The Piece of String
A thrifty peasant stoops to pick up a bit of string, is falsely accused of stealing a lost wallet, and is destroyed by a rumor he cannot disprove.
Maître Hauchecorne bends to pick up a worthless scrap of string in the market square, and a watching enemy reports him for pocketing a lost wallet instead. When the wallet turns up, no one believes he is innocent, because why would an honest man stoop for a piece of string. The harder he protests, the guiltier he seems. Maupassant turns a peasant’s thrift into a death sentence written by gossip.
What happens
On market day in the Norman town of Goderville, the frugal peasant Maître Hauchecorne stoops to pick up a small piece of string from the road, and his enemy, the harness maker Maître Malandain, sees him and assumes he has found and hidden something valuable. When a lost wallet full of money is reported, Hauchecorne is summoned before the mayor and accused, though a search of him turns up nothing but the string he insists is all he found. The wallet is later returned by another man who found it, yet the rumor of Hauchecorne’s guilt persists, with townspeople believing he passed it to an accomplice. Tormented, the old peasant travels the countryside repeating his story of the string to anyone who will listen, but his obsessive defense only convinces people he is guilty. The disbelief eats at him until he falls ill, and on his deathbed he is still protesting his innocence, murmuring about the piece of string. The story ends with his death, a victim of suspicion and the cruelty of public opinion.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- 1 Market Day
Peasants gather in Goderville for the weekly market, and the thrifty Hauchecorne spots a piece of string in the road.
- 2 The Stooping
He picks up the string to save it, and his rival Malandain watches and assumes he has hidden something of value.
- 3 The Accusation
A lost wallet is announced, and Hauchecorne is summoned to the mayor, accused on Malandain’s word despite finding nothing on him.
- 4 The Wallet Returned
Another man returns the wallet he found, seeming to clear Hauchecorne, but the town keeps its suspicion.
- 5 The Obsession
Hauchecorne wanders telling his story of the string to everyone, but his desperate repetition makes him look guiltier still.
- 6 Decline
Worn down by mockery and disbelief, the old man falls ill, consumed by the injustice he cannot dispel.
- 7 Death
On his deathbed he is still pleading his innocence, dying with the words about the little piece of string on his lips.
Characters and how they connect
Maître Hauchecorne
Protagonist
A thrifty old Norman peasant whose harmless frugality dooms him to a fatal false accusation.
Maître Malandain
Accuser
The harness maker and Hauchecorne’s enemy whose report sets the ruinous rumor in motion.
The Mayor
Authority
The official who interrogates Hauchecorne and lends weight to the suspicion against him.
Marius Paumelle
The finder
The man who actually finds and returns the lost wallet, briefly seeming to clear the accused.
The townspeople
Chorus of judgment
The crowd whose laughter and gossip become the true engine of Hauchecorne’s destruction.
Relationship map
- Maître Malandainold grudge fuels the accusationMaître Hauchecorne
- The Mayorsummons and accuses himMaître Hauchecorne
- Marius Paumellereturns the real walletMaître Hauchecorne
- The townspeopledisbelieve and mock himMaître Hauchecorne
- Maître Hauchecorneendlessly pleads his storyThe townspeople
Themes what the story is really about
The Tyranny of Public Opinion
Hauchecorne is destroyed not by evidence but by collective belief, showing how a community’s suspicion can override fact and kill a man.
Injustice and Powerlessness
An innocent peasant has no way to prove a negative, and the more he defends himself the guiltier he appears, dramatizing helplessness before slander.
Pride and Reputation
Hauchecorne’s need to clear his name becomes an obsession that consumes him, showing how vital honor is to peasant identity.
Cruelty and Pettiness
Malandain’s spite and the crowd’s mockery reveal the casual cruelty beneath ordinary rural life.
Symbols & motifs
The Piece of String
The worthless scrap embodies both Hauchecorne’s harmless thrift and the absurd triviality of the cause of his ruin.
The Lost Wallet
The wallet represents the value the town imagines he stole, a phantom guilt that no recovered object can erase.
The Market Square
The crowded marketplace stands for the watchful, judging community whose collective gaze condemns him.
Stooping to the Ground
The simple bend to the dirt becomes a symbol of how the smallest act can be fatally misread.
Recurring motifs
Repetition of the Story. Hauchecorne’s endless retelling of his innocence recurs as a futile incantation that deepens rather than dispels suspicion.
Laughter and Mockery. The crowd’s recurring laughter underscores the cruelty of public judgment and the loneliness of the accused.
Watching Eyes. The motif of being seen, by Malandain and the town, drives the plot and ties identity to surveillance.
Conflicts
Person vs. Society
Hauchecorne struggles against a community that has decided his guilt and will not be moved by truth.
Person vs. Person
Malandain’s personal grudge launches the accusation and embodies the human malice behind the rumor.
Person vs. Self
The peasant’s own obsessive pride turns his defense into self-destruction as he cannot let the injustice rest.
Literary devices
- Situational Irony
- An act of harmless thrift is mistaken for theft, and the recovery of the wallet deepens rather than ends the accusation.
- Realism
- Maupassant renders peasant speech, market detail, and social rivalry with unsentimental precision to ground the tragedy.
- Symbolism
- The trivial string carries the story’s entire weight, embodying how small things destroy a life.
- Dramatic Irony
- The reader knows Hauchecorne is innocent while the town will not believe him, intensifying his helpless suffering.
- Foreshadowing
- The early grudge between Hauchecorne and Malandain hints at the malice that will drive the accusation.
Important quotes
“Along all the roads around Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the burgh because it was market day.”
“He looked all around him, then put it in his pocket, and went on toward the market, his head bent toward the ground.”
“An honest man’s word should be believed.”
“A little bit of string, a little bit of string. See, here it is, M’sieu’ le Maire.”
The ending is a study in irreversible injustice. Even after the lost wallet is found and returned by another man, the town refuses to believe Hauchecorne is innocent, deciding instead that he must have passed it to an accomplice. His compulsive effort to clear his name only confirms his guilt in their eyes, since they reason that an honest man would not protest so much. The injustice physically destroys him, and he dies still murmuring about the little piece of string, his last breath spent on a defense no one accepts. Maupassant offers no redemption or rescue, indicting the cruelty of public opinion and the impossibility of disproving a rumor once a community has chosen to believe it.
Common misreadings
MythHauchecorne is guilty of stealing the wallet.
ActuallyHe is entirely innocent and only picked up a worthless piece of string, as the recovered wallet confirms.
MythClearing the wallet ends his trouble.
ActuallyThe town still believes he had an accomplice, so the recovery makes no difference to his ruin.
MythHe dies of a normal illness unrelated to the accusation.
ActuallyThe injustice and disbelief wear him down until grief and obsession bring on his death.
Test yourself
1. Why is Hauchecorne accused of theft?
His enemy Malandain watches him pick up the string and reports that he pocketed the lost wallet.
2. What happens after the real wallet is returned?
Despite the recovery, the townspeople insist he passed the wallet to a partner, so suspicion remains.
3. What is the main cause of Hauchecorne’s death?
The relentless injustice and his obsessive need to be believed wear him down until he dies.
An old, thrifty farmer named Hauchecorne picks up a tiny piece of string off the ground to save it. A man who dislikes him sees this and tells everyone he really picked up a lost wallet full of money. Even after the real wallet is found and returned, no one believes the farmer is innocent, and they think he had a helper. The farmer keeps telling everyone the truth over and over, but the more he explains, the more guilty he seems, and people just laugh at him. The unfairness hurts him so much that he gets sick and dies, still saying he only picked up a piece of string.
Ask the story
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Compare & connect the story universe
The Necklace
Maupassant’s other famous tale of an ordinary life ruined by a small misfortune and a cruel ironic turn.
The Cop and the Anthem
Another story where a character is condemned by fate at the very moment of supposed innocence.
A Jury of Her Peers
Both stories indict a community’s rush to judgment and the gap between official truth and human reality.
The Yellow Wallpaper
Each portrays an individual destroyed by a society that refuses to credit their account of the truth.
Key questions students ask
- What is the moral of The Piece of String
- Why don't the townspeople believe Hauchecorne
- What does the piece of string symbolize
- How does Maupassant use irony in The Piece of String
- What is the theme of public opinion in The Piece of String
- Why does Hauchecorne die at the end
Quotations are drawn from the public-domain English translation of Maupassant’s The Piece of String by Albert M. C. McMaster and others in the Collected Novels and Stories of Guy de Maupassant (M. Walter Dunne, 1903).