The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume I Part 49

"My little man, you are most confoundedly ugly, I must say."

At last, however, he renounced even that lamentable pleasure, when he heard the still more lamentable words which a wretched woman could not help uttering when he went home with her:

"Well, he must have been very hungry!"

Alas! He was hungry, unhappy man; hungry for love, for something that should resemble love, were it ever so little; he longed not to live like a pariah any more, not to be exiled and proscribed in his ugliness. And the ugliest, the most repugnant woman would have appeared beautiful to him, if she would only have not consented to think him ugly, or, at any rate, not to tell him so, and not to let him see that she felt horror at him on that account.

The consequence was, that, when he one day met a poor, blear-eyed creature, with her face covered with scabs, and bearing evident signs of alcoholism, with a driveling mouth, and ragged and filthy petticoats, to whom he gave liberal alms, for which she kissed his hand, he took her home with him, had her clean dressed and taken care of, made her his servant, and then his housekeeper. Next he raised her to the rank of his mistress, and, finally, of course, he married her.

She was almost as ugly as he was! She really was; but only, almost.

Almost, but certainly not quite; for she was hideous, and her hideousness had its charm and its beauty, no doubt; that something by which a woman can attract a man. And she had proved that by deceiving him, and she let him see it better still, by seducing another man.

That other was actually uglier than he was.

He was certainly uglier, that collection of every physical and moral ugliness, that companion of beggars whom she had picked up among her former vagrant a.s.sociates, that jailbird, that dealer in little girls, that vagabond covered with filth, with legs like a toad's, with a mouth like a lamprey, and a death's head, in which the nose had been replaced by two holes.

"And you have wronged me with a wretch like that," the poor cuckold said. "And in my own house! and in such a manner that I might catch you in the very act! And why, why, you wretch? Why, seeing that he is uglier than I am?"

"Oh! no," she exclaimed. "You may say what you like, but do not say that he is uglier than you are."

And the unhappy man stood there, vanquished and overcome by her last words, which she uttered without understanding all the horror which he would feel at them.

"Because, you see, he has his own particular ugliness, while you are merely ugly like everybody else is."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Literally, "The bird flies"--a pun on the verb voler, which means both "to fly" and "to steal."

[2] Nickname for Napoleon III.

[3] _Jevodre voir vo comment vo faites le painture? Vele vo? Je ete tres curieux._

[4] _J'ete joujours avec vo la meme qu-autre fois._

[5] Munich beer--often brewed in France!--which is much affected by the Parisians in summer.

[6] I do not understand.

[7] What does it matter to me?

[8] Not at all.

[9] Hall-porter.

[10] Woman is a perpetual child.

[11] Woman, a sick child and twelve times impure.

[12] Porter who opens the front door, which is common to all the lodgers, and is closed at night.

[13] The old name, still applied locally to a five-franc piece.

[14] Maitre (Master) is the official t.i.tle of French lawyers.

[15] Frog-island.

[16] A preparation of several kinds of fish, with a sharp sauce.--TRANSLATOR.

[17] Clochette.

[18] The second person singular is used in French--as in German--amongst relations and intimate friends, and to servants.--TRANSLATOR.

[19] A youth of extraordinary beauty, page to the Emperor Hadrian (A.D.

117-138), and the object of his extravagant affection. He was drowned in the Nile, whether accidentally, or whether he drowned himself to escape from the life he was leading, is uncertain.--TRANSLATOR.