In the title story, a peaceful mill in Lorraine becomes a fortress when French troops and Prussians fight over it during the Franco-Prussian War, and the miller’s daughter and her Belgian fiancé are caught between the armies. Further war sketches follow, and Edmund Gosse introduces the collection with an essay on Zola as a writer of short stories rather than of vast novels.
Proof that the author of the Rougon-Macquart cycle could work brilliantly in miniature. Download the free EPUB.