LIBRARY OF
THE WORLD'S BEST
MYSTERY AND DETECTIVE STORIES

Edited By Julian Hawthorne

One Hundred and One Tales of Mystery
By Famous Authors of East and West

In Six Volumes

New York
The Review of Reviews Company

1907

AMERICAN  •  FRENCH, ITALIAN, ETC.
ENGLISH: SCOTCH  •  GERMAN, RUSSIAN, ETC.
ENGLISH: IRISH  •  ORIENTAL: MODERN MAGIC

MAUPASSANT  •  VOLTAIRE
MILLE  •  ALARÇON
ADAM  •  CAPUANA
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN  •  APULEIUS
BALZAC  •  PLINY, THE YOUNGER

"Through a Mist in the Depths of the Looking-Glass."

Table of Contents

HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT (1850-93).

1. The Necklace
2. The Man with the Pale Eyes
3. An Uncomfortable Bed
4. Ghosts
5. Fear
6. The Confession
7. The Horla

PIERRE MILLE.

1. The Miracle of Zobéide

VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM.

1. The Torture by Hope

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN (1822-99)—(1826-90).

1. The Owl's Ear
2. The Invisible Eye
3. The Waters of Death

HONORE DE BALZAC (1799-1850).

1. Melmoth Reconciled
2. The Conscript

JEAN FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE (1694-1778).

1. Zadig the Babylonian

PEDRO DE ALARÇON.

1. The Nail

LUIGI CAPUANA (1839-00).

1. The Deposition

LUCIUS APULEIUS (Second Century).

1. The Adventure of the Three Robbers

PLINY, THE YOUNGER (First Century).

1. Letter to Sura

French—Italian—Spanish—Latin Mystery Stories

HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT

The Necklace

She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction.

She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank; and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.

She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.

When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth three days old, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with an enchanted air, "Ah, the good pot-au-feu! I don't know anything better than that," she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates, and of the whispered gallantries which you listen to with a sphinx-like smile, while you are eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.

She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that. She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.

She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go and see any more, because she suffered so much when she came back.

But, one evening, her