Original Short Stories – Volume 13. Guy de Maupassant
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after dinner, he would sit on my mother’s knees. ‘Come, auntie,’ he would say, ‘tell me some love-stories.’ And my mother, as a joke, would tell him all the old legends of the family, all the passionate adventures of his forefathers, for thousands of them were current, some true and some false. It was their reputation for love and gallantry which was the ruin of every one of these-men; they gloried in it and then thought that they had to live up to the renown of their house.
“The little fellow became exalted by these tender or terrible stories, and at times he would clap his hands, crying: ‘I, too, I, too, know how to love, better than all of them!’
“Then, he began to court me in a timid and tender manner, at which every one laughed, it was, so amusing. Every morning I had some flowers picked by him, and every evening before going to his room he would kiss my hand and murmur: ‘I love you!’
“I was guilty, very guilty, and I grieved continually about it, and I have been doing penance all my life; I have remained an old maid – or, rather, I have lived as a widowed fiancee, his widow.
“I was amused at this childish tenderness, and I even encouraged him. I was coquettish, as charming as with a man, alternately caressing and severe. I maddened this child. It was a game for me and a joyous diversion for his mother and mine. He was twelve! think of it! Who would have taken this atom’s passion seriously? I kissed him as often as he wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our respective mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I have kept. Judging himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy was secret. We had forgotten that he was a Santeze.
“This lasted for about a year. One evening in the park he fell at my feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he kept repeating: ‘I love you! I love you! I love you! If ever you deceive me, if ever you leave me for another, I’ll do as my father did.’ And he added in a hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver: ‘You know what he did!’
“I stood there astonished. He arose, and standing on the tips of his toes in order to reach my ear, for I was taller than he, he pronounced my first name: ‘Genevieve!’ in such a gentle, sweet, tender tone that I trembled all over. I stammered: ‘Let us return! let us return!’ He said no more and followed me; but as we were going up the steps of the porch, he stopped me, saying: ‘You know, if ever you leave me, I’ll kill myself.’
“This time I understood that I had gone too far, and I became quite reserved. One day, as he was reproaching me for this, I answered: ‘You are now too old for jesting and too young for serious love. I’ll wait.’
“I thought that this would end the matter. In the autumn he was sent to a boarding-school. When he returned the following summer I was engaged to be married. He understood immediately, and for a week he became so pensive that I was quite anxious.
“On the morning of the ninth day I saw a little paper under my door as I got up. I seized it, opened it and read: ‘You have deserted me and you know what I said. It is death to which you have condemned me. As I do not wish to be found by another than you, come to the park just where I told you last year that I loved you and look in the air.’
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