Guy de Maupassant complete short stories volume 2 - Penn State ...

a pane of glass between you and him.”
She consented, covered up her head, and took with her a
bottle of smelling salts. She took three steps on the balcony;
then, all at once, hiding her face in her hands, she moaned:
“No … no … I would never dare to look at him … never. … I
am too much ashamed … too much afraid …. No … I cannot.”
They endeavored to drag her along, but she held on with
both hands to the railings and uttered such plaints that the
passers-by in the street raised their heads. And the dying boy
waited, his eyes turned towards that window, waited to die until
he could see for the last time the sweet, beloved face, the
worshiped face of his mother.
He waited long, and night came on. Then he turned over
with his face to the wall and was silent.
When day broke he was dead. The day following she was
crazy.
Guy de Maupassant
485
THE THE MAGIC MAGIC COUCH
COUCH
The Seine flowed past my house, without a ripple on its surface,
and gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. It was a
beautiful, broad, indolent silver stream, with crimson lights here
and there; and on the opposite side of the river were rows of
tall trees that covered all the bank with an immense wall of
verdure.
The sensation of life which is renewed each day, of fresh,
happy, loving life trembled in the leaves, palpitated in the air,
was mirrored in the water.
The postman had just brought my papers, which were handed
to me, and I walked slowly to the river bank in order to read
them.
In the first paper I opened I noticed this headline, “Statistics
of Suicides,” and I read that more than 8,500 persons had killed
themselves in that year.
In a moment I seemed to see them! I saw this voluntary and
hideous massacre of the despairing who were weary of life. I
saw men bleeding, their jaws fractured, their skulls cloven, their
breasts pierced by a bullet, slowly dying, alone in a little room