Minuet Page #2

"Minuet," a short story by Guy de Maupassant, captures a fleeting moment of romance and nostalgia set against the backdrop of a bustling Parisian café. The narrative revolves around a chance encounter between two characters who share a deep connection despite their different circumstances. Through vivid descriptions and nuanced characterizations, Maupassant explores themes of love, longing, and the transient nature of human relationships. The story eloquently highlights the beauty and melancholy of a brief yet meaningful interaction, inviting readers to reflect on the nature of intimacy and the passage of time.

								


Then suddenly, turning to his old companion who had remained silent and serious, he said:

“Elise, would you like—say—would you like, it would be very nice of you, would you like to show this gentleman what it was?”

She turned eyes uneasily in all directions, then rose without saying a word and took her position opposite him.

Then I witnessed an unheard-of thing.

They advanced and retreated with childlike grimaces, smiling, swinging each other, bowing, skipping about like two automaton dolls moved by some old mechanical contrivance, somewhat damaged, but made by a clever workman according to the fashion of his time.

And I looked at them, my heart filled with extraordinary emotions, my soul touched with an indescribable melancholy. I seemed to see before me a pathetic and comical apparition, the out-of-date ghost of a former century.

They suddenly stopped. They had finished all the figures of the dance. For some seconds they stood opposite each other, smiling in an astonishing manner. Then they fell on each other's necks sobbing.

I left for the provinces three days later. I never saw them again. When I returned to Paris, two years later, the nursery had been destroyed. What became of them, deprived of the dear garden of former days, with its mazes, its odor of the past, and the graceful windings of its hedges?

Are they dead? Are they wandering among modern streets like hopeless exiles? Are they dancing—grotesque spectres—a fantastic minuet in the moonlight, amid the cypresses of a cemetery, along the pathways bordered by graves?

Their memory haunts me, obsesses me, torments me, remains with me like a wound. Why? I do not know.

No doubt you think that very absurd?
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