Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume 3; With a Critical Pref

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ... MAD i Or days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamed of that first kiss which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips, madly thirsting as they were for her beauty and her youth. Neither on her forehead--that was accustomed to family caresses; nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed; nor on her eyes, whose turned-up lashes looked Jt like little wings, because that would have DEGREES* * made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored. Not on her lovely mouth, which 1 will not, which I must not possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as much as did her voice of languorous softness, on that evening when our wooing began at the Souverettes'. This manuscript was found among the papers of Viscount Jacques de X who committed suicide a few years ago, in his room in a hotel at Piombieres. Our parents were walking slowly up and down under the chestnut-trees in the garden, and had left us alone altogether for a few minutes. I went up to her and took both her trembling hands into mine, and gently drawing her close to me, I whispered: "How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you!" Then I kissed her almost timidly, on the dimple. She trembled, as if from the pain of a burn, blushed deeply and with an affectionate look, she said: "I love you, too, Jacques, and I am very happy!" That embarrassment, the sudden emotion which revealed the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive recoil of virginity, her childlike innocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above every...