n the shadow was near enveloping him; and it cannot be said to have
the perfection of _Pierre et Jean_. But it still rises higher in certain
very important ways--it is perhaps the book that one likes him best for,
outside of pure comedy; and there is none which impresses one more with
the sense of his loss to French literature.

[Sidenote: _Notre Coeur._]

The story, like all Maupassant's stories, is of the simplest. Andre
Mariolle, a well-to-do young Parisian bachelor of no profession, is a
member of a set of mostly literary and artistic people, almost all of
whom have, as a main rendezvous, the house of a beautiful, wealthy, and
variously gifted young widow, Mme. de Burne. She lives chaperoned in a
manner by her father; indisposed to a second marriage by the fact that
she has had a tyrannical husband; accepting homage from all her
familiars and being very gracious in differing degrees to all of them;
but having no "lover in title" and not even being suspected of having
(in the French novel-sense[495]) any "lover" at all. For a long time
Mariolle has, from whim, refused introduction to her, but at last he
consents to be taken to the house by his friend the musician Massival,
and of course falls a victim. It cannot be said that she is a
Circe,[496] nor that, as perhaps might be expected, she revenges herself
for his holding aloof by snaring and throwing him away. Quite the
contrary. She shows him special favour: when she has to go to stay with
friends at Avranches she privately asks him to follow her; and finally,
when the party pass the night at Mont Saint-Michel, she
comes--uninvited, though of course much longed for--to his room, and (as
they used to say with elaborate decency) "crowns his flame." Nor does
she turn on him--as again might be expected--even then. On the contrary,
she comes constantly to a secret Eden which he has prepared for her in
Paris, and though, after long practice of this, she is sometimes rather
late, and once or twice actually puts off her assignation, it is "no
more than reason,"[497] and she by no means jilts or threatens jilting,
though she tells him frankly that his way of loving (which _is_ more
than reason) is not hers. At last he cannot endure seeing her surrounded
with admirers, and flies to Fontainebleau, where he is partly--only
partly--consoled by a pretty and devoted _bonne_. Yet he sends a
despairing cry to Mme. de Burne; and she, gracious as ever, actually
comes to see him, and