Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-18

story, but simply through the natural
sequence of events.
Ninety-nine readers out of a hundred
picking up a French story about twins.
would expect to find the two falling in
love with the same girl.
The reader of Little Fadette" CON-
stantly expects this to happen. and
then. as the story nears its close, gives
up the expectation. But the page he
happen!
Yet no one must think that the love
story OF Fanchon the Cricket (the little
Fadette) and her Landry Is threatened
thereby. 1t Is much too late in the
story for that! the gentlemanly Sylvanet
simply takes himself off to the Napole-
onic wars. and stays with them forever.
so far as the happy couple is concerned.
For the little F'adett0 was a charmer,
as the author admits. and as all the
characters admit. In her youth she was
poor, ugly, thin, and so dark in COM
pleXion that the village nicknamed her
"the Cricket" She was that ugly.
Misjudged by the villagers, she turned
upon them in rebuke and ridicule, be-
coming the butts of their Jokes and
ridicule in return.
Landry and Sylvanet hated her, and
as far as any one else could tell she
despised them. AS matter OF fact, she
had fallen quite in love with Landry
when she was Is years old, but the au-
thor manages to keep this out of the
record until the proper time, of course.
BY doing so she achieves one of the best
strokes of the story.
The Transformation OF this poor.
homely little girl into beautiful and
charming young woman, through the
power OF love, is the central theme. It
is doubtful If any but a French writer
could work it out so well.
The pastoral drama is built around
the opposition of Landry's father to the
match which he is determined upon
making at last. The French peasant
father is the head of the house in a
sense that America has forgotten. He
is held by all to be older and therefore
wiser. and the household defers to his
judgment at all times.
The happy climax comes when little
Fadette finds bag of gold beneath the
floor OF her grandmother's hut, after
the old lady has passed on. The scene
IN which she takes the gold to Father
Barbeau and asks him to invest it for
her is a masterpiece. The reader sees
the old man gasping as he realizes that
OF the richest persons in the village.
1t Is amazing the way his respect for
the girl increases, but the thing is
worked out so we'll that 1t all appears
perfectly natural. especially when the
reader takes into consideration the
universal theme of all French fiction,
the covetedness of the peasants.
Little Fadette" has a wealth of
peasant tradition in it. Perhaps it is
impossible to understand the French
temper at all without having some
comprehension of the basic stratum of
the national life. Many French authors
rather overdo the perturbation of the
peasants. They make them out veri-
table demons OF the soil.
1t Is pleasant, therefore, and probably
great deal nearer the truth, to know
the coed peasants of George Sands
Little Fadette." They must be true.
as far as they go. Here we have them
at church and at their dances on the
green sward Immediately after the
services. We see them at play and at
work. and are amazed to discover that
in essentials they are just like other
human beings.
Fanchon. the little Fadette, may make
long speeches. but aside from that little
blemish she is charming young lady,
especially commendable because she ran
her own beauty parlor and became so
satisfactory to mankind from such hum
BILE beginnings. We feel sure that the
world ought to reprint and read more
the def story which George Sand woye
about her adventures,