induces him to return to Paris. He does so, but
takes the _bonne_ Elisabeth with him; and the book ends abruptly,
leaving the reader to imagine what is the outcome of this "double
arrangement"--or failure to arrange.

But, as always with Maupassant's longer stories and not quite never with
his shorter ones, the "fable is the least part." The "atmosphere"; the
projection of character and passion; the setting; the situations; the
phrase--these are the thing. And, except for the enigmatic and
"stump-ended" conclusion, and for a certain overdose of words (which
rather grew on him), they make a very fine thing. It is here that, on
one side at least, the author's conception of love--which at some times
might appear little more than animal, at others conventional-capricious
in a fashion which makes that of Crebillon universal and sincere--has
sublimed itself, as it had begun to do in _Fort comme la Mort_ (_Pierre
et Jean_ is in this respect something of a divagation), into very nearly
the true form of the Canticles and Shakespeare, of Donne and Shelley and
Heine, of Hugo and Musset and Browning. But it is curious, in the first
place, that he whom his friends fondly called a _fier male_, who has
sometimes pushed masculinity near to brutality, and who is always
cynical more or less, has made his Andre Mariolle, though a very good
lover, a distinct weakling in love. He is a "too quick despairer," and
his despair is more illogical than even a lover's has a right to be. And
this is very interesting, because, evidently without the author's
knowledge (though perhaps, if things had gone more happily, he might
have come to that knowledge later), it shows the rottenness of the
foundation, and the flimsiness of the superstructure, on and in which
the Covenant of Adultery--even that of Free Love--is built. Michelle de
Burne gives Andre Mariolle everything with one exception, if even with
that, that the greediest lover can want. She "distinguishes" him at
once; she shows keen desire for his company; she makes the last (or
first) surrender like a goddess answering a hopeless and unspoken
prayer; she is strangely generous in continuing the _don d'amoureux
merci_; she never really wearies of or jilts him, though he is a most
exacting lover; and when he has flung away from her she allows him, in
the most gracious manner, to whistle himself back. But there is one
thing, or rather two which are one, that she will not, or perhaps
cannot, give him