Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Author:Guy de Maupassant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
Published: 2009-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Then, during the summer of 1883, Captain Hector de Fontenne took part in the grand maneuvers of the thirty-second regiment of the army. One evening, as they camped on the edge of a town, after ten days of tent and open field, ten days of fatigue and privation, the comrades of the captain resolved to have a good dinner.

At first, Captain de Fontenne refused to accompany them; then, as his refusal surprised them, he consented. His neighbor at table, the governor of Favré, talking continually of military operations, the only thing that interested the captain, turned to him to drink glass after glass with him. It had been very hot, a heavy, parching, thirst-inspiring heat; and the captain drank without thinking or perceiving that a new gaiety had entered into him, a certain lively, burning joy, a happiness of being, full of awakened desires, of unknown appetites, and undefined hopes.

At the dessert he was tipsy. He talked and laughed and moved about, seized by a noisy drunkenness, the foolish drunkenness of a man ordinarily wise and tranquil.

Some one proposed to finish the evening at the theater. He accompanied his comrades. One of them recognized one of the actresses as some one he had formerly loved, and a supper was planned where a part of the feminine personnel of the troupe assisted.

The captain awoke the next day in an unknown room, in the arms of a pretty little blond woman who said to him, on seeing him open his eyes: “Good morning, sweetheart!”

He could not comprehend, at first; then, little by little his memory returned, somewhat cloudy, however. Then he got up without saying a word, dressed himself, and emptied his purse on the chimney-piece. A shame seized him when he found himself standing up in position, his sword at his side, in this furnished room, where the rumpled curtains and sofa, marbleized with spots, had a suspicious appearance, and he dared not go out, since in descending the staircase he might meet some one, nor dared he pass before the concierge nor go out in the street in the eyes of neighbors and passers-by.

The woman kept saying: “What has come over you? Have you lost your tongue? You had it fast enough last evening! Oh! what a muzzle!”

He bowed to her ceremoniously and, deciding upon flight, reached his abode with great steps, persuaded that one could guess from his manner and his bearing and his countenance that he had come out of the house of some girl.

And then remorse tortured him; the harassing remorse of a rigid, scrupulous man. He confessed and went to communion, but he still was ill at ease, followed ever by the memory of his fall and by a feeling of debt, a sacred debt contracted against his wife.

He did not see her again until the end of the month, because she went to visit her parents during the encampment of the troops. She came back to him with open arms and a smile upon her lips.

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