PIERRE & JEAN

By Guy De Maupassant


Translated By Clara Bell




CHAPTER I

"Tschah!" exclaimed old Roland suddenly, after he had remained
motionless for a quarter of an hour, his eyes fixed on the water, while
now and again he very slightly lifted his line sunk in the sea.

Mme. Roland, dozing in the stern by the side of Mme. Rosemilly, who had
been invited to join the fishing-party, woke up, and turning her head to
look at her husband, said:

"Well, well! Gerome."

And the old fellow replied in a fury:

"They do not bite at all. I have taken nothing since noon. Only men
should ever go fishing. Women always delay the start till it is too
late."

His two sons, Pierre and Jean, who each held a line twisted round his
forefinger, one to port and one to starboard, both began to laugh, and