A Piece of String

by Guy de Maupassant

A Piece of String by Guy de Maupassant

The farmers and their wives were coming to Goderville because it was market day. The men were walking slowly. Some led cows with ropes, and their wives, who were walking behind the animals, hit them to make them go faster.

They carried large baskets on their arms from which chickens and ducks pushed out their heads.

In the public square of Goderville there was a crowd, a crowd of human beings and animals mixed together. The loud, screaming voices made constant noise. Sometimes you heard a farmer’s loud laugh or the noise of a cow tied to the wall of a house.

Mr. Hauchecome had just arrived at Goderville, and he was walking towards the public square when he saw on the ground a little piece of string. Hauchecome thought that he should keep everything useful. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and began to straighten it out carefully when he noticed Mr. Malandain, in front of his door, looking at him. The two men did not like each other. Hauchecome was ashamed that his enemy saw him, picking a bit of string out of the dirt. He hid the string quickly under his shirt, then in his trousers. Then he pretended to be still looking on the ground for something which he could not find and went towards the market, his head forward.

He was soon lost in the noisy and slowly moving crowd which was busy with endless buying and selling. Then gradually the square emptied and those people who had stayed too long were on their own in the silence.

At Jourdain's restaurant, the room was full of people eating, just as the big square outside was full of carts of all kinds, yellow with dirt.

Just opposite the diners was the huge fireplace, filled with bright flames and turning chickens and legs of lamb. Everyone talked about their business, their purchases and sales. They discussed the crops. The weather was good for green vegetables but not for the wheat.

Suddenly there was a public announcement:

"This morning on the road to Benzeville, between nine and ten o'clock, a black wallet with five hundred francs and some business papers was lost. The finder is asked to return the wallet quickly to the mayor’s office or to Mr. Fortune Houlbreque; there will be twenty francs reward."

Then they began to talk of this event, discussing the chances that Mr Houlbreque had of finding or not finding his wallet. And the meal ended. They finished their coffee when the chief of the police appeared in the doorway.

He asked:

"Is Mr. Hauchecome here?"

Mr. Hauchecome, who was sitting at the other end of the table, replied:

"Here I am."

And the officer continued:

"Mr. Hauchecome, please come with me to the mayor's office. The mayor would like to talk to you."

The mayor was waiting for him, sitting on an armchair.

"Mr. Hauchecome," he said, "you were seen this morning to pick up, on the road to Benzeville, the wallet lost by Mr. Houlbreque."

Hauchecome, surprised, looked at the mayor, already terrified by this suspicion.

"Me? Me? Me pick up the wallet?"

"Yes, you."

"I never heard of it."

"But you were seen."

"I was seen, me? Who says he saw me?"

"Mr. Malandain."

The old man remembered, understood and turned red with anger.

"Ah, he saw me, the fool, he saw me pick up this string here, Mr. Mayor." And looking in his pocket, he pulled out the little piece of string.

But the mayor, suspicious, shook his head.

"You will not make me believe, Mr. Hauchecome, that Mr. Malandain, who is a trustworthy man, mistook this string for a wallet."

Hauchecome was furious. He repeated:

"It’s the truth, Mr. Mayor. I swear."

The mayor continued:

"After picking up the object you stood looking a long while in the mud to see if any money had fallen out."

The good old man choked with anger and fear.

"How anyone can tell – how anyone can tell – such lies to destroy an honest man's reputation! How can anyone…"

There was no use complaining. Nobody believed him.

They brought in Mr. Malandain, who repeated his story. They shouted at each other for an hour. Mr. Hauchecome asked the mayor to search him. Nothing was found on him.

Finally the mayor, very confused, let him go with a warning.

The news spread. As he left the mayor's office the old man was questioned by people in the crowd. He began to tell the story of the string. No one believed him. They laughed at him.

He went along, stopping his friends, telling his story endlessly, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing in them.

They said:

"Old thief, get out!"

And he grew angry, becoming hot and upset because nobody believed him, not knowing what to do and always repeating himself.

Night came. He must leave. He started on his way with three neighbours. He showed them the place where he had picked up the bit of string, and all along the road he told his story.

In the evening he spoke to people in the village. Again, everyone suspected him. It made him ill at night.

The next day about one o'clock in the afternoon, a farm worker returned the wallet and its contents to Mr. Houlbreque.

The man said he had found the wallet in the road, but as he could not read, he carried it to the house and gave it to his manager.

The news went through the area. Mr. Hauchecome was told. He immediately went and told everyone his story.

"What upset me so much was not the thing itself as the lying. There is nothing so shameful as when people doubt you because of a lie."

He told his story all day long. He told it on the road to people who were passing by, and in the coffee shop to people who were drinking there. He stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was calm now, and yet something worried him without his knowing what it was. People did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel that people were saying things behind his back.

On Tuesday of the next week he went to the market at Goderville, because he wanted to tell people his story.

Malandain, standing at his door, began to laugh. Why?

He approached a farmer who did not let him finish and, giving him a punch in the stomach, said to his face:

"You thief."

Then he turned his back on him.

Mr. Hauchecome was confused. Why was he called a thief?

When he was seated at the table in Jourdain's restaurant he carried on explaining the story.

Another farmer called to him:

"Come, come, that's an old trick; I know all about your piece of string!"

Hauchecome said:

"But the wallet was found."

But the other man replied:

"Shut up. Anyway, you are mixed up with it."

The farmer stood choking. He understood. They accused him of getting a friend to return the wallet.

He tried to protest. Everyone at the table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner and went away with everyone shouting at him.

He went home ashamed and annoyed. People knew that he was a clever man, so it was impossible to prove his innocence. And he was made very sad by the injustice of the suspicion.

Then he began to tell the adventures again, making his story longer every day, adding new reasons each time, which he prepared when he was alone. He thought of nothing except for the story of the string. But the more he explained, the less people believed him. He became ill from the stress. Toward the end of December he was sick and stayed in his bed.

He died in the first days of January, and in his fever, he kept repeating his innocence:

"A piece of string, a piece of string – look, here it is, Mr. Mayor."