A Passion Page #3

"A Passion" is a poignant novella by Guy de Maupassant that explores the complexities of love and desire. The story follows the tumultuous relationship between two characters, revealing the intensity of their emotions and the societal constraints that challenge their connection. Maupassant's masterful prose delves into themes of obsession, jealousy, and the often-painful intersection of passion and reality, showcasing his keen insight into human psychology and the intricacies of romantic entanglements. Through this tale, readers are invited to reflect on the nature of love and the sacrifices it demands.

								

it--no doubt--it is right, it is only quite right."

This time M. Poincot no longer declined to sit down.

Renoldi then rushed up the stairs, and pausing at the door of his
mistress's room, to collect his senses, entered gravely.

"There is somebody below waiting to see you," he said. "'Tis to tell you
something about your daughters."

She rose up. "My daughters? What about them? They are not dead?"

He replied: "No; but a serious situation has arisen, which you alone can
settle."

She did not wait to hear more, but rapidly descended the stairs.

Then, he sank down on a chair, greatly moved, and waited.

He waited a long long time. Then he heard angry voices below stairs, and
made up his mind to go down.

Madame Poincot was standing up exasperated, just on the point of going
away, while her husband had seized hold of her dress, exclaiming: "But
remember that you are destroying our daughters, your daughters, our
children!"

She answered stubbornly:

"I will not go back to you!"

Renoldi understood everything, came over to them in a state of great
agitation, and gasped:

"What, does she refuse to go?"

She turned towards him, and, with a kind of shame-facedness, addressed
him without any familiarity of tone, in the presence of her legitimate
husband, said:

"Do you know what he asks me to do? He wants me to go back, and live
under one roof with him!"

And she tittered with a profound disdain for this man, who was appealing
to her almost on his knees.

Then Renoldi, with the determination of a desperate man playing his last
card, began talking to her in his turn, and pleaded the cause of the
poor girls, the cause of the husband, his own cause. And when he
stopped, trying to find some fresh argument, M. Poincot, at his wits'
end, murmured, in the affectionate style in which he used to speak to
her in days gone by:

"Look here, Delphine! Think of your daughters!"

Then she turned on both of them a glance of sovereign contempt, and,
after that, flying with a bound towards the staircase, she flung at them
these scornful words:

"You are a pair of wretches!"

Left alone, they gazed at each other for a moment, both equally
crestfallen, equally crushed. M. Poincot picked up his hat, which had
fallen down near where he sat, dusted off his knees the signs of
kneeling on the floor, then raising both hands sorrowfully, while
Renoldi was seeing him to the door, remarked with a parting bow:

"We are very unfortunate, Monsieur."

Then he walked away from the house with a heavy step.
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