that one as a colonel of the Restoration, were hung in a line upon the walls, forming a collection of the dead and gone Guilleroys, in old frames from which the gilt was falling. Two servants, with muffled steps, were beginning to wait upon the silent women, and the flies made a little cloud of black dots, whirling and buzzing around the glass chandelier suspended over the center of the table.

“Open the windows,” said the countess. “It’s a little cool in here.”

The three tall windows, extending from floor to ceiling and as large as bay windows, were opened wide. A breath of balmy air, laden with the perfume of warm grass and the far-off noises of the country, poured in through these three large gaps, mingling with the somewhat damp air of the room, shut in by the thick walls of the castle.

“Ah, that’s good,” said Annette, drawing a deep breath.

The eyes of the two women had turned toward the outside, and they were looking beneath the clear blue sky—somewhat veiled by the midday mist that was reflected upon the fields overflowing with sunshine—at the long greensward of the park, with its clumps of trees here and there, and its perspective opening afar on the yellow country, illuminated as far as the distant horizon by the golden glimmer of ripening grain.

“We’ll take a long walk after lunch,” said the countess. “We might walk as far as Berville, following the river—it would be too warm in the fields.”

“Yes, Maman, and we’ll take Julio along to stir up some partridges.”

“You know your father forbids it.”

“Oh, but since Papa’s in Paris. It’s so funny to see Julio pointing. Here he comes, teasing the cows. Dear me, how funny he is!” Pushing back her chair, she rose and ran to the window, from which vantage she cried out, “At ’em, Julio, at ’em.”

On the lawn, three heavy cows, stuffed with grass, overcome with the heat, were resting, lying on their sides, their bellies protruding from the pressure of the ground. Bounding from one to another, barking, scampering, wildly mad with joy, both furious and feigned, a hunting spaniel, slim, white and red, whose curly ears were flying at every bound, was bent on making the three great beasts get up, which they would not do. That was evidently the dog’s favorite trick, in which he indulged whenever he saw the cows lying down. Annoyed, but not frightened, they looked at him with their great moist eyes, turning their heads around to follow him.

Annette, from her window shouted, “Fetch them, Julio. Fetch them.”

And the spaniel, excited, grew bolder, barked louder, ventured as far as their cruppers, making believe he would bite. They began to grow

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