NOTRE CŒUR OR A WOMAN'S PASTIME _A NOVEL_ _By_ GUY DE MAUPASSANT SAINT DUNSTAN SOCIETY AKRON, OHIO 1903 TABLE OF CONTENTS GUY DE MAUPASSANT - Critical Preface: Paul Bourget INTRODUCTION - Robert Arnot, M. A. NOTRE CŒUR CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER II. "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?" CHAPTER III. THE THORNS OF THE ROSE CHAPTER IV. THE BENEFIT OF CHANGE OF SCENE CHAPTER V. CONSPIRACY CHAPTER VI. QUESTIONINGS CHAPTER VII. DEPRESSION CHAPTER VIII. NEW HOPES CHAPTER IX. DISILLUSION CHAPTER X. FLIGHT CHAPTER XI. LONELINESS CHAPTER XII. CONSOLATION CHAPTER XIII. MARIOLLE COPIES MME. DE BURNE ADDENDA THE OLIVE GROVE REVENGE AN OLD MAID COMPLICATION FORGIVENESS THE WHITE WOLF ILLUSTRATIONS HENRI RENE GUY DE MAUPASSANT "THEY WERE ALONE ... SHE WAS WEEPING" [Illustration] [Illustration] GUY DE MAUPASSANT Of the French writers of romance of the latter part of the nineteenth century no one made a reputation as quickly as did Guy de Maupassant. Not one has preserved that reputation with more ease, not only during life, but in death. None so completely hides his personality in his glory. In an epoch of the utmost publicity, in which the most insignificant deeds of a celebrated man are spied, recorded, and commented on, the author of "Boule de Suif," of "Pierre et Jean," of "Notre Cœur," found a way of effacing his personality in his work. Of De Maupassant we know that he was born in Normandy about 1850; that he was the favorite pupil, if one may so express it, the literary _protégé_, of Gustave Flaubert; that he made his _début_ late in 1880, with a novel inserted in a small collection, published by Emile Zola and his young friends, under the title: "The Soirées of Medan"; that subsequently he did not fail to publish stories and romances every year up to 1891, when a disease of the brain struck him down in the fullness of production; and that he died, finally, in 1893, without having recovered his reason. We know, too, that he passionately loved a strenuous physical life and long journeys, particularly long journeys upon the sea. He owned a little sailing yacht, named after one of his books, "Bel-Ami," in which he used to sojourn for weeks and months. These meager details are almost the only ones that have been gathered as food for the curiosity of the public.