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    Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories: A Father's Confession
    Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories: A Father's Confession
    Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories: A Father's Confession
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories: A Father's Confession

    By Guy de Maupassant

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    GUY DE MAUPASSANT
    GUY DE MAUPASSANT - SELECTED STORIES
    A Father's Confession
     
       
    Table of contents
    Abandoned
    A Dead Woman's Secret
    A Duel
    A Father's Confession
    After
     Alexandre
    A Mother of Monsters
    At Sea
     A Wedding Gift
     Belhomme's Beast
    Abandoned
     
     
    "I really think you must be mad, my dear, to go for a country walk in such weather as this. You have had some very strange notions for the last two months. You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have been married. You chose Fecamp, which is a very dull town, without consulting me in the matter, and now you are seized with such a rage for walking, you who hardly ever stir out on foot, that you want to take a country walk on the hottest day of the year. Ask d'Apreval to go with you, as he is ready to gratify all your whims. As for me, I am going back to have a nap."
     
    Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend and said:
     
    "Will you come with me, Monsieur d'Apreval?"
     
    He bowed with a smile, and with all the gallantry of former years:
     
    "I will go wherever you go," he replied.
     
    "Very well, then, go and get a sunstroke," Monsieur de Cadour said; and he went back to the Hotel des Bains to lie down for an hour or two.
     
    As soon as they were alone, the old lady and her old companion set off, and she said to him in a low voice, squeezing his hand:
     
    "At last! at last!"
     
    "You are mad," he said in a whisper. "I assure you that you are mad. Think of the risk you are running. If that man--"
     
    She started.
     
    "Oh! Henri, do not say that man, when you are speaking of him."
     
    "Very well," he said abruptly, "if our son guesses anything, if he has any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You have got on without seeing him for the last forty years. What is the matter with you to-day?"
     
    They had been going up the long street that leads from the sea to the town, and now they turned to the right, to go to Etretat. The white road stretched in front of him, then under a blaze of brilliant sunshine, so they went on slowly in the burning heat. She had taken her old friend's arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted gaze, and at last she said:
     
    "And so you have not seen him again, either?"
     
    "No, never."
     
    "Is it possible?"
     
    "My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to fear from other people's opinion."
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShadowPOET
    Release dateSep 4, 2023
    ISBN9788828374527
    Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories: A Father's Confession
    Author

    Guy de Maupassant

    Guy de Maupassant was a French writer and poet considered to be one of the pioneers of the modern short story whose best-known works include "Boule de Suif," "Mother Sauvage," and "The Necklace." De Maupassant was heavily influenced by his mother, a divorcée who raised her sons on her own, and whose own love of the written word inspired his passion for writing. While studying poetry in Rouen, de Maupassant made the acquaintance of Gustave Flaubert, who became a supporter and life-long influence for the author. De Maupassant died in 1893 after being committed to an asylum in Paris.

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      Guy de Maupassant - Selected stories - Guy de Maupassant

      Beast

      Abandoned

      I really think you must be mad, my dear, to go for a country walk in such weather as this. You have had some very strange notions for the last two months. You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have been married. You chose Fecamp, which is a very dull town, without consulting me in the matter, and now you are seized with such a rage for walking, you who hardly ever stir out on foot, that you want to take a country walk on the hottest day of the year. Ask d'Apreval to go with you, as he is ready to gratify all your whims. As for me, I am going back to have a nap.

      Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend and said:

      Will you come with me, Monsieur d'Apreval?

      He bowed with a smile, and with all the gallantry of former years:

      I will go wherever you go, he replied.

      Very well, then, go and get a sunstroke, Monsieur de Cadour said; and he went back to the Hotel des Bains to lie down for an hour or two.

      As soon as they were alone, the old lady and her old companion set off, and she said to him in a low voice, squeezing his hand:

      At last! at last!

      You are mad, he said in a whisper. I assure you that you are mad. Think of the risk you are running. If that man--

      She started.

      Oh! Henri, do not say that man, when you are speaking of him.

      Very well, he said abruptly, if our son guesses anything, if he has any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You have got on without seeing him for the last forty years. What is the matter with you to-day?

      They had been going up the long street that leads from the sea to the town, and now they turned to the right, to go to Etretat. The white road stretched in front of him, then under a blaze of brilliant sunshine, so they went on slowly in the burning heat. She had taken her old friend's arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted gaze, and at last she said:

      And so you have not seen him again, either?

      No, never.

      Is it possible?

      My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to fear from other people's opinion.

      She did not reply; she was thinking of her long past youth and of many sad things that had occurred. How well she recalled all the details of their early friendship, his smiles, the way he used to linger, in order to watch her until she was indoors. What happy days they were, the only really delicious days she had ever enjoyed, and how quickly they were over!

      And then--her discovery--of the penalty she paid! What anguish!

      Of that journey to the South, that long journey, her sufferings, her constant terror, that secluded life in the small, solitary house on the shores of the Mediterranean, at the bottom of a garden, which she did not venture to leave. How well she remembered those long days which she spent lying under an orange tree, looking up at the round, red fruit, amid the green leaves. How she used to long to go out, as far as the sea, whose fresh breezes came to her over the wall, and whose small waves she could hear lapping on the beach. She dreamed of its immense blue expanse sparkling under the sun, with the white sails of the small vessels, and a mountain on the horizon. But she did not dare to go outside the gate. Suppose anybody had recognized her!

      And those days of waiting, those last days of misery and expectation! The impending suffering, and then that terrible night! What misery she had endured, and what a night it was! How she had groaned and screamed! She could still see the pale face of her lover, who kissed her hand every moment, and the clean-shaven face of the doctor and the nurse's white cap.

      And what she felt when she heard the child's feeble cries, that wail, that first effort of a human's voice!

      And the next day! the next day! the only day of her life on which she had seen and kissed her son; for, from that time, she had never even caught a glimpse of him.

      And what a long, void existence hers had been since then, with the thought of that child always, always floating before her. She had never seen her son, that little creature that had been part of herself, even once since then; they had taken him from her, carried him away, and had hidden him. All she knew was that he had been brought up by some peasants in Normandy, that he had become a peasant himself, had married well, and that his father, whose name he did not know, had settled a handsome sum of money on him.

      How often during the last forty years had she wished to go and see him and to embrace him! She could not imagine to herself that he had grown! She always thought of that small human atom which she had held in her arms and pressed to her bosom for a day.

      How often she had said to M. d'Apreval: I cannot bear it any longer; I must go and see him.

      But he had always stopped her and kept her from going. She would be unable to restrain and to master herself; their son would guess it and take advantage of her, blackmail her; she would be lost.

      What is he like? she said.

      "I do not know. I

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