United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Her long practical acquaintance with these classes indeed was fatal to illusions on the subject. The average son of the soil was as far removed as any other living creature from her ideal of humanity, and at the very time when she penned La Petite Fadette she was experiencing how far the ignorance, ill-will, and stupidity of her poorer neighbors could go.
At Cowperwood's suggestion she had employed a social secretary, a poor hack of a girl, who had sent out all the letters, tabulated the replies, run errands, and advised on one detail and another. Fadette, her French maid, was in the throes of preparing for two toilets which would have to be made this day, one by two o'clock at least, another between six and eight.
The break in her ordinary round of work made by the excitements of active statesmanship was hardly perceptible, and in 1849 Le Champi was followed by La Petite Fadette. La Mare au Diable, George Sand's first tale of exclusively peasant-life, is usually considered her masterpiece in this genre.
Fresh from her bath, a smooth, ivory Venus, she worked quickly through silken lingerie, stockings and shoes, to her hair. Fadette had an idea to suggest for the hair. Would Madame let her try a new swirl she had seen? Madame would yes. So there were movings of her mass of rich glinting tresses this way and that. Somehow it would not do.
Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within! "Tell me," she said quietly "tell me how you are able to save Haman?" "He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman he is drunk, and everyt'ing seem to say Haman he did it, an' everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging.
Before he began to write, the movement towards a greater restraint, a more deliberate art, had shown itself in a few short novels by GEORGE SAND the first of the long and admirable series of her mature works where, especially in such delicate masterpieces as La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadette, and François le Champi, her earlier lyricism and incoherence were replaced by an idyllic sentiment strengthened and purified by an exquisite sense of truth.
"My mudder, she was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank you till moontime." In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for the fire within and the frost outside. Time went on. The night deepened.
The subject had come into his mind he went on making conversation from recently re-reading a book of George Sand's, La Petite Fadette, in which a cure is performed which seemed to him very similar. If she had not read the book, she must permit him to bring it for her perusal. He talked about the book.
Above the pellucid, malachite-coloured river, at first a mere narrow ribbon ever winding and winding, rise verdant banks, tiny vineyards planted on almost vertical slopes, apple orchards, the bright red fruit hanging over the water's edge, whilst willows and poplars fringe the low-lying reaches, and here and there, a pastoral group, some little Fadette keeps watch over her goats.
"It would not be difficult," he mused, communing with the thought which had come to him. "It would be something real, and not a chimera." He turned over the horses to the grooms, and went in search of Fitzgerald to inform him of his discovery; but the Englishman was nowhere to be found. Neither was Madame. Being thirsty, he proceeded to the dining hall. Fadette, the maid, was laying the silver.
Word Of The Day