A Selection from the Writings of Guy De Maupassant, Vol. I

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Guy de Maupassant. A Selection from the Writings of Guy De Maupassant, Vol. I

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

INTRODUCTION

MADEMOISELLE FIFI

AN AFFAIR OF STATE

THE ARTIST

THE HORLA

MISS HARRIET

THE HOLE

LOVE

THE INN

A FAMILY

BELLFLOWER4

WHO KNOWS?

THE DEVIL

EPIPHANY

SIMON'S PAPA

WAITER, A "BOCK"5

SEQUEL TO A DIVORCE

THE MAD WOMAN

IN VARIOUS ROLES

THE FALSE GEMS

COUNTESS SATAN

THE COLONEL'S IDEAS

TWO LITTLE SOLDIERS

GHOSTS

WAS IT A DREAM?

THE DIARY OF A MADMAN

AN UNFORTUNATE LIKENESS

A COUNTRY EXCURSION

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BORN in the middle year of the nineteenth century, and fated unfortunately never to see its close, Guy de Maupassant was probably the most versatile and brilliant among the galaxy of novelists who enriched French literature between the years 1800 and 1900. Poetry, drama, prose of short and sustained effort, and volumes of travel and description, each sparkling with the same minuteness of detail and brilliancy of style, flowed from his pen during the twelve years of his literary life.

Although his genius asserted itself in youth, he had the patience of the true artist, spending his early manhood in cutting and polishing the facets of his genius under the stern though paternal mentorship of Gustave Flaubert. Not until he had attained the age of thirty did he venture on publication, challenging criticism for the first time with a volume of poems.

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At that she got up so quickly that the glass upset, spilling the amber colored wine on to her black hair as if to baptize her, and broke into a hundred fragments as it fell on to the floor. With trembling lips, she defied the looks of the officer, who was still laughing, and she stammered out, in a voice choked with rage: "That – that – that – is not true, – for you shall certainly not have any French women."

He sat down again, so as to laugh at his ease, and trying ineffectually to speak in the Parisian accent, he said: "That is good, very good! Then what did you come here for, my dear?"

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