And all three, running abreast rapidly, made their way to the station like three grotesque figures in a comic newspaper.

The train was on the point of starting.  They sprang into their carriage.  Then the Englishmen, taking off their travelling caps, waved them three times over their heads, exclaiming: 

“Hip! hip! hip! hurrah!”

And gravely, one after the other, they extended their right hands to M. Dubuis and then went back and sat down in their own corner.

Original short stories, Vol. 2.

Guy de maupassant
original short stories
Translated by
Albert M. C. McMASTER, B.A. 
A. E. Henderson, B.A. 
Mme. Quesada and Others

VOLUME II.

THE COLONEL’S IDEAS

“Upon my word,” said Colonel Laporte, “although I am old and gouty, my legs as stiff as two pieces of wood, yet if a pretty woman were to tell me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I should take a jump at it, like a clown through a hoop.  I shall die like that; it is in the blood.  I am an old beau, one of the old school, and the sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to the tips of my toes.  There!

“We are all very much alike in France in this respect; we still remain knights, knights of love and fortune, since God has been abolished whose bodyguard we really were.  But nobody can ever get woman out of our hearts; there she is, and there she will remain, and we love her, and shall continue to love her, and go on committing all kinds of follies on her account as long as there is a France on the map of Europe; and even if France were to be wiped off the map, there would always be Frenchmen left.

“When I am in the presence of a woman, of a pretty woman, I feel capable of anything.  By Jove! when I feel her looks penetrating me, her confounded looks which set your blood on fire, I should like to do I don’t know what; to fight a duel, to have a row, to smash the furniture, in order to show that I am the strongest, the bravest, the most daring and the most devoted of men.

“But I am not the only one, certainly not; the whole French army is like me, I swear to you.  From the common soldier to the general, we all start out, from the van to the rear guard, when there is a woman in the case, a pretty woman.  Do you remember what Joan of Arc made us do formerly?  Come.  I will make a bet that if a pretty woman had taken command of the army on the eve of Sedan, when Marshal MacMahon was wounded, we should have broken through the Prussian lines, by Jove! and had a drink out of their guns.

“It was not a Trochu, but a Sainte-Genevieve, who was needed in Paris; and I remember a little anecdote of the war which proves that we are capable of everything in presence of a woman.