It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every movement of their long, crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plow which makes the left shoulder higher and bends their figures sideways; from reaping, which spreads their knees too far apart. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished, adorned at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design, puffed out around their bony bodies like balloons ready to soar, from whence their heads emerged.
Here and there a man or woman stopped, and sniffed the odor of the cider that filled the roadside ditches. Others, striding on, a bundle of fowls hanging from one hand, continued on their way to town.
A sound of women’s voices, shrill, chattering, incessant, flew across the fields like flights of birds.
A citizen of Goderville, Maitre Hauchecorne, was on his way to the market place, when he suddenly perceived on the ground a little piece of string. Economical, as are all true Normans, he thought that everything useful ought to be picked up, and, taking it up, he was carefully rolling it when he saw Maitre Malandain, the harness-maker, on his doorstep watching him. Ashamed of being seen, he quickly hid his find in his breeches pocket.
At the same time, a public crier’s voice was heard: “A black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and some business papers has been lost on the public road between nine and ten o’clock this morning. The finder is requested to return it to the mayor’s office.”
Suspicion fell upon Hauchecorne. Though innocent, he was accused and humiliated, and despite his repeated denials, he was shunned by the community. Over time, the unjust accusation wore him down, and he eventually fell ill. As he lay dying, he kept murmuring, “A little piece of string… a little piece of string…”