Countess Satan Page #2

"Countess Satan," a novella by Guy de Maupassant, tells the haunting tale of a mysterious and alluring woman, the Countess Satan, who captivates those around her with her beauty and charm. Set against the backdrop of late 19th-century France, the story explores themes of seduction, deception, and the morally ambiguous nature of love. As relationships unravel and dark secrets emerge, the characters are drawn into a web of intrigue and existential dread, highlighting Maupassant's keen insight into human nature and the complexities of desire.

• Short story

								


"I was astonished, for I had not expected that the majesty of a whole
race, could be thus revived in a man, and my stupefaction increased
after an hour's conversation. I could quite understand why such a
Colossus had not wished for the Countess as his Egeria; she was a mere
silly child to have dreamt of acting such a part to such a thinker. She
had not felt the profoundness of that horrible philosophy which was
hidden under that material activity, nor had she seen the prophet under
that man of the barricades. Or, perhaps, he had not thought it advisable
to reveal himself to her like that; but he revealed himself to me, and
inspired me with terror.

"A prophet? Oh! yes. He thought himself an Attila, and foresaw the
consequences of his revolution; it was not only from instinct, but also
from theory that he urged a nation on to nihilism. The phrase is not
his, but Tourgueneff's, I believe, but the idea certainly belongs to
him. He got his program of agricultural communism from Herzen, and his
destructive radicalism from Pougatcheff, but he did not stop there. I
mean that he went on to evil for the sake of evil. Herzen wished for the
happiness of the Slav peasant; Pougatcheff wanted to be elected Emperor,
but all that Bakounine wanted, was to overthrow the actual order of
things, no matter by what means, and to replace social concentration by
a universal upheaval.

"It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true nihilism pushed to extreme
practical conclusions. It was, in a word, the applied philosophy of
chance, the indeterminateism of anarchy. Monstrous it may be, but grand
in its monstrosity.

"And you must note, that the man of action who was so despised by the
Countess, discovered in Bakounine the gigantic dreamer whom I have just
shown you, and his dream did not remain a dream, but began to be
realized. It was by the care of that organizer that the Nihilistic party
assumed a body; a party in which there is a little of everything, you
know; but on the whole, a formidable party, on account of the advanced
guard in true Nihilism, whose object is nothing less than to destroy the
Western world, to see it blossom from under the ruins of a general
dispersion, which is the last conception of modern Tartarism.

"I never saw Bakounine again, for the Countess's conquest would have
been too dearly bought by any attempt to act a comedy with this
Old-Man-of-the-Mountains. And besides that, after this visit, poor
Countess Satan appeared to me quite silly. Her famous Satanism was
nothing but the flicker of a spirit-lamp, after the general
conflagration of which the other had dreamt, and she had certainly shown
herself very silly, when she could not understand that prodigious
monster. And as she had seduced me, only by her intellect and her
perversity, I was disgusted as soon as she laid aside that mask. I left
her without telling her of my intention, and never saw her again,
either.

"No doubt they both took me for a spy from the Third section of the
Imperial Chancellery. In that case, they must have thought me very
strong to have resisted, and all I have to do is to look out, if any
affiliated members of their society recognize me!..."

III

Then he smiled, and turning to the waiter who had just come in, he said:
"Meanwhile, open us another bottle of champagne, and make the cork pop!
It will, at any rate, somewhat accustom us to the day when we shall all
be blown up with dynamite ourselves."
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes