André Mariolle, a cultivated, idle Parisian, is drawn into the salon of Michèle de Burne, a young widow who gathers artists and writers about her and enjoys being adored. He falls in love completely; she accepts him, charmingly and coolly, and the novel follows the slow torment of a man who wants a whole heart from a woman who keeps hers to herself.
Maupassant’s last completed novel, a fine-grained study of love and vanity in the Paris of 1890. Download the free EPUB.