Mont Oriol or A Romance of Auvergne

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Guy de Maupassant. Mont Oriol or A Romance of Auvergne

CHAPTER I. THE SPA

CHAPTER II. THE DISCOVERY

CHAPTER III. BARGAINING

CHAPTER IV. A TEST AND AN AVOWAL

CHAPTER V. DEVELOPMENTS

CHAPTER VI. ON THE BRINK

CHAPTER VII. ATTAINMENT

CHAPTER VIII. ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER IX. THE SPA AGAIN

CHAPTER X. GONTRAN'S CHOICE

CHAPTER XI. A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING

CHAPTER XII. A Betrothal

CHAPTER XIII. Paul Changes His Mind

CHAPTER XIV. Christiane's Via Crucis

Отрывок из книги

The breakfast was long, as the meals usually are at a table d'hôte. Christiane, who was not familiar with all the faces of those present, chatted with her father and her brother. Then she went up to her room to take a rest till the time for blasting the rock.

She was ready long before the hour fixed, and made the others start along with her so that they might not miss the explosion. Just outside the village, at the opening of the glen, stood, as they had heard, a high knoll, almost a mountain, which they proceeded to climb under a burning sun, following a little path through the vine-trees. When they reached the summit the young woman uttered a cry of astonishment at the sight of the immense horizon displayed before her eyes. In front of her stretched a limitless plain, which immediately gave her soul the sensation of an ocean. This plain, overhung by a veil of light blue vapor, extended as far as the most distant mountain-ridges, which were scarcely perceptible, some fifty or sixty kilometers away. And under the transparent haze of delicate fineness, which floated above this vast stretch, could be distinguished towns, villages, woods, vast yellow squares of ripe crops, vast green squares of herbage, factories with long, red chimneys and blackened steeples and sharp-pointed structures, with the solidified lava of dead volcanoes.

.....

Christiane saw nothing but a shower of stones falling, and a high column of light clay sinking in a heap. And immediately afterward the crowd from above rushed down like a wave, uttering wild shouts. The battalion of kitchen-drudges came racing down in the direction of the knoll, leaving behind them the regiment of theatrical performers, who descended more slowly, with Petrus Martel at their head. The three parasols forming a tricolor were nearly carried away in this descent.

And all ran, men, women, peasants, and villagers. They could be seen falling, getting up again, starting on afresh, while in long procession the two streams of people, which had till now been kept back by fear, rolled along so as to knock against one another and get mixed up on the very spot where the explosion had taken place.

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