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Mauprat by George Sand
page 20 of 411 (04%)
good fire, near a table covered with cups--

"Don't be annoyed," he said. "At my age I cannot get rid of hereditary
sarcasm; but there is nothing spiteful in mine. To speak seriously, I am
delighted to see you and to confide in you the story of my life. A man
as unfortunate as I have been deserves to find a faithful biographer to
clear his memory from all stain. Listen, then, and take some coffee."

I offered him a cup in silence. He refused it with a wave of the arm
and a smile which seemed to say, "That is rather for your effeminate
generation."

Then he began his narrative in these words:




I

You live not very far from Roche-Mauprat, and must have often passed by
the ruins. Thus there is no need for me to describe them. All I can tell
you is that the place has never been so attractive as it is now. On the
day that I had the roof taken off, the sun for the first time brightened
the damp walls within which my childhood was passed; and the lizards
to which I have left them are much better housed there than I once was.
They can at least behold the light of day and warm their cold limbs in
the rays of the sun at noon.

There used to be an elder and a younger branch of the Mauprats. I belong
to the elder. My grandfather was that old Tristan de Mauprat who ran
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