"Beside the driver stood in the full light a German officer, a tall young man, fair and slender, tightly encased in his uniform like a woman in her corset, his flat shiny cap, tilted to one side of his head, making him look like an English hotel runner. His exaggerated moustache, long and straight and tapering to a point on either end in a single blonde hair that could hardly be seen, seemed to weigh down the corners of his mouth and give a droop to his lips." (16)
"The three men went upstairs, and were ushered into the best room in the inn, where the officer received them lolling at his ease in an armchair, his feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a long porcelain pipe, and enveloped in a gorgeous dressing-gown, doubtless stolen from the deserted dwelling of some citizen destitute of taste in dress. He neither rose, greeted them, nor even glanced in their direction. He afforded a fine example of that insolence of bearing which seems natural to the victorious soldier. After the lapse of a few moments he said in his halting French: 'What do you want?'" (23)
"Suddenly, at the end of the street, the officer appeared. His tall, wasp-like, uniformed figure was outlined against the snow which bounded the horizon, and he walked, knees apart, with that motion peculiar to soldiers, who are always anxious not to soil their carefully polished boots." (26)
de Maupassant, Guy. "Boule de Suif" in The Best Short Stories. Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Classics, 1997. Story originally published in 1880.
We're not supposed to like this officer for many reasons; what do these descriptions of what he is wearing do to further that cause?
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| Kaiser Friedrich III of Prussia, by Bonsack, 1880. German Historical Museum, Berlin. |
"Suddenly, at the end of the street, the officer appeared. His tall, wasp-like, uniformed figure was outlined against the snow which bounded the horizon, and he walked, knees apart, with that motion peculiar to soldiers, who are always anxious not to soil their carefully polished boots." (26)
de Maupassant, Guy. "Boule de Suif" in The Best Short Stories. Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Classics, 1997. Story originally published in 1880.
We're not supposed to like this officer for many reasons; what do these descriptions of what he is wearing do to further that cause?