Guy de Maupassant’s “Sur l’eau” (1876) in Virginia Woolf’s “The Years” (1937)

In "Present Day", the final chapter of Virginia Woolf's novel "The Years" (1937), Peggy Pargiter, bored at a party, takes a book off a shelf and opens it: "He'll say what I'm thinking, she thought as she did so. Books opened at random always did." The book Peggy opens is in French: "La médiocrité de l'univers m'étonne et me révolte, la petitesse de toutes choses m’emplit de dégoût, la pauvreté des êtres humains m’anéantit." Woolf doesn't identify the book or the author, but the passage is from Guy de Maupassant's "Sur l'eau" (1876), which was published shortly before the first chapter in the novel, "1880" – and long before Peggy is born. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 4 January 2025)