A Parisian affair and other stories. Guy De Maupassant. 2004.

Set in the nouveau riche Paris of society women, prostitutes and playboys, in the Normandy countryside and on the French Riviera where Maupassant lived, the thirty-three contest in this new selection are among the most darkly humorous and brilliant short stories in French literature. They focus on the complexity of close relationships between lovers, as in the poignant fantasy’A Parisian Affair’ or the touchingly ironical ‘The Jewels’; between siblings, as in ‘At Sea’; and n former partners, as in ‘Encounter’. They reveal two sides of human nature: its grace and generosity and also, as in ‘Boule de Sufi’, its greed and hypocrisy. Piquant and varied, Maupassant’s stories lay humanity bare with deft wit and devastating honesty.