音像壹力文库?百灵鸟英文经典-莫泊桑中短篇小说选

CONTENTS


Boule de Suif 001
The Story of a Farm Girl 060
The Port 087
Simon’s Papa 101
Mademoiselle Fifi 115
In the Wod 34
Clair de Lune 141
A Family 149
The？Signal 157
The Necklace 166
Two Friends 179
Ugly 190
The Devil 195
The False Gems 206
That Pig of a Morin 216
Miss Harriet 2

居伊·德·莫泊桑（Guy de Maupassant，1850—1893），1纪后半期法国杰出批判现实主义作家，短暂的一生中创作六部长篇小说、一部诗集、三部游记和三百多篇中短篇小说，是位不折不扣的高产作家，被誉为“短篇小说”。莫泊桑与契诃夫和欧·亨利齐名，被为世界短篇小说巨匠，对后世影响深远。

Boule de Suif

For several days in succession fragments of a defeated arm a passed through the town. They were mere disorganized bands, not disciplined forces. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they advanced in listless fashion, without a a, without a leader. All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching onward merely by force of habi,nddrpping to the ground with fatigue the moment they halted. One saw, in particular, many enlisted men, peaceful citizens, men who lived quietly on their income, bending beneath the weight of their rifles; and little active volunteers, easily frightened but full of enthusiasm, as eager to attack as they were ready to take to iht; and amid these, a sprinkling of red-breeched soldiers, the pitiful remnant of a division cut down in a great battle; somber artillerymen, side by side with nondescript foot-soldiers; and, here and there, the gleaming helmet of a heavy-footed dragoon who had difficulty in keeping up with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the line.
Legions of irregulars with high-od names—“Avengers of Defeat,” “Citizens of the Tomb,” “Brethren in Death”—passed in their turn, looking like banditti.
Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants, or tallow or soap chandlers—warriors by force of circumstances, officers by reason of their moustaches or their money—covered with weapons, flannel and gold lace, spoke in an impressive manner, discussed plans of campaign, and behaved as though they alone bore the fortunes of broken France on their braggart shoulders; though, in truth, they frequently were afraid of their own men—scoundrels often brave beyond measure, but pillagers and debauchees.
Rumour had it that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen.
The members of the National Guard, who for the past two months had been reconnoitering with the utmost caution in the neiouring woods, occasionally shooting their own sentinels, and making ready for fight whenever a rabbit rustled in the undergrowth, had now returned to their homes. Their arms, their uniforms, all the death-dealing paraphernalia with which the a terrified all the milestones along the highroad for eight miles round, had suddenly and marvelously disappeared.
The last of the French soldiers had just crossed the Seine on their way to Pont-Audemer, through Saint-Sever and Bourg-Achard, and in their rear the vanquished general, powerless to do aught with the forlorn remnants of his army, himself dismayed at the overthrow of a nation accustomed to victory and disastrously beaten despite its legendary bravery, walked between two orderlies.
Then a profound calm, a shuddering, silent dread, settled on the city. Many a round-paunched citizen, emasculated by years devoted to business, anxiously awaited the conquerors, trembling lest his roasting-jacks or kitchen knives should be looked upon as weapons.
Life seemed to have stopped short; the shops were shut, the streets deserted. Now and then an inhabitant, awed by the silence, glided swiftly by in the shadow of the walls. The anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of the enemy.
In the afternoon of the day following the departure of the French troops, a number of Uhlans, coming no one knew whence, passed rapidly through the town. A little later, a black mass descended St. Catherine’s Hill, while two other invading bodies appeared respectively on the Darnetal and the Bois-Guillaume roads. The advance guards of the three corps arrived at precisely the same moment at the Square of the Hôtel de Ville, and the German army poured through all the adjacent streets, its battalions making the pavement ring with their firm, measured tread.
Ord sted in an unknown, guttural tongue rose to the windows of the seemingly dead, deserted houses; while behind the fast-closed shutters eager eyes peered forth at the victors—masters now of the city, its fortunes, and its lives, by “right of war.” The inhabitants, in their darkene oos, were possessed by that terror which follows in the wake of cataclysms, of deadly upheavals of the earth, against which all human skill and strength are vain. For the same thing happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and nuling in its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead oxen and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with glory, murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the rest, pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to the thunder of cannon—all these are appalling scourges, which destroy belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught to feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.
Small detachments of soldiers knocked aechdor, and then disappeared within the houses; for the vanquished saw they would have to be civil to their conquerors.
……