The donkey
The donkey (French L'âne ) is a novella by Guy de Maupassant . It first appeared in Le Gaulois on August 14, 1883 .
action
In St. Germain poachers Mailloche and Labouisse go down the river with a boat. They want to hunt rabbits. You meet a peasant woman who drives a donkey to the market to sell it. The poachers buy the animal for five francs. They repeatedly shoot the donkey to torture it and slowly kill it. The peasant woman's protest doesn't stop her. Then they leave the carcass in the bushes and drive to an inn. There they report to the landlord Louis that they shot something on the river bank but could not get the loot because foresters suddenly appeared. You don't know what it is. It could be a deer or a stag. After some negotiation, the landlord buys the booty unseen for 20 francs.