The Devil's Pool
The novel opens with a meditation on a Holbein engraving, a weary ploughman driven by Death through the fields, and from this haunting image, George Sand constructs something unexpectedly tender. Germain, a widowed ploughman buried in grief, trudges through his laborious days with three young children and a heart that has forgotten hope. When he agrees to accompany little Marie, a young shepherdess being sent to another village, across the countryside, something begins to shift. What unfolds is a journey that feels almost mythic: two lonely souls finding companionship in the spaces between villages, beneath the wide Berri sky. Sand, writing from her own rural childhood, infuses this simple story of a farmer and a child with profound emotional depth, discovering poetry in ploughed earth and tenderness in ordinary human struggle. The Devil's Pool is a meditation on grief, renewal, and the quiet ways love announces itself to those who have stopped listening.
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“The maid told him that a girl and a child had come looking for him, but since she didn't know them, she hadn't cared to ask them in, and had told them to go on to Mers."Why didn't you let them in?" asked Germain angrily. "People must be very suspicious in this part of the world, if they won't open the front door to a neighbor.""Well, naturally!" replied the maid. "In a house as rich as this, you have to keep a close watch on things. While the master's away I'm responsible for everything, and I can't just open the door to anyone at all.""That's a mean way to live," said Germain; "I'd rather be poor than live in fear like that. Good-bye to you, miss, and good-bye to this horrible country of yours!””
— George Sand
“Chacun pourrait s'intéresser au roman de sa propre vie, s'il l'avait compris...””
— George Sand
“L'alouette, qui chantait en montant vers les cieux, lui semblait être la voix de son cur rendant grâce à la Providence.””
— George Sand
“Beau chou, disent-ils, vis et fleuris, afin que notre jeune mariée ait un beau petit enfant avant la fin de l'année; car si tu mourais trop vite ce serait signe de stérilité, et tu serais là-haut sur sa maison comme un mauvais présage.””
— George Sand
“chou est le symbole de la fécondité de””
— George Sand
“Le fossoyeur fit la cuisine et la fit fort bien. Il””
— George Sand
“la cérémonie des livrées.””
— George Sand
“bon Dieu ne fait personne sans lui réserver son bonheur dans une autre personne.””
— George Sand
“On ne le trouve pas quand on le cherche; il vient à nous quand nous ne l'attendons pas.””
— George Sand
