The Works of Guy de Maupassant

VOLUME IV

THE OLD MAID AND OTHER STORIES

NATIONAL LIBRARY COMPANY
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
BIGELOW, SMITH & CO,

CONTENTS

THE OLD MAID
THE AWAKENING
IN THE SPRING
THE JENNET
RUST
THE SUBSTITUTE
THE RELIC
THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES
ALLOUMA
A FAMILY AFFAIR
THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU
A GOOD MATCH
A FASHIONABLE WOMAN
THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE
A DEER PARK IN THE PROVINCES
THE WHITE LADY
CAUGHT
CHRISTMAS EVE
WORDS OF LOVE
A DIVORCE CASE
WHO KNOWS?
SIMON'S PAPA
PAUL'S MISTRESS
THE RABBIT
THE TWENTY-FIVE FRANCS OF THE MOTHER-SUPERIOR
THE VENUS OF BRANIZA
LA MORILLONNE
WAITER, A "BOCK"
REGRET
THE PORT
THE HERMIT
THE ORDERLY
DUCHOUX
OLD AMABLE
MAGNETISM

THE OLD MAID

Count Eustache d'Etchegorry's solitary country house had the appearance of a poor man's home, where people do not have enough to eat every day in the week, where the bottles are more frequently filled at the pump than in the cellar, and where they wait until it is dark before lighting the candles.

It was an old and sordid building; the walls were crumbling to pieces, the grated, iron gates were eaten away by rust, the holes in the broken windows had been mended with old newspapers, and the ancestral portraits which hung against the walls, showed that it was no tiller of the soil, nor miserable laborer whose strength had gradually worn out and bent his back, who lived there. Great, knotty elm trees sheltered it, as if they had been a tall, green screen, and a large garden, full of wild rose-trees and of straggling plants, as well as of sickly-looking vegetables, which sprang up half-withered from the sandy soil, went down as far as the bank of the river.

From the house, one could hear the monotonous sound of the water, which at one time rushed yellow and impetuous towards the sea, and then again flowed back, as if driven by some invisible force towards the town which could be seen in the distance, with its pointed spires, its ramparts, and its ships at anchor by the side of the quay, and its citadel built on the top of a hill.

A strong smell of the sea came from the offing, mingled with the resinous smell of pine logs, and of the large nets with great pieces of sea-weed clinging to them,