The Piece of String

The story is about a man called Maitre Hauchecome. He is an economical man who picks up anything useful on the ground. Whilst he is walking in the market he finds a piece of string on the ground and picks it up. On the same day Maitre Fortune looses his pocket book in the market and one of Maitre Hauchecome’s rivals accuses him of stealing the pocket book. As news gets around more people believe the story of the stolen pocket book and Maitre Hauchecome is branded a rascal, he tries for years to proclaim his innocence and the people of Goderville still don’t believe him even when the pocket book is returned. He proclaims his innocence until his death at the end of the story.

The male inhabitants of the town of Goderville are mostly farmers and all have strange characteristics. “The men were proceeding with slow steps, the whole body bent forward at each movement of their long twisted legs deformed by their hard work, by the weight on the plow which at the same time, raised the left shoulder and swerved the figure, by the reaping of the wheat which made the knees spread to make a firm ‘purchase’, by all the slow and painful labours of the country.” This description of the men in the town of Goderville suggests that the families in the town struggle on farms and at the market to make a living.

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The women in the town work on the markets selling the produce from their husbands and are also described in detail. ”They carried large baskets on their arms from which, in some cases, chickens and, in others, ducks thrust out their heads. And they walked with a quicker, livelier step than their husbands. Their spare straight figures were wrapped in a scanty little shawl pinned over their flat bosoms, and their heads were enveloped in white cloth glued to the hair and surmounted by a cap. This paragraph also suggests that the general population of Goderville were poor farmers, ...

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