The Piece of String
Complete textOn market day, Hauchecorne bends to pick up a piece of string and notices that someone has seen him. A lost pocketbook soon turns the ordinary action into suspicious evidence. His efforts to explain himself unfold within a community already ready to interpret his behavior through reputation.
Continue readingAbout The Piece of String
The story shows how a plausible accusation can become more persuasive than repeated denial. Hauchecorne’s thrift makes his original gesture understandable, but the same social knowledge can be used against him. Follow the changing effect of telling the truth, and consider why an explanation may lose force when listeners treat insistence itself as proof of guilt.
Reading focus
Watch a harmless gesture acquire an incriminating story, and consider why repeated explanation can deepen rather than resolve suspicion.
This reading edition contains 2,329 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Guy de Maupassant. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long, crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes the left-shoulder higher, and bends their figures side-ways; from reaping the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep on their feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design and blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like balloons about to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.
Contents
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Is this the complete The Piece of String?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 2,329 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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