Prosper Mérimée's Short Stories

The stories here presented are a selection from that brilliant series which shine like a constellation in French literature of the last century, blazoning Mérimée’s name across...

And, having asked for the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment. His voice was rough, but very agreeable, the tune melancholy and weird; as for the words, I did not underst...

My Dominican insisted so earnestly that I should view the preparations for the “pretty little hanging” that I could not refuse. I went to see the prisoner, having first supplied...

“We passed the whole day together, eating, drinking, and the rest. When she had eaten her fill of bonbons, like a child of six, she stuffed handfuls of them into the old woman’s...

“‘My lover!’ she said; ‘did you really guess that all by yourself? And you are jealous of this simpleton? You are more of a fool than you were before our evenings in Rue de Cand...

The physical characteristics of the gypsy are easier to distinguish than to describe, and when you have seen a single one, you can readily pick out a person of that race from a...

“I congratulate you,” continued the captain; “you will get nothing worse, and you will command a company this evening; for I feel that the oven is being heated for me. Every tim...

“The rascal defended himself like a lion,” continued the adjutant, slightly mortified; “he killed one of my men, and, not content with that, he broke Corporal Chardon’s arm; but...

“Come, up with you, Parisian! This is just like you sluggards from the capital!” said my host, while I hastily dressed myself. “It is eight o’clock, and you are still in bed! I...

“No, no! my servant stayed at Ille, and I don’t trust these people here. Twelve hundred francs’ worth of diamonds! that might be too much of a temptation for more than one of th...