Original Short Stories — Volume 06
1902
Maupassant wields prose like a scalpel. Each story in this collection slices through the polite fiction of French provincial life to expose what bubbles beneath: vanity, desperation, the quiet violence of class consciousness. This sixth volume gathers fifteen tales that pivot on the gap between what people perform and what they feel. In "That Costly Ride," a man trying to recapture his noble youth on a horse for the first time in years mounts a mount and immediately becomes an instrument of chaos, his dignity shattered in seconds. Other stories follow soldiers discovering the absurdity of heroism, farmers confronting the limits of patience, and lovers entangled in games where no one admits the rules. The power lies in Maupassant's endings: sudden, precise, often cruel in their clarity. He doesn't editorialize. He simply shows the moment when the mask slips, and what remains is either hilarious or devastating or both. For readers who want fiction that cuts rather than consoles, these stories remain astonishingly fresh over a century later.
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“But I no longer had a taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, any ambition, or any hope.””
— Guy de Maupassant
“I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt."[As quoted in Pol Neveux's introduction, ]””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Some people are Freethinkers from sheer stupidity. My Uncle Sosthenes was one of these. Some people are often religious for the same reason.””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Is it not rather the touch of Love, of Love the Mysterious, who seeks constantly to unite two beings, who tries his strength the instant he has put a man and a woman face to face?””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Death need not be sad, it should be a matter of indifference.””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Then, one by one, they went away, for night was falling on the storm, wrapping in shadows the raging ocean and all the battling elements.””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Several sailors, sheltered behind the curved bottoms of their boats, were watching this battle of the sky and the sea.””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Ah! Those silly songs make us lose our heads; and, believe me, never marry a woman who sings in the country, especially if she sings the song of Musette!””
— Guy de Maupassant
“Monsieur, beware of love! It is lying in ambush everywhere; it is watching for you at every corner; all its snares are laid, all its weapons are sharpened, all its guiles are prepared! Beware of love! Beware of love! It is more dangerous than brandy, bronchitis or pleurisy! It never forgives and makes everybody commit irreparable follies.””
— Guy de Maupassant
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Maupassant, Guy de. Original Short Stories — Volume 06. Lex, lex-books.com/book/original-short-stories-volume-06-08a6e8e3-28da-474b-aa56-0c11725830a7.Maupassant, G. D. (1902). Original Short Stories — Volume 06. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/original-short-stories-volume-06-08a6e8e3-28da-474b-aa56-0c11725830a7Maupassant, Guy de. Original Short Stories — Volume 06. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/original-short-stories-volume-06-08a6e8e3-28da-474b-aa56-0c11725830a7.










