A Mesalliance Page #3

"A Mesalliance" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that explores themes of class disparity and social conventions through the lens of a romantic entanglement. The narrative follows the encounter between a wealthy young woman and a lower-class man, highlighting the tensions and misunderstandings that arise from their disparate backgrounds. As their relationship unfolds, Maupassant delves into the complexities of love, attraction, and societal expectations, ultimately revealing the constraints that social class imposes on personal desires. The story is marked by Maupassant's characteristic irony and keen psychological insight, making it a poignant commentary on the nature of relationships in a stratified society.

• Short story

								

infamous fraud came to light. A confidential servant of the Count had
acted the part of the priest, and the tailor's beautiful daughter had,
as a matter of fact, merely been the Count's mistress, and her children
were bastards.

The virtuous woman then saw, when it was too late, that it was she who
had formed a mesalliance. Her parents would have nothing to do with her,
and at last it turned out in the bargain that the Count was married long
before he knew her, but that he did not live with his wife.

Then Fanny applied to the police magistrates; she wanted to appeal to
justice, but she was dissuaded from taking criminal proceedings; for
although they would certainly lead to the punishment of her daring
seducer, they would also bring about her own total ruin.

At last, however, her lawyer effected a settlement between them, which
was favorable to Fanny, and which she accepted for the sake of her
children. The Count paid her a considerable sum down, and gave her the
gloomy castle to live in. Thither she returned with a broken heart, and
from that time she lived alone, a sullen misanthrope, a fierce despot.

From time to time, a stranger wandering through the Carpathians, meets a
pale woman of demonic beauty, wearing a magnificent sable skin jacket
and with a gun over her shoulder, in the forest, or in the winter in a
sledge, driving her foaming horses until they nearly drop from fatigue,
while the sleigh bells utter a melancholy sound, and at last die away in
the distance, like the weeping of a solitary, deserted human heart.
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