11.1 Exploring Themes of Love, Romance, and Betrayal

Excerpt from “The Diamond Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant

She was one of those pretty and charming girls who, as if through some blunder of fate, are born into a family of pen pushers. She had no dowry, no prospects, no possibility of becoming known, appreciated, and loved, of finding a wealthy and distinguished husband. And so, she settled for a petty clerk in the Ministry of Education.

Unable to adorn herself, she remained simple, but as miserable as if she’d come down in the world. For women have no caste or breed; their beauty, their grace, and their charm serve in lieu of birth and family background. Their native finesse, their instinct for elegance, their versatile minds are their sole hierarchy, making shop girls the equals of the grandest ladies.

She suffered endlessly, feeling that she was meant for all delicacies and all luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the shabbiness of the chairs, the ugliness of the fabrics. All these things, which wouldn’t have even been noticed by any other woman of her station, tortured her and infuriated her. (De Maupassant, 1884).

To read the complete story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant please open the link here.

Excerpt from “The Diamond Necklace”

The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.

She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness comprised of all this homage, admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of triumph which is so sweet to woman’s heart.

She left the ball about four o’clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball.

He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, the modest wraps of common life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wished to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs.

Loisel held her back, saying: “Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a cab.”

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When they reached the street they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen passing at a distance.

They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient night cabs which, as though they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day, are never seen round Paris until after dark.

It took them to their dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they mounted the stairs to their flat. All was ended for her. As to him, he reflected that he must be at the ministry at ten o’clock that morning.

She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her neck! (De Maupassant, 1884).

To read more short stories by Guy de Maupassant, please open the links here and here.

Excerpt from “The Rich Boy” by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, keep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or wink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. They only way that I can describe young Anson Hunter is to approach him as if he were a foreigner and cling stubbornly to my point of view. If I accept his for a moment I am lost—I have nothing to show by a preposterous movie” (“The Rich Boy,” p. 1,  Project Gutenberg Australia).

To access teaching resources for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work, please open the link here.

The One-Sided Nature of Love: An Excerpt from “The False Gems” by Guy de Maupassant.

M. Lantin had met the young woman at a soiree, at the home of the assistant chief of his bureau, and at first sight had fallen madly in love with her.

She was the daughter of a country physician who had died some months previously. She had come to live in Paris, with her mother, who visited much among her acquaintances, in the hope of making a favorable marriage for her daughter. They were poor and honest, quiet and unaffected.

The young girl was a perfect type of the virtuous woman whom every sensible young man dreams of one day winning for life. Her simple beauty had the charm of angelic modesty, and the imperceptible smile which constantly hovered about her lips seemed to be the reflection of a pure and lovely soul. Her praises resounded on every side. People were never tired of saying: “Happy the man who wins her love! He could not find a better wife.”

Now M. Lantin enjoyed a snug little income of $700, and, thinking he could safely assume the responsibilities of matrimony, proposed to this model young girl and was accepted.”

He was unspeakably happy with her; she governed his household so cleverly and economically that they seemed to live in luxury. She lavished the most delicate attentions on her husband, coaxed and fondled him, and the charm of her presence was so great that six years after their marriage M. Lantin discovered that he loved his wife even more than during the first days of their honeymoon.” (A selection of writings from the works of Guy de Maupassant)

Additional Source: Collected Works of Guy de Maupassant, translated by Joachim Neugroshel, 2003, p. 153. The Moderen Library. New York.

To read more short stories by Guy de Maupassant, please open the link here.

Excerpt From “The Jewels” by Guy De Maupassant 

[Lantin] was unbelievably happy with her. She ran the household so skillfully and so economically that they appeared to be enjoying a life of luxury. There was no attention, no delicacy, no refinement that he didn’t shower her husband with, and she was so seductive that even six years after their first encounter he loved her more than in the beginning.

There were only two things he reproached her for: her love of the theatre and her love of false gems….

Now because of this love of the theatre, she soon needed to adorn herself. Her wardrobe remained simple, true enough, and always in good taste, though modest; indeed, her gentle grace—her humble and sunny, her irresistible grace—seemed to acquire a new charm from the simplicity of her gowns. However, she got into the habit of wearing two big rhinestone eardrops—which glittered like diamonds—plus fake-pearl necklaces, pinchback bracelets, and combs studded with varied beads that looked like semi-precious stones (De Maupassant, 1884, p. 154).

Excerpt from “Vain Beauty” (“Useless Beauty”) by Guy de Maupassant.

The Countess de Mascaret came down just as her husband, who was coming home, appeared in the carriage entrance. He stopped for a few moments to look at his wife and grew rather pale.

She looked very beautiful, graceful, and distinguished looking, with her long oval face, her complexion like gilt ivory, her large gray eyes, ad her black hair; and, she got into her carriage without looking at him, without even seeming to have noticed him with such a particularly high-bred air, that the furious jealousy by which he had been devoured for so long again gnawed at his heart.

 He went up to her and said:

“You are going for a drive?”

She merely replied disdainfully:

“You see I am!”

“In the Bois de Boulogne?”

“Most probably.”

“The carriage belongs to you.”

“May I come with you?”

(De Maupassant, 1950, p. 15).

Excerpt from “Bliss”  by Katherine Mansfield

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at—-nothing—at nothing, simply.

What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss—absolute bliss!—as though you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?….

They had people coming to dinner. The Norman Knights—a very sound couple—he was about to start a theatre, and she was awfully keen on interior decoration, a young man, Eddie Warren, who had just published a little book of poems and whom everyone was asking to dine and a ‘find’ of Bertha’s called Pearl Fulton What Miss Fulton did, Bertha didn’t know. They had met at the club[…] (1918, p.995)

From The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield, Constable & Co, 1922.

Excerpt from“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will–as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination (1894).