Résumé
Résumé de La Mare au Diable
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love gentle, character-driven stories, country settings and nineteenth-century France. It also rewards anyone curious about George Sand, rural customs and the ties between love and duty.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Devil's Pool is a short novel by George Sand, first published in France in 1846. Sand wrote it in the countryside of Berry, in central France, where she had a family house at Nohant. She knew the farmers and their songs, their sayings and their old beliefs. In this book she set out to show their lives with respect, at a time when French fiction mostly belonged to cities and drawing rooms.
The story is simple on purpose. A young widowed farmer named Germain is pressed to marry again, and he sets out on a short journey to meet a possible bride. A girl, a child and a night in a foggy forest change what he wants. You get a tender love story, a clear picture of work in the fields, and a quiet argument about what makes a good marriage. Let us begin where Sand begins, with a man behind a plough.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Sand begins with a ploughmanFree
- 2A young widower is told to remarry
- 3A girl and a child join the road
- 4Lost in the fog at the Devil's Pool
- 5What the story says about love and duty
- 6How Sand tells a country story
Point clé 1 sur 6
Sand begins with a ploughman
The book opens not with the plot but with Sand herself, looking at an engraving by Hans Holbein. It shows a poor ploughman at work while Death walks beside him and urges on his horses. Sand finds the picture sad and a little cruel. The farmer's labour is hard, and the only comfort the picture offers is the grave.
Then she looks out at a real field in Berry. A man is ploughing there with a team of oxen, and the scene feels very different to her. The land is rich, the autumn light is soft, and the man works with strength and care. She sees dignity in his labour, and some happiness too, since his work is tied to a place he knows and loves.
This opening sets the tone for the whole book. Sand does not pretend that country life is easy. But she refuses to treat peasants as figures of pity or as comic types. She wants her readers to see that these people feel deeply and think clearly, and that their lives deserve a story.
From the ploughman she moves straight to the story of one such man. His name is Germain, and he is a good worker, honest and well liked. Sand says she will tell what happened to him, and she tells it as a neighbour might, in no hurry and with plain words. That voice stays with the reader to the last page.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Germain
- A hardworking young widower with three children, Germain faces pressure from his family to marry again.
- Marie
- A kind sixteen-year-old from a poor family, Marie accompanies Germain while travelling to work as a shepherdess.
- Petit-Pierre
- Germain's affectionate young son, Petit-Pierre insists on joining his father and Marie on their journey.
- Père Maurice
- Germain's caring father-in-law, Père Maurice urges him to find a wife who can help raise the children.
- The widow
- A woman with property in another village, the widow is Germain's family's proposed choice for his next wife.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 38,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 35 min
- Listening time4 h 15 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages