The Double Pins Page #2

"The Double Pins" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that explores themes of ambition, desire, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around a chance encounter between a man and a woman, delving into their inner thoughts and feelings as they navigate their attraction and the societal constraints surrounding them. Maupassant's keen observational style and psychological depth bring the characters to life, ultimately highlighting the tension between personal aspiration and social expectation. The story is a poignant reflection on the nature of love and the choices we make in pursuit of our desires.

• Short story

								

coming in and out of the room. I went away, very much annoyed. Just
imagine the next day...."

"The same thing happened?"

"Yes, and the next also. And that went on for three weeks without any
explanation, without anything explaining that strange conduct to me, the
secret of which I suspected, however."

"They knew everything?"

"I should think so, by George. But how? Ah! I had a great deal of
anxiety before I found it out."

"How did you manage it at last?"

"From their letters, for on the same day they both gave me their
dismissal in identical terms."

"Well?"

"This is how it was.... You know that women always have an array of pins
about them. I know hairpins, I doubt them, and look after them, but the
others are much more treacherous; those confounded little black-headed
pins which look all alike to us, great fools that we are, but which they
can distinguish, just as we can distinguish a horse from a dog.

"Well, it appears that one day my minister's little wife left one of
those tell-tale instruments pinned to the paper, close to my
looking-glass. My usual one had immediately seen this little black
speck, no bigger than a flea, and had taken it out without saying a
word, and then had left one of her pins, which was also black, but of a
different pattern, in the same place.

"The next day, the minister's wife wished to recover her property, and
immediately recognized the substitution. Then her suspicions were
aroused, and she put in two and crossed them, and my original one
replied to this telegraphic signal by three black pellets, one on the
top of the other, and as soon as this method had begun, they continued
to communicate with one another, without saying a word, only to spy on
each other. Then it appears that the regular one, being bolder, wrapped
a tiny piece of paper round the little wire point, and wrote upon it:
C. D., Poste Restante, Boulevards, Malherbes.

"Then they wrote to each other. You understand that was not everything
that passed between them. They set to work with precaution, with a
thousand stratagems, with all the prudence that is necessary in such
cases, but the regular one did a bold stroke, and made an appointment
with the other. I do not know what they said to each other; all that I
know is, that I had to pay the costs of their interview. There you have
it all!"

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"And you do not see them any more?"

"I beg your pardon. I see them as friends, for we have not quarreled
altogether."

"And have they met again?"

"Yes, my dear fellow, they have become intimate friends."

"And has not that given you an idea?"

"No, what idea?"

"You great booby! The idea of making them put back the pins where they
found them."
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