Sur L'eau and Other Tales Des Vers Author:Guy de Maupassant General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1903 Original Publisher: Review of reviews Co. Subjects: Travel / Europe / France Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial... more » access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: IV. Saint-raphael N Our way here the weather was delightful, and a light breeze carried us over in six tacks. After rounding the Dram- mont, I caught sight of the villas of Saint-Raphael hidden among the pine-trees, among the little slender pines beaten all the year round by the everlasting gusts of wind from Frejus. Then I passed between the Lions, pretty red rocks that seemed to guard the CX / town, and I entered the port which, choked ipw up with sand at the further end, obliges one " to remain some fifty yards off the quay. I then went on land. A large crowd was gathered in front of the church. Some one was being married. A priest was performing in Latin, with pontifical gravity, the solemn and comical act which so disturbs mankind, bringing with it so much mirth, suffering, and tears. According to custom, the families had invited all their relatives and friends to the funeral service of a young girl's innocence, to listen to the piously indecorous ecclesiastical admonitions, preceding those of the mother, and to the public benediction, bestowed on that which is otherwise so carefully veiled. And the whole countryside, full of broad jokes, moved by the greedy and idle curiosity that draws the common herd to such a scene, had come there to see how the bride and bridegroom would comport themselves. I mingled with the crowd, and watched it. Good heavens, how ugly men are! For at least the hundredth time I noticed, in the midst of this festive scene, that, of all races, the human race is the most hideous. The whole air wa...« less