The Devil’s Pool, by George Sand; translated by Andrew Brown (London, England: Hesperus Classics, 2005; first published in French as La Mare au Diable in 1846)
Set in George Sand’s beloved Berry region of France, The Devil’s Pool tells the tale of Germain, “a shy but handsome widower,” as he falls in love with Marie, a girl ten years his junior. In her 1851 preface, Sand invited readers to “see the simplicity” of rural Berry in her novel, to “see the sky and fields, and the trees, and the peasants, especially what is good and true about them.”
“I was acquainted with this young man and that handsome lad; I knew their story, since they had a story – everyone has a story (and everyone would be able to rouse interest in the novel of their own life, if they had really understood it…). Although he was a peasant and a simple ploughman, Germain had realized where his duties and his affections lay. He had narrated them to me, naively and clearly, and I had listened to him with interest. When I had watched him ploughing for quite some time, I asked myself why his story shouldn’t get written down, even though it was quite a simple story, as straight and unadorned as the furrow that he traced out with his plough.” – from The Devil’s Pool, by George Sand
The Devil’s Pool Online Edition