Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE PRETTY AND CHARMING GIRLS BORN, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Madame Julie Roubere was expecting her elder sister, Madame Henriette Letore, who had just returned from a trip to Switzerland. The Letore household had left nearly five weeks before. Madame Henriette had allowed her husband to return alone to their estate in...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
I was very much interested at that time in a droll little woman. She was married, of course, as I have a horror of unmarried flirts. What enjoyment is there in making love to a woman who belongs to nobody and yet belongs to any one? And, besides, morality aside, I do...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
There were seven of us on a drag, four women and three men; one of the latter sat on the box seat beside the coachman. We were ascending, at a snail’s pace, the winding road up the steep cliff along the coast. Setting out from Etretat at break of day in order to...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Roger de Tourneville was whiffing a cigar and blowing out small clouds of smoke every now and then, as he sat astride a chair amid a party of friends. He was talking. “We were at dinner when a letter was brought in which my father opened. You know my father, who...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
What a strange idea it was for me to choose Mademoiselle Pearl for queen that evening! Every year I celebrate Twelfth Night with my old friend Chantal. My father, who was his most intimate friend, used to take me round there when I was a child. I continued the custom,...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Major Graf Von Farlsberg, the Prussian commandant, was reading his newspaper as he lay back in a great easy-chair, with his booted feet on the beautiful marble mantelpiece where his spurs had made two holes, which had grown deeper every day during the three months...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon, near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed in the setting sun. I had never before seen anything so wonderful and so beautiful. The small town, enclosed by its massive ramparts, built by Monsieur de...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
My Little Darling: So you are crying from morning until night and from night until morning, because your husband leaves you; you do not know what to do and so you ask your old aunt for advice; you must consider her quite an expert. I don’t know as much as you...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Two years ago this spring I was making a walking tour along the shore of the Mediterranean. Is there anything more pleasant than to meditate while walking at a good pace along a highway? One walks in the sunlight, through the caressing breeze, at the foot of the...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Resembling in appearance all the wooden hostelries of the High Alps situated at the foot of glaciers in the barren rocky gorges that intersect the summits of the mountains, the Inn of Schwarenbach serves as a resting place for travellers crossing the Gemini Pass. It...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
They had loved each other before marriage with a pure and lofty love. They had first met on the sea-shore. He had thought this young girl charming, as she passed by with her light-colored parasol and her dainty dress amid the marine landscape against the horizon. He...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to him that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at the Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur standing guard before a middle-class couple whom he was...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
THE TWO YOUNG WOMEN had the appearance of being buried in a bed of flowers. They were alone in an immense landau filled with bouquets like a giant basket. Upon the seat before them were two small hampers full of Nice violets, and upon the bearskin which covered their...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling. Who has not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home? Who has not passed a night awake in one of those small, rattling...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
All were crowding around M. Bermutier, the judge, who was giving his opinion about the Saint-Cloud mystery. For a month this in explicable crime had been the talk of Paris. Nobody could make head or tail of it. M. Bermutier, standing with his back to the fireplace,...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
I WILL NOT RECORD THE NAME EITHER OF THE COUNTRY OR OF the man concerned. It was far, very far from this part of the world, on a fertile and scorching sea-coast. All morning we had been following a coast clothed with crops and a blue sea clothed in sunlight. Flowers...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
What became of Leremy?” “He is captain in the Sixth Dragoons.” “And Pinson?” “He’s a subprefect.” “And Racollet?” “Dead.” We were searching for other names which would remind us of the youthful...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
He was a clerk in the Bureau of Public Education and lived at Batignolles. He took the omnibus to Paris every morning and always sat opposite a girl, with whom he fell in love. She was employed in a shop and went in at the same time every day. She was a little...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
The two friends were getting near the end of their dinner. Through the café windows they could see the Boulevard, crowded with people. They could feel the gentle breezes which are wafted over Paris on warm summer evenings and make you feel like going out somewhere,...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
I was to see my old friend, Simon Radevin, of whom I had lost sight for fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend who knows one’s thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy evenings, to whom one tells one’s secret love...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
The north wind was blowing a hurricane, driving through the sky big, black, heavy clouds from which the rain poured down on the earth with terrific violence. A high sea was raging and dashing its huge, slow, foamy waves along the coast with the rumbling sound of...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
The marriage of Maitre Simon Lebrument with Mademoiselle Jeanne Cordier was a surprise to no one. Maitre Lebrument had bought out the practice of Maitre Papillon; naturally, he had to have money to pay for it; and Mademoiselle Jeanne Cordier had three hundred thousand...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
There was not a breath of air stirring; a heavy mist was lying over the river. It was like a layer of cotton placed on the water. The banks themselves were indistinct, hidden behind strange fogs. But day was breaking and the hill was becoming visible. In the dawning...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
The peasant and the doctor stood on opposite sides of the bed, beside the old, dying woman. She was calm and resigned and her mind quite clear as she looked at them and listened to their conversation. She was going to die, and she did not rebel at it, for her time was...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
To Leon Chapron. Marambot opened the letter which his servant Denis gave him and smiled. For twenty years Denis has been a servant in this house. He was a short, stout, jovial man, who was known throughout the countryside as a model servant. He asked: “Is...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
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...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
SOCIETY CALLED HIM HANDSOME SIGNOLES. HIS NAME was Viscount Gontran-Joseph de Signoles. An orphan, and possessed of an adequate income, he cut a dash, as the saying is. He had a good figure and a good carriage, a sufficient flow of words to pass for wit, a certain...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
THE NOON SUN POURED FIERCELY DOWN UPON THE FIELDS. They stretched in undulating folds between the clumps of trees that marked each farmhouse; the different crops, ripe rye and yellowing wheat, pale-green oats, dark-green clover, spread a vast striped cloak, soft and...
Guy de Maupassant, Short Stories
Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as “the Manor.” No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word, “Manor,” a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was undoubtedly the largest, richest and the...
