Summary of Matteo Falconet by Prosper Merimee

Mother's love and father's love. What is the difference? In his book The Art of Love, the American philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm offers the following insight into the love of the mother and father for their child. Nature is wise. All arranged in silence. Maternal love is inherently unconditional. Mother loves her child for everything: for a smile, for the first step, for the first word. All that her child has done is talent and achievement. Any of his pranks - this is a fleeting punishment and no less rapid forgiveness. The relationship between the child and the father is completely different. If the mother's world is the south with its infinite warmth, then the father is quite the opposite pole, where the weather is changeable, and the climate is severe, but in the north it is fair. It is a world of law and order, a world of overcoming, logic, duty and honor.

Father's love is not born with the first crybaby, you need to earn it. However, once won, it can be lost. The main virtue in it is obedience, and obstinacy and disobedience is the gravest sin. For the latter, in the eyes of his father, inevitable payoff must follow. What should it be? What is punishment and who or what has the right to determine the degree of its severity? We read the summary of the work "Matteo Falconet". The questions are raised in it.

Prosper Merimee, Matteo Falcone: summary

South-eastern coast of Corsica. If you go to the north-west, deep into the island, then in three or four hours on foot the terrain will begin to change. Thus begins the short story, and we will try to convey the very brief content of Matteo Falcone in our article. After passing through winding trails, meeting on the road fragments of rocks, overgrown ravines, at the end of the path every traveler went to the vast thickets of poppies. For a long time poppies were considered the native side of Corsican herders and all those hermits and outcasts who once turned out to be outlawed. If a person has killed or committed some other serious crime, he certainly went to poppies. It was enough to take along a good gun, gunpowder, bullets and a good brown cloak with a hood that at night would become a warm waterproof blanket or litter, and milk, cheese and chestnuts would be given to the shepherds.

Since ancient times the Corsican farmer, coming to newland, burned part of the forest to create fields. It was believed that the harvest would only become richer in that land that was fertilized with the ashes of the burnt trees. However, the roots of the plants destroyed by fire remain untouched and next spring give new "fruits", more frequent, and in a few years reach incredible sizes. Here this turbulent vegetation from the tangled, as horrible, branches of trees and shrubs and called poppies.

Matteo Falcone

What will he tell about the main character of the short storythe content of Matteo Falcone? Prosper Merimee presents it quite ambiguously. Not far away, literally half a mile from poppies, lived a rich man for those times. He lived righteously and honestly. The only source of his income was the numerous families owned by the family, who were herding shepherds in the district. His name was Matteo Falcone. He was a man of kind, generous, direct and just man. He lived peacefully with the people in the district. However, everyone knew that he could be both a faithful friend and a dangerous enemy. It was said that, before moving to these places, he brutally dealt with the rival, shooting him at the instant when the "offender" shaved in front of the mirror. Accuracy - this is another "virtue" Matteo. He easily hit the target in complete darkness.

We continue the summary. Matteo Falcone lived in a big house with his wife Giuseppa, who gave him three daughters first, which led him to indescribable frenzy, and finally the son of Fortunato, the long-awaited successor of the Falcone family. By the age of ten the boy was sufficiently developed, intelligent and infinitely happy with his father.

Fortunato

Autumn has come. One fine morning Matteo and his wife decided to go to poppies to check their herds. Son decided not to take, because the times were troubled, and it was necessary to guard the house. No sooner said than done. Parents set out on their journey, and Fortunato stayed at home.

Several hours passed. The boy lay quietly under the still hot rays of the sun, looking into the blue distance and dreaming about how he would spend the next weekend visiting his uncle corporal. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted. Nearby the sounds of gunfire were heard, and a few minutes later a man appeared on the road leading to Matteo's hut. In rags, with a beard grown, he could barely move his legs. It was clear that he was wounded and did not manage to get to the cherished place of all the bandits - poppies.

Contract

The summary of Matteo Falcone continues. The fugitive was a certain Giannetto Sanpiero, who was hiding from justice, but was ambushed in the city. He cleverly slipped from under the very nose of the "yellow collars", but not much ahead of them because of a severe wound in the leg. He knew that this was the house of the fair Matteo Falcone, who would never, under any circumstances, refuse an outcast of help, even if it was a deliberate criminal, otherwise he would violate the eternal and unchanging law of the Corsicans.

However, Fortunato was in no hurry to help the rebel. He was cute and dodgy, he acted with prudence and complete composure. Why help some vagabond, risk his life for him, if you do not get anything from this? He can not kill a boy, since his gun is unloaded, and with a dagger he can not keep up with the agile boy. The son looked a little like his father - a man of honor, a hospitable, but a hot Corsican. He was much inferior in character and character. However, no matter what, nothing can be done about it, time goes by and life is more expensive than money. Giannetto Sanpiero pulled out a five-franc coin, and only then, at the sight of silver shine, the happy boy allowed him to hide in a haystack.

Parish of soldiers

In less than five minutes, as on the doorstep of the housethere were soldiers in a brown uniform with yellow collars led by sergeant Teodoro Gamba, who was a distant relative of the Falcone family. From the first seconds of Teodoro, the thunder of bandits and a fairly active man, he realized that Fortunate is a little cheat and rascal. He saw and knows where the wanted person is hiding, but he will not say anything. How to be? The sergeant decided to intimidate him with two dozen saber blows flat. But it was not there. The boy laughed brazenly in response, knowing for sure that Gamba could not apply force to him or take him away, shackled and thrown into prison for concealing the criminal. First, they were relatives, and in Corsica more than anywhere, they are revered by kinship ties, and secondly, Matteo Falcone was too respected a man in those places to quarrel with him.

The sergeant was in difficulty, but decided not to concede, but to play a different game. The power of affection and bribery has never failed him. He pulled out of his pocket expensive silver watches. The boy's eyes glittered ...

Irresistible temptation

Blue dial, long silver chain,polished to an incredible luster cap ... The sergeant realized that he had hit the very spot. For the right to possess this priceless treasure, the son of Matteo will surrender to Gianneto. The commander of the soldiers spoke without stopping, affectionately assuring his nephew of the sincerity of his intentions and not forgetting to bring the watch closer and closer, almost touching the boy's cheek-white cheek. Fortunato's eyes were constantly watching the slightest movement of Gambo's hand, he was breathing heavily from the flared struggle inside - between duty, honor and a passionate desire to possess an inaccessible treasure. After a short struggle, the latter won, the boy raised his left hand and pointed with his index finger at the hay. Immediately, the soldiers rushed to the shock, and he became the sole owner of the watch. From now on he could walk the streets of the city with his head held high and boldly answer the question of what time ...

The House of the Traitor

Hidden in the hay bandit quickly disarmed andtied up. Lying on the ground, Giannetto looked at him rather disgustedly and disdainfully than angrily. He in response threw him the silver coin received, realizing that he no longer had the right to it. Suddenly a figure appeared at the turn of Matteo Falconet and his wife. At the sight of the soldiers, they stopped for a moment. What could bring them here? Properly rummaging in his memory and not finding in his past in the past decade any serious misconduct, Falcone, however, took on the sight of the second gun and boldly moved forward. We continue the summary of Matteo Falcone. Prosper Merimee subtly, slowly, brings the reader to a tragic denouement. Every sound, every movement is symbolic and weighty.

Gambe also felt uneasy. Overcoming fear and doubt, he went to meet him, deciding to openly tell about what had happened. Upon learning that they had covered Jannetto Sanpiero, Giuseppe was delighted, as he had taken their dairy goat last week. But, having heard the whole story of capturing a fugitive, whose main character was their son Fortunato, the Falcone couple became indignant. From now on, Matteo Falcone's home is the house of a traitor, and the child is the first traitor in the family.

Pay

Continuing the summary of the story "MatteoFalconet ", we pass to the moment of the highest tension in the development of the plot. Falcone, snatching the watch from the hands of the boy, threw them with an incredible force against the stone. The dial smashed to pieces. Fortunato wept bitterly, begging his father to forgive him. His father was silent for a long time and did not take his lynx eyes from his face. Finally, throwing his gun at his shoulder, he turned sharply and quickly walked along the path leading to the poppies. The boy followed him. Giuseppa screamed, kissed her son and returned to the house. The only thing she could do was to fall on her knees before the icon and pray fervently.

Father and son went down to the ravine together. Matteo ordered the boy to stand at a large stone and read aloud all the prayers that he knew. At the end of each he firmly pronounced "amen." The boy uttered the words of the last prayer completely silently and, sobbing, again began to ask for mercy and begged his father to forgive him. Matteo threw up his gun, aimed, cold-bloodedly uttered the last sentence: "May God forgive you" - and pulled the trigger. The summary of Matteo Falcone does not end here.

Alarmed by the shot, Giuseppa fled to the ravine. She could not believe what had happened, but her boy was dead. Matteo came to meet her: "I'll bury him now. He died a Christian ... I must say to my son-in-law ... that he moved to live with us. "

Summary of Matteo Falcone: Conclusion

Could Matteo Falconet have acted differently? Yes and no. He could have pitied the boy for his immaturity, because he succumbed to the temptation, to understand that he was still a small stupid child and, probably, simply could not resist the temptation. And on the other hand, Fortunato not only failed to live up to his father's hopes, but most importantly - violated the island's main law, betrayed the very nature of the Corsican-Highlander - hospitality and readiness to come to the aid of the persecuted. It is not by chance that the author at the outset gives a detailed description of the area where the subsequent events took place, and tells what the thickets of poppies are. The surrounding nature affects a person and imposes his own stamp on him. Today you helped a person escape justice, and tomorrow the stern and quick temper of a Corsican, similar to a dense and impenetrable maki tree, can play a cruel joke with you, and then you will be in the place of the persecutor. Therefore, before Matteo Falcone there was no choice: to kill or spare. In his veins there was only one blood: for betrayal there is no forgiveness or exile, only death.

Once again I want to recall that the article was a speechabout the novel by Prosper Merimee "Matteo Falconet". The summary can not convey the entire subtlety and depth of feelings of the main characters, so reading the work is simply necessary.