E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT VOLUME III The Viaticum and Other Stories National Library Company New York Copyright, 1909, by Bigelow, Smith & Co. CONTENTS THE VIATICUM THE RELICS THE THIEF A RUPTURE A USEFUL HOUSE THE ACCENT GHOSTS CRASH AN HONEST IDEAL STABLE PERFUME THE ILL-OMENED GROOM AN EXOTIC PRINCE VIRTUE IN THE BALLET IN HIS SWEETHEART'S LIVERY DELILA A MESALLIANCE BERTHA ABANDONED A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL COUNTESS SATAN KIND GIRLS PROFITABLE BUSINESS VIOLATED JEROBOAM THE LOG MARGOT'S TAPERS CAUGHT IN THE VERY ACT THE CONFESSION WAS IT A DREAM THE LAST STEP THE WILL A COUNTRY EXCURSION THE LANCER'S WIFE THE COLONEL'S IDEAS ONE EVENING THE HERMAPHRODITE MARROCA AN ARTIFICE THE ASSIGNATION AN ADVENTURE THE DOUBLE PINS UNDER THE YOKE THE REAL ONE AND THE OTHER THE UPSTART THE CARTER'S WENCH THE MARQUIS THE BED AN ADVENTURE IN PARIS MADAME BAPTISTE HAPPINESS THE VIATICUM "After all," Count d'Avorsy said, stirring his tea with the slow movements of a prelate, "what truth was there in anything that was said at Court, almost without any restraint, and did the Empress, whose beauty has been ruined by some secret grief, who will no longer see anyone and who soothes her continual mental weariness by some journeys without an object and without a rest, in foggy and melancholy islands, and did she really forget Caesar's wife ought not even to be suspected, did she really give herself to that strange and attractive corrupter, Ladislas Ferkoz?" The bright night seemed to be scattering handfuls of stars into the placid sea, which was as calm as a blue pond, slumbering in the depths of a forest. Among the tall climbing roses, which hung a mantle of yellow flowers to the fretted baluster of the terrace, there stood out in the distance the illuminated fronts of the hotels and villas, and occasionally women's laughter was heard above the dull, monotonous sound of surf and the noise of the fog-horns. Then Captain Sigmund Oroshaz, whose sad and pensive face of a soldier who has seen too much slaughter and too many charnel houses, was marked by a large scar, raised his head and said in a grave, haughty voice: