The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2 (of 8) eBook
Guy de Maupassant
But he pretended to hear, moreover, to guess to whom
they were alluding. He seemed as happy, and glad
to look about him as he usually did, with half open
lips and smiling eyes. As usual, he wore an enormous
cap with variegated ribbons, and large petticoats
as usual, he walked with short, mincing steps, swaying
and wriggling his hips and crupper, and he gesticulated
like a coquette, and licked his lips, when they called
him Mademoiselle, while in his head, he would
have liked too have jumped at the throat of those
who called him so.
Days and months passed, and by degrees these about
him forgot all about his strange escapade, but he
had never left off thinking about it, nor trying to
find out, for which he was ever on the alert—how
he could find out what were his qualities as a boy,
and how could he assert them victoriously. Really
innocent, he had reached the age of twenty without
knowing anything about it, or without ever having any
natural impulse to discover it, but being tenacious
of purpose, curious and dissembling, he asked no questions,
but observed all that was said and done.
Often at their village dances, he had heard young
fellows boasting about girls whom they had seduced,
and praising such and such a young fellow, and often,
also, after a dance, he saw the couples go away together,
with their arms round each other’s waists.
They had no suspicions of him, and he listened and
watched, until, at last, he discovered what was going
on.
And, then, one night, when dancing was over, and the
couples were going away with their arms round each
other’s waists, a terrible screaming was heard
at the corner of the woods through which those going
to the next village, had to pass. It was Josephine,
pretty Josephine, for she was brave as well, and when
her screams were heard, they ran to her assistance,
and they arrived only just in time to rescue her, half
strangled from Mademoiselle’s clutches.
The idiot had watched her, and had thrown himself
upon her in order to treat her as the other young
fellows did the girls, but she resisted him so stoutly
that he took her by the throat and squeezed with all
his might until she could not breathe, and was nearly
dead.
In rescuing Josephine from him, they had thrown him
on the ground, but he jumped up again immediately,
foaming at the mouth and slobbering, and exclaimed:
“I am not a girl any longer, I am a young man,
I am a young man, I tell you.”
And he proudly essayed to convince them that it was
so, but the evidence that he could adduce was very
slight.
