Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior

"Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior" is a novella by French author Guy de Maupassant that explores the complex relationship between a father and his son, both named Hautot. Set in rural Normandy, the story revolves around Hautot Senior, a traditional and somewhat gruff older man, and his more modern, carefree son, Hautot Junior. Their differing worldviews and generational conflict come to the forefront as they navigate love, ambition, and the changing societal values of their time. Maupassant's narrative captures themes of familial bonds, loss, and the inevitable passage of time, all infused with his characteristic wit and keen observations of human nature.

								
PART I

In front of the building, half farm-house, half manor-house, one of
those rural habitations of a mixed character which were all but
seigneurial, and which are at the present time occupied by large
cultivators, the dogs lashed beside the apple-trees in the orchard near
the house, kept barking and howling at the sight of the shooting-bags
carried by the gamekeepers and the boys. In the spacious dining-room
kitchen, Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior, M. Bermont, the tax-collector,
and M. Mondaru, the notary were taking a pick and drinking a glass
before going out to shoot, for it was the opening day.

Hautot Senior, proud of all his possessions, talked boastfully
beforehand of the game which his guests were going to find on his lands.
He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, sanguineous, bony men, who
lift wagon-loads of apples on their shoulders. Half-peasant,
half-gentleman, rich, respected, influential, invested with authority he
made his son César go as far as the third form at school, so that he
might be an educated man, and there he had brought his studies to a stop
for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman and paying no attention to the
land.

César Hautot, almost as tall as his father, but thinner, was a good
son, docile, content with everything, full of admiration, respect, and
deference, for the wishes and opinions of his sire.

M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a stout little man, who showed on his red
cheeks a thin network of violet veins resembling the tributaries and the
winding courses of rivers on maps, asked:

"And hares--are there any hares on it?"

Hautot Senior answered:

"As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."

"Which direction are we to begin at?" asked the notary, a jolly notary
fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new
hunting-costume bought at Rouen.

"Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges
into the plain, and we will beat there again."

And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their
guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in
order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard,
not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then
they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes,
gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.

They set forth for the lands referred to. They consisted of a little
glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on
that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents,
covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.

The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other,
Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left,
and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the
game-bags followed. It was the solemn moment when the first shot it
awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps
feeling at the gun-lock every second.

Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped,
and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at
a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of
brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid
strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he
disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in quest of his game.

Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard.

"Ha! ha! the rascal!" exclaimed M. Bermont, "he will unearth a hare down
there."

They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through
which their gaze failed to penetrate.

The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted:

"Have you got them?"

Hautot Senior made no response.

Then César, turning towards the keeper, said to him:

"Just go, and assist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight
line. We'll wait."

And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints
formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine,
searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected
with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried:

"Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred."

They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers.

The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition,
kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the
grass through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood.
As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge, within
reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge
going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out
of the trench; they removed his clothes, and they saw a frightful wound,
through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him
the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and
they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest.

When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards
young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair:

"My poor boy," said he, "this has not a good look."

But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers,
opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard
glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to
understand, and he murmured:

"Ah! good God! this has done for me!"

The doctor held his hand.

"Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing."

Hautot returned:

"It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well."

Then, all of a sudden:

"I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."

Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like
a little boy.

"P'pa, p'pa, poor p'ps!"

But the father, in a firmer tone:

"Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you.
Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be
more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."

They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.

As soon as they were alone:

"Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to
you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import
into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn't
that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing
that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?"

The son faltered:

"Yes, it is true."

"So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower.
Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn't
that true?"

The son replied:

"Yes, it is true."

The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with

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