Mauprat

“What do you take me for?” I answered, pulling my hat over my eyes. “Do you think that I am an idiot? Wait a minute; would you like me to go and get my grandmother’s dress which...

The wine was loosening the hidalgo’s tongue; on those rare occasions when he allowed himself to depart from his usual sobriety, he was not wanting in wit. He was unwilling to le...

“That last reproach is delicately put, dear friend,” she replied; “but allow me to justify myself. Your astonishment arises from the fact that you do not know the Mauprat race....

“Well, well! What is the matter?” said the anchorite, in a calm and kindly tone. “Do you imagine that I don’t know perfectly well how things stand? I am not so simple but that I...

At the same time I shook the reins so violently that her horse reared. She lost her balance, and, to avoid falling, jumped lightly to the ground between our two animals, at the...

“If I told you,” answered Edmee, “you would hardly believe it. You would think my father and I were mad. But I will tell you everything presently; let us attend to him.”

When, subsequently, I came to understand Patience thoroughly, I found a bond of sympathy with him in my own exceptional destiny. Like him, I had been without education; like him...

From this moment the victory was hers. I no longer had power to will what I wished. The lynx in me was subdued; the man rose in its place; and I believe that my voice had a huma...

The cure was not too ready to acknowledge the superiority of this untutored intellect. Still, he was quite astonished at passing so many winter evenings by his fireside with thi...

“I saw him on the spot where the deed was done, just as Edmee lost consciousness and seemed to be giving up her soul; he seemed to be out of his mind. I thought that he was over...

The good cure handed him the flask, which he emptied at a draught. His distorted face took on an expression of awful calm. He seemed absorbed, stunned, incapable of resistance....

I had spent part of the night in preparing this opening speech and in deciding how I had best comport myself in the abbe’s presence. Without really hating him, for I could quite...

“I am certain that he will refuse; for I know the hatred that he still has for me,” said the Trappist, once more looking towards the spot where I was. “But I hope that you will...

Meanwhile all were paying court to her and none were accepted. It had, indeed, been given out that she was engaged to M. de la Marche, but no one understood any better than myse...

M. de la March was one of the fashionable young nobles of the day. Smitten with the new philosophy, devoted to Voltaire, a great admirer of Franklin, more well-meaning than inte...

“Now, my young officer, I see that you have no wish to remain here long. Let us make haste, then, to the place you are burning to reach. There is some one who will be much surpr...

But even if things had not been likely to reach this pitch, I somehow felt an unconquerable aversion to asking eight men to avenge me on a single one. Just as I was about to ask...

Patience, convinced as he was of my guilt, might have served my enemies without wishing to do so; but he would not. He had resumed his roaming life in the woods, and, though he...

“Yes, I will,” I replied. “I am ready to endure any humiliation, if only I can learn what is wanted of me and why you are all pleased to insult the most unfortunate of men. Lead...

The chevalier shrugged his shoulders; the abbe implored me to bring myself to do as he wished, as the reluctance I showed was a veritable disappointment to my uncle. I consented...

Although rather seriously wounded in the unfortunate affair of Savannah, I was actively engaged in Virginia, under General Greene, in collecting the remains of the army commande...

“Perhaps, sir,” replied Edmee archly, “the court is not competent to judge this matter. Many women think it no great crime to show a little coquetry with the man they love. Perh...

It was two o’clock in the morning. The case had lasted for fourteen hours. A silence as of death reigned over the court, which was as full and as attentive as at the beginning,...

Between these two letters I found a little note without any address, which seemed as if it had been slipped in as an after-thought. I was not slow to see that it was from the on...

They took advantage of their power to give the poor man a false notion of his real interests, and to corrupt the simple folk by undermining all sense of their dignity and natura...

Edmee suffered more and more every day from this development of my character. She cast about for means to cure it. If there was never _fiancee_ stronger-minded and more reserved...

“Come, abbe,” he continued laughingly, “as a punishment for having played the pedant you must drink with us. Edmee is now quite out of danger. The doctor has said that Bernard c...

Napoleon in exile declared that were he again on the throne he should make a point of spending two hours a day in conversation with women, from whom there was much to be learnt....

The ideal of love is assuredly eternal fidelity. Moral and religious laws have aimed at consecrating this ideal. Material facts obscure it. Civil laws are so framed as to make i...

“‘As many times as you like, abbe,’ she answered, with a firmness in which there were signs of annoyance and confusion, ‘it is all the same to me. On this point I have lectured...