Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete

s shining warm and bright into the large courtyard, a very elegant vi

beautiful, graceful and distinguished looking, with her long oval face, her complexion like yellow ivory, her large gray eyes and her black hair; and she got into her carriage without looking at him, without even se

ed disdainfully:

Bois de

prob

come wi

age belong

n the street. Husband and wife sat side by side without speaking. He was thinking how to begin a conversation, but she maintained such an obstinately hard look that he did not venture to make the attempt. At last, however, he cunningly, accidentally

do you

u are looki

ving up the Champs Elysees, toward the Arc de Triomphe. That immense monument, at the end of the long avenue, raised it

of the harness and the glass of the lamps, flowed on in a double current toward the

e me in peace, pray! I am not even allowed to have my carriage to myself now." He prete

ible anger: "You are wrong to notice it, for I swear to you tha

tone that betrayed rather the brutal master than the lover. She replied in a low voice, so that the servants might not hear amid the deafe

es

y heart since I have been the vic

nger and he growled between his clos

d an excellent father, and now, for the first time since they had started, she turned toward him and looked him full in the face: "Ah! You wi

d was already shaking with rage as h

y, which you have inflicted on me for eleven years! I wish to take my plac

gain and stammered: "I

ill very beautiful, and as, in spite of all your efforts you cannot spoil my figure, as you just now perc

re talking

have been married eleven years, and you hope that this will go on

saying: "I will not allow you to

ith me for that object, for I have these witnesses who will oblige you to listen to me and to contain yourself, so now pay attention to what I say. I have always felt an antipathy to you, and I have always let you see it, fo

usy of a spy, which was as degrading to you as it was to me. I had not been married eight months when you suspected me of every perfidiousness, and you even told me so. What a disgrace! And as you could not prevent me from being beautiful and from pleasing people, from being called in drawing-rooms and also in the newspapers one of the most beautiful women in Paris, you tried everything you could th

g fields and meadows. And when I reappeared, fresh, pretty and unspoiled, still seductive and constantly surrounded by admirers, hoping that at last I should live a little more like a rich young society woman, you were seized with jealousy again, and you

hts and actions): You attached yourself to your children with all the security which they gave you while I bore them. You felt affection for them

over my charms, over the compliments which were paid me and over those that were whispered around me without being paid to me personally. And you are proud of them, you make a parade of them, you take them out for drives in your break

queezed it so violently that she was quiet and nearly c

eful in a mother. But you belong to me; I am master-your master-I can e

them from that vise which was crushing them. The agony made her breathe hard and the tears came into her eyes. "You see that I am t

ised and sta

re to the truth of anything to you befo

N

with me to

at

ll see.

olutely wis

es from his horses, seemed to turn his ear alone toward his mistress, who continued: "Drive to St. Philip

She went, without stopping, as far as the choir-screen, and falling on her knees at a chair, she buried her face in her hands. She prayed for a long time, and he, standing behind her could see that she w

yours, and one only; that I swear to you before God, who hears me here. That was the only revenge that was possible for me in return for all your abominable masculine tyrannies, in return for the penal servitude of childbearing to which you have condemned me. Who was my lover? That you never will know! You may suspect every one, but you never will find out. I gave my

and to be knocked to the ground by a blow of his fist, but she heard nothing and reached her carriage. She jumped into it at a bound,