A woman borrows an expensive diamond necklace to wear to an important ball after her husband surprises her with an elegant new gown. Sometime during the ball, the necklace goes missing. Subsequently, the couple dig themselves deep into debt to afford a replacement. A decade later the wife finds out that the necklace had been a cheap imitation.
“Two Friends”
The title character are two men who bump into each other after a long period. They spend the day drinking, reminiscing and casually strolling. This strolling brings them into the no-man’s-land existing between fighting forces of the French against the Prussians. While fishing, they are captured by Prussian soldiers and interrogated by a cruel officer who demands the password needed for them to have gotten to the point where they were discovered. They refuse, the officer orders their execution and then sits down to enjoy eating the fish they caught.
“Two Little Soldiers”
A bizarre little love triangle with a completely unexpected twist at the end. Jean and Luc are best friends who one day happen upon a farm girl while taking a walk. Over time the three become best friends and everything is going well. Then Luc starts leaving mysteriously and Jean later discovers he has been meeting the girl in secret and when they next all three get together it is not like before: he has become a third wheel. The ending is perhaps ironic or perhaps tragic or perhaps even absurd, but it’s definitely something.
“He?”
This is one of the many examples of Maupassant’s stories about a strange invisible visitor. Though unseen, this visitor definitely makes his presence known. The common theme takes an interesting divergence int his particular story resulting from the manifestation arising as a direct result of fear.
“Pierrot”
A wealthy woman has a dozen onions stolen from her country garden. She follows the advice of a neighboring farmer to buy a watchdog and chooses to save money by buying a smaller dog. Upon learning of the dog tax burden placed upon owners, she decides to get rid of the dog and eventually Pierrot winds up at the bottom of a chalk quarry often used by owners to remove themselves of the tax burden. Because she didn’t want to pay someone to do the deed herself, the woman does it but is so filled with remorse about the dog’s fate that she returns to drop down crumbs for Pierrot to feed upon. Until a larger dog appears below and she refuses to pay for the feeding of another dog.
“Madame Tellier’s Establishment”
Like Prussian soldiers and invisible visitors, a multitude of prostitutes inhabit the stories of Maupassant. The title character in this story—often considered his masterpiece of short fiction—is the madam of brothel who is, herself, untainted by the services performed by the girls under her charge. Because she can’t trust the prostitutes to get along without her supervision, she is forced to take them along with her on a visit to a small town to attend her niece’s First Communion. It is in the church that Maupassant’s obsessions with prostitutes and invisible forces collide as a religious frenzy overcomes the prostitutes and they being weeping about the conditions of their state of being. Rather than giving up that condition, however, everyone returns right back to work, but there is a new sense of sisterhood and understanding and the tension and drama that formerly prevailed has dissipated.
“The Hand”
Not just another supernatural horror story about a disembodied hand, but a commentary upon supernatural horror stories about a disembodied hand. In this case, the story is related to listeners by a policeman about the strange events involving a man who kept a human hand mounted on his wall with a chain who was found murdered with a finger in his mouth and the hand missing. The hand later shows up on the man’s grave and a finger notably missing. The policeman offers a reasonable explanation which is rejected by the listeners in preference of the supernatural possibility.
"Boitelle"
Boitelle is a short story about Antoine Boitelle who recounts his past where he met a Negress (as she is referred to in the text) working in a café in the docks (Café des Colonies) and fall in love with her. He describes as perfect, with manners of a Frenchwoman and also very intelligent. After a few meetings together, they wanted to get marry and therefore Antoine and the "Negress" travels to his hometown to ask his parents’ permission. However, his parents did not like this woman even though she was polite and helpful due to her black skin. Therefore, Antoine had to give up on marrying her.
