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DAILY TEST
ACADEMIC YEAR 2020/2021, 2ND SEMESTER

TANDA TANGAN Subject : ENGLISH TANDA NILAI:

ORANG TUA: Class : XII IPA/IPS TANGAN GURU:
Date :
Name :

“A Dead Woman's Secret”

Please explain these literary works.

Intrinsic Elements Extrinsic Elements

1. Theme is…. 1. Background of the society is:

2. Character is:

2. Background of Author/ Writer

3. Plot is: is:

a. Exposition:

b. Rising Action: 3. Value in Literary work is:

c. Climax:

d. Falling down:

e. Resolution:

4. Setting is:

5. POV is:
 A Dead Woman's Secret
by Guy de Maupassant

The woman had died without pain,

quietly, as a woman should whose life had
been blameless. Now she was resting in
her bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed,
her features calm, her long white hair
carefully arranged as though she had done
it up ten minutes before dying. The whole
pale countenance of the dead woman was
so collected, so calm, so resigned that one
could feel what a sweet soul had lived in
that body, what a quiet existence this old
soul had led, how easy and pure the death
of this parent had been. Kneeling beside
the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister
Eulalie, were weeping as though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up, armed them with
a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without weakness, and duty, without compromise. He, the
man, had become a judge and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without
pity. She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in this austere family, had become the
bride of the Church through her loathing for man.

They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their mother most unhappy,
without being told any other details. The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as
white as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the long body the other hand seemed
still to be holding the sheet in the death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
of those last movements which precede eternal immobility. A few light taps on the door caused the two
sobbing heads to look up, and the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and out of
breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a strong mixture of coffee and brandy in
order to combat the fatigue of the last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.

He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is a bread winner. He
crossed himself and approaching with his professional gesture: "Well, my poor children! I have come to
help you pass these last sad hours." But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. "Thank you, "father, but my brother
and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all
three of us, as we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----"

Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.

Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. "As you wish, my children." He kneeled, crossed
himself, prayed, arose and went out quietly, murmuring: "She was a saint!"

They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the clock, hidden in the shadow,
could be heard distinctly, and through the open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods,
together with the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land except the occasional
croaking of the frog or the chirping of some belated insect. An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a
silent serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her and to appease nature
itself.

Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes, cried in a voice altered by grief and
deadened by the sheets and blankets: "Mamma, mamma, mamma!" And his sister, frantically striking her
forehead against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as in an epileptic fit, moaned: "Jesus,
Jesus, mamma, Jesus!" And both of them, shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.

The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on the sea when a calm follows a
squall. A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead. And the memories, those
distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten
details, those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one who has left. They recalled to
each other circumstances, words, smiles, intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them.
They saw her again happy and calm. They remembered things which she had said, and a little motion of
the hand, like beating time, which she often used when emphasizing something important.

And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured the depth of their grief, and thus
they discovered how lonely they would find themselves. It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth,
all the best part of their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their mother, their
mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which they would thenceforth miss. They now became
solitary, lonely beings; they could no longer look back.

The nun said to her brother: "You remember how mamma used always to read her old letters; they are all
there in that drawer. Let us, in turn, read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It
would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her mother, of our grandparents, whom
we never knew, but whose letters are there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?"

Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper, tied with care and arranged one
beside the other. They threw these relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word "Father"
was written. They opened and read it.

It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family desk drawers, those epistles which
smell of another century. The first one started: "My dear," another one: "My beautiful little girl," others:
"My dear child," or: "My dear (laughter." And suddenly the nun began to read aloud, to read over to the
dead woman her whole history, all her tender memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was
listening with his eyes fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.

Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:

"These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a shroud and she ought to be buried
in it." She took another package, on which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: "My
adored one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the tortures of the damned, haunted
by our memory. I feel your lips against mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I
love you! You have driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild desire to hold you again. My
whole soul and body cries out for you, wants you. I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses--"

The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He snatched the letter from her and
looked for the signature. There was none, but only under the words, "The man who adores you," the name
"Henry." Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him. The son then quickly
rummaged through the package of letters, took one out and read: "I can no longer live without your
caresses." Standing erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead woman.
The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting.
Then he crossed the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark night.

When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still standing near the bed, her head
bent down. He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-mell back into the
drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed. When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the
son slowly left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had passed sentence,
severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he said slowly: "Let us now retire, sister."