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المجنون
مجموعة قصص
159 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1982
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Guy de Maupassant
7,467 books3,034 followersHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's short stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient effortless dénouement. He also wrote six short novels. A number of his stories often denote the futility of war and the innocent civilians who get crushed in it - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 21, 2023
Guy de Maupassant's "Mad" is a short story that was actually written by Maizeroy about a man's questioning his wife's behavior before they met. This was truly sad in many ways.
Story in short - A gentleman finally decides to settle down and marry Elaine, who he is madly in love with but then things change.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
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For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamt of that first kiss, which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips, that were madly thirsting for her beauty and her youth. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27766
on her eyes, whose turned up lashes looked like little wings, because that would have made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not, which I must not possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as much as her voice did with languorous softness,
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on that evening when our flirtation began, at the Souverette’s. Our parents had gone away, and were walking slowly under the chestnut trees in the garden, and had left us alone together for a few minutes. I went up to her and took both her hands into mine, which were trembling, and gently drawing her close to me, I whispered: “How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you!” and I kissed her almost timidly, on the dimple. She trembled, as if from the pain of a burn, blushed deeply and with an affectionate look, she said: “I love you also, Jacques, and I am very happy!” That embarrassment, that sudden emotion which revealed the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive recoil of virginity, that childlike innocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above everything as a presage of happiness. It seemed to me as if I were unworthy of her; I was almost ashamed of bringing her, and of putting into her small, saint-like hands the remains of a damaged heart, that had been polluted by debauchery, that miserable thing which had served as a toy for unworthy mistresses, which was intoxicated with lies, and felt as if it would die of bitterness and disgust....
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Elaine is the perfect innocent but before their marriage her mother says something that starts the husband wondering about his wife's purity. He has had many lovers but the thought of her having a lover and learning from him, drives the husband crazy. He cannot ask his wife but finally the curiosity causes him ask his wife's past maids and family. Elaine starts to feel his coldness and wonders if she is loved. Nothing brings up past last he affairs, and when Elaine hears why her husband has changed, his look of crazIness scares while the husband longs to kill his wife, the separate beds spares her. Truly sad that this madness has caused so much misery. I think it is all in his mind, this insanity.
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How quickly she has become accustomed to me, how suddenly she has turned into a woman and become metamorphosed; already she no longer is at all like the artless girl, the sensitive child, to whom I did not know what to say, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27781
whose sudden questions disconcerted me! She is coquettish, and there is seduction in her attitudes, in her gestures, in her laugh and in her touch. One might think that she was trying her power over me, and that she guesses that I no longer have any will of my own. She does with me whatever she likes, and I am quite incapable of resisting the beautiful charm that emanates from her, and I feel carried away by her caressing hands, and so happy that I am at
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27784
times frightened at the excess of my own felicity. My life now passes amidst the most delicious of punishments, those afternoons and evenings that we spend together, those unconstrained moments when, sitting on the sofa together, she rests her head on my shoulder, holds my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our future life shall be, when I cover her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo round her imperial
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brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the time comes for us to part, and I really only exist when I am with Elaine. I can scarcely sleep; I see her rise up in the darkness, delicate, fair and pink, so supple, so elegant with her small waist and tiny hands and feet, her graceful head and that look of mockery and of coaxing which lies in her smile, that brightness of dawn which illuminates her looks, that when I think that she is going to become my wife, I feel inclined to
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sing, and to shout out my amorous folly into the silence of the night. Elaine also seems to be at the end of her strength, has grown languid and nervous; she would like to wipe out the fortnight that we still have to wait, and so little does she hide her longing, that one of her uncles, Colonel d’Orthez, said after dinner the other evening: “By Jove, my children, one would take you for two soldiers who are looking forward to their furlough!”
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I do not know what I felt, or whence those fears came which so suddenly assailed me, and took possession of my whole being like a flight of poisoned arrows. The nearer the day approached that I am so ardently longing for, on which Elaine would take my name and belong to me, the more anxious, nervous and tormented by the uncertainty of the morrow, I feel. I love, and I am passionately loved, and few couples start on the unknown journey of a totally new life and enter into matrimony with
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27799
such hopes, and the same assurance of happiness, as we two. I have such faith in the girl I am going to marry, and have made her such vows of love, that I should certainly kill myself without a moment’s hesitation if anything were to happen to separate us, to force us to a correct but irremediable rupture, or if Elaine were seized by some illness which carried her off quickly; and yet I hesitate, I am afraid, for I know that many others have made shipwreck, lost their love on the way, disenchanted their
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27803
wives and have themselves been disenchanted in those first essays of possession, during that first night of tenderness and of intimacy. What does Elaine expect in her vague innocence, which has been lessened by the half confidences of married friends, by semi-avowals, by all the kisses of this sort of apprenticeship which is a court of love; what does she possess, what does she hope for? Will her refined, delicate, vibrating nature bend to the painful submission of the initial embrace; will she not rebel against
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that ardent attack that wounds and pains? Oh! to have to say to oneself that it must come to that, to lower the most ideal of affections, to think that one is risking one’s whole future happiness at such a hazardous game, that the merest trifle might make a woman completely ridiculous or hopeful, and make an idolized woman laugh or cry! I do not know a more desirable, prettier or more attractive being in the whole world than Elaine; I am worn out by feverish love, I thirst for her lips and I wish every particle of her being to belong to me; I love her ardently, but I would willingly give half that I possess to have got through this ordeal, to be a week older, and still happy!...
Story in short - A gentleman finally decides to settle down and marry Elaine, who he is madly in love with but then things change.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27764
For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamt of that first kiss, which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips, that were madly thirsting for her beauty and her youth. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27766
on her eyes, whose turned up lashes looked like little wings, because that would have made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not, which I must not possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as much as her voice did with languorous softness,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27770
on that evening when our flirtation began, at the Souverette’s. Our parents had gone away, and were walking slowly under the chestnut trees in the garden, and had left us alone together for a few minutes. I went up to her and took both her hands into mine, which were trembling, and gently drawing her close to me, I whispered: “How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you!” and I kissed her almost timidly, on the dimple. She trembled, as if from the pain of a burn, blushed deeply and with an affectionate look, she said: “I love you also, Jacques, and I am very happy!” That embarrassment, that sudden emotion which revealed the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive recoil of virginity, that childlike innocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above everything as a presage of happiness. It seemed to me as if I were unworthy of her; I was almost ashamed of bringing her, and of putting into her small, saint-like hands the remains of a damaged heart, that had been polluted by debauchery, that miserable thing which had served as a toy for unworthy mistresses, which was intoxicated with lies, and felt as if it would die of bitterness and disgust....
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Elaine is the perfect innocent but before their marriage her mother says something that starts the husband wondering about his wife's purity. He has had many lovers but the thought of her having a lover and learning from him, drives the husband crazy. He cannot ask his wife but finally the curiosity causes him ask his wife's past maids and family. Elaine starts to feel his coldness and wonders if she is loved. Nothing brings up past last he affairs, and when Elaine hears why her husband has changed, his look of crazIness scares while the husband longs to kill his wife, the separate beds spares her. Truly sad that this madness has caused so much misery. I think it is all in his mind, this insanity.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27779
How quickly she has become accustomed to me, how suddenly she has turned into a woman and become metamorphosed; already she no longer is at all like the artless girl, the sensitive child, to whom I did not know what to say, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27781
whose sudden questions disconcerted me! She is coquettish, and there is seduction in her attitudes, in her gestures, in her laugh and in her touch. One might think that she was trying her power over me, and that she guesses that I no longer have any will of my own. She does with me whatever she likes, and I am quite incapable of resisting the beautiful charm that emanates from her, and I feel carried away by her caressing hands, and so happy that I am at
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27784
times frightened at the excess of my own felicity. My life now passes amidst the most delicious of punishments, those afternoons and evenings that we spend together, those unconstrained moments when, sitting on the sofa together, she rests her head on my shoulder, holds my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our future life shall be, when I cover her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo round her imperial
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27788
brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the time comes for us to part, and I really only exist when I am with Elaine. I can scarcely sleep; I see her rise up in the darkness, delicate, fair and pink, so supple, so elegant with her small waist and tiny hands and feet, her graceful head and that look of mockery and of coaxing which lies in her smile, that brightness of dawn which illuminates her looks, that when I think that she is going to become my wife, I feel inclined to
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27791
sing, and to shout out my amorous folly into the silence of the night. Elaine also seems to be at the end of her strength, has grown languid and nervous; she would like to wipe out the fortnight that we still have to wait, and so little does she hide her longing, that one of her uncles, Colonel d’Orthez, said after dinner the other evening: “By Jove, my children, one would take you for two soldiers who are looking forward to their furlough!”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27795
I do not know what I felt, or whence those fears came which so suddenly assailed me, and took possession of my whole being like a flight of poisoned arrows. The nearer the day approached that I am so ardently longing for, on which Elaine would take my name and belong to me, the more anxious, nervous and tormented by the uncertainty of the morrow, I feel. I love, and I am passionately loved, and few couples start on the unknown journey of a totally new life and enter into matrimony with
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27799
such hopes, and the same assurance of happiness, as we two. I have such faith in the girl I am going to marry, and have made her such vows of love, that I should certainly kill myself without a moment’s hesitation if anything were to happen to separate us, to force us to a correct but irremediable rupture, or if Elaine were seized by some illness which carried her off quickly; and yet I hesitate, I am afraid, for I know that many others have made shipwreck, lost their love on the way, disenchanted their
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27803
wives and have themselves been disenchanted in those first essays of possession, during that first night of tenderness and of intimacy. What does Elaine expect in her vague innocence, which has been lessened by the half confidences of married friends, by semi-avowals, by all the kisses of this sort of apprenticeship which is a court of love; what does she possess, what does she hope for? Will her refined, delicate, vibrating nature bend to the painful submission of the initial embrace; will she not rebel against
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 27807
that ardent attack that wounds and pains? Oh! to have to say to oneself that it must come to that, to lower the most ideal of affections, to think that one is risking one’s whole future happiness at such a hazardous game, that the merest trifle might make a woman completely ridiculous or hopeful, and make an idolized woman laugh or cry! I do not know a more desirable, prettier or more attractive being in the whole world than Elaine; I am worn out by feverish love, I thirst for her lips and I wish every particle of her being to belong to me; I love her ardently, but I would willingly give half that I possess to have got through this ordeal, to be a week older, and still happy!...
December 22, 2019
(Audible)
"Am I mad?"
Hell yeah, you are!
The narrator asks you to listen to his story and then judge if he's mad or justified in his actions. It starts normal enough and then his jealousy kicks in and then...it's a wild ride to a tragic ending.
I did not expect the shooting, or rather I expected something different.
~~shudder~~
RECOMMEND
"Am I mad?"
Hell yeah, you are!
The narrator asks you to listen to his story and then judge if he's mad or justified in his actions. It starts normal enough and then his jealousy kicks in and then...it's a wild ride to a tragic ending.
I did not expect the shooting, or rather I expected something different.
~~shudder~~
RECOMMEND
November 4, 2013
موباسان قاص رائع و صاحب فلسفة عميقة يطعّم بها كل أعماله .. لكن الترجمة -للنسخة العربية - في هذا الكتاب كانت سيئة وسرقت الكثير من جمال النص الأصلي . لكن يبقى الشكر للمترجم الذي وصلنا بهذا القاص الفرنسي المجنون
December 12, 2020
من أروع ما قرأت من قصص في حياتي
قصص مذهلة وعميقة
الأسلوب خارق
الوصف جميل جدا
نهاية القصص غاية الروعة
اجمل القصص المتشرد والإشارة
قصص مذهلة وعميقة
الأسلوب خارق
الوصف جميل جدا
نهاية القصص غاية الروعة
اجمل القصص المتشرد والإشارة
redundant
July 30, 2021aka am i insane, V
March 12, 2022
Bien écrit mais pas ouf
September 6, 2023
¿ un loco?
no tuvo una buena conclusion pero muy bueno xq ahora metio cosas sobrenaturales
no tuvo una buena conclusion pero muy bueno xq ahora metio cosas sobrenaturales
January 17, 2024
intenso e inaspettato
April 6, 2025
FYI
In looking over the reviews it is obvious that most readers are posting de Mauppasant's reviews for several of his short stories all over the place which happen to have the word Mad in the title. Here is a list which I hope will help clarify this confusion in Guy de Mauppasant's titles and help readers place their reviews under the right title.
A Madman? (Un Fou?) aka Was he Mad? - notice the question mark.
Story about a narrator remembering an evening where his friend reveals his telekinesis powers to him.
A Madman (Un Fou) - notice no question mark aka Diary of a Madman.
Story about a respected judge whose diary when found posthumously reveals he was an undiscovered psychopath.
Madness? (Fou?) aka Am I Insane?, Am I Mad?
Story about obsessive jealousy a husband has for his voluptuous wife and the dire consequences of such feelings.
Now for this title "Mad": 2.5⭐
This story I suspect falls under the category of Fake Maupassants since no title in French under Maupassant authorship can be found. However, it is attributed to him in The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant: Mad and Short Stories published by The Strafford Press, London: 1917 and Complete Works by Guy de Maupassant by Delphi Classics, 2017.
However, a footnote to the text in the 1909 collection of Maupassant’s English-language stories is signed R.M. (René Maizeroy), no doubt the author of this text, who was a colleague and acquaintance of Maupassant, who is known to have authored several other of these fake Maupassant stories.
This 23 Part novella is about a man’s changing attitudes towards first his fiancée and then his wife as he incessantly tortures himself about whether she had known another man before him. The story unfolds through what we learn at the end is a Journal of Jacques who was a young man who up to meeting Elaine led a somewhat roguish debauched life. Elaine is a pretty young and seemingly pure and innocent girl of nineteen who captures Jacque's heart, and they fall deeply in love with each other and plan to many swiftly. All goes blissfully well until the night before the wedding Elaine's mother tells Jacque that she has not given "The Talk" (my quotes) about the marital bed duties thinking it better a topic to be taught to her by her husband. When after the wedding ceremony Elaine said, “I say, my darling, would you not give ten years of your life to have already got to the end of the journey?” That one simple question sent Jacques's mind reeling. "Did she already know what her mother had not told her? Had she already learned what she ought to have been ignorant of? And had that heart, which I used to compare to the Vessel of Election, of which the litanies of Our Lady speak, already been damaged?" From that moment on Jacques started to doubt Elaine's purity and a feeling started to grow that she had had a previous lover. Jacque wished to know all that Elaine had done before they became engaged. He wanted to know whether he was the first or the second, and he was determined to know it by literally turning into a spy questioning her former lady's maid and servants as well as her friends and local pheasants who had known her and those, she went to school with about all her activities and any beaus she might have had. Needless to say, things go downhill from here even though Jacques can find no proof of previous hanky panky with Elaine's reputation still being found spotless, he still cannot let go of this insidious doubt that she has lied to him and somewhere in her past she has had a secret lover. Things start to turn cold between them with Elaine not understanding why Jacques does not love her anymore and Jacques's mind slowly descending into madness turns the story a bleak downturn.
Mental illness being a popular topic for Maupassant is probably why this story is attributed to him. However, it was a little too dragged out for my taste and although quite a sad tale it didn't seem to have the impact of the other stories that are definitely Maupassant tales.
In looking over the reviews it is obvious that most readers are posting de Mauppasant's reviews for several of his short stories all over the place which happen to have the word Mad in the title. Here is a list which I hope will help clarify this confusion in Guy de Mauppasant's titles and help readers place their reviews under the right title.
A Madman? (Un Fou?) aka Was he Mad? - notice the question mark.
Story about a narrator remembering an evening where his friend reveals his telekinesis powers to him.
A Madman (Un Fou) - notice no question mark aka Diary of a Madman.
Story about a respected judge whose diary when found posthumously reveals he was an undiscovered psychopath.
Madness? (Fou?) aka Am I Insane?, Am I Mad?
Story about obsessive jealousy a husband has for his voluptuous wife and the dire consequences of such feelings.
Now for this title "Mad": 2.5⭐
This story I suspect falls under the category of Fake Maupassants since no title in French under Maupassant authorship can be found. However, it is attributed to him in The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant: Mad and Short Stories published by The Strafford Press, London: 1917 and Complete Works by Guy de Maupassant by Delphi Classics, 2017.
However, a footnote to the text in the 1909 collection of Maupassant’s English-language stories is signed R.M. (René Maizeroy), no doubt the author of this text, who was a colleague and acquaintance of Maupassant, who is known to have authored several other of these fake Maupassant stories.
This 23 Part novella is about a man’s changing attitudes towards first his fiancée and then his wife as he incessantly tortures himself about whether she had known another man before him. The story unfolds through what we learn at the end is a Journal of Jacques who was a young man who up to meeting Elaine led a somewhat roguish debauched life. Elaine is a pretty young and seemingly pure and innocent girl of nineteen who captures Jacque's heart, and they fall deeply in love with each other and plan to many swiftly. All goes blissfully well until the night before the wedding Elaine's mother tells Jacque that she has not given "The Talk" (my quotes) about the marital bed duties thinking it better a topic to be taught to her by her husband. When after the wedding ceremony Elaine said, “I say, my darling, would you not give ten years of your life to have already got to the end of the journey?” That one simple question sent Jacques's mind reeling. "Did she already know what her mother had not told her? Had she already learned what she ought to have been ignorant of? And had that heart, which I used to compare to the Vessel of Election, of which the litanies of Our Lady speak, already been damaged?" From that moment on Jacques started to doubt Elaine's purity and a feeling started to grow that she had had a previous lover. Jacque wished to know all that Elaine had done before they became engaged. He wanted to know whether he was the first or the second, and he was determined to know it by literally turning into a spy questioning her former lady's maid and servants as well as her friends and local pheasants who had known her and those, she went to school with about all her activities and any beaus she might have had. Needless to say, things go downhill from here even though Jacques can find no proof of previous hanky panky with Elaine's reputation still being found spotless, he still cannot let go of this insidious doubt that she has lied to him and somewhere in her past she has had a secret lover. Things start to turn cold between them with Elaine not understanding why Jacques does not love her anymore and Jacques's mind slowly descending into madness turns the story a bleak downturn.
Mental illness being a popular topic for Maupassant is probably why this story is attributed to him. However, it was a little too dragged out for my taste and although quite a sad tale it didn't seem to have the impact of the other stories that are definitely Maupassant tales.
January 5, 2017
very nice short story .
August 2, 2017
جاءت هذه المجموعة القصصية في إحدى عشر قصة قصيرة أبدع فيها موباسان إلى حد كبير .
هذا الكاتب عبقري، القصة لديها الأهمية والأولوية الكبرى، يخرج كلّ طاقته وإبداعه في القصص، يكتب بجنون، أو يهدف للجنون.
هو وصل حقيقة في النهاية للجنون بسبب أسباب كثيرة أهمها الوحدة وما كان يتصوره من خيالات.
ربما كانت قصة المجنون وهي القصة الأولى في هذه المجموعة الشرارة الأولى لجنون موباسان الحقيقي.
موباسان يشرح النفس بسهولة ويسر، يجد متعة في لعب هذه اللعبة، تسليه إلى حد كبير.
السرد قوي، كذلك الوثف في هذه المجموعة، الوصف هنا ركيزة أساسية إذ أن القصص تدور في فرنسا ولا تستطيع الكتابة عن فرنسا إلا ويكون للوصف أهمية كبرى.
أشخاص كثر قالوا أن الترجمة ضعيفة، أنا لم أجدها ضعيفة، أنا وجدتها قوية.
وهذا الإجتهاد يحسب للمترجم محمد عبد المنع جلال.
هذا الكاتب عبقري، القصة لديها الأهمية والأولوية الكبرى، يخرج كلّ طاقته وإبداعه في القصص، يكتب بجنون، أو يهدف للجنون.
هو وصل حقيقة في النهاية للجنون بسبب أسباب كثيرة أهمها الوحدة وما كان يتصوره من خيالات.
ربما كانت قصة المجنون وهي القصة الأولى في هذه المجموعة الشرارة الأولى لجنون موباسان الحقيقي.
موباسان يشرح النفس بسهولة ويسر، يجد متعة في لعب هذه اللعبة، تسليه إلى حد كبير.
السرد قوي، كذلك الوثف في هذه المجموعة، الوصف هنا ركيزة أساسية إذ أن القصص تدور في فرنسا ولا تستطيع الكتابة عن فرنسا إلا ويكون للوصف أهمية كبرى.
أشخاص كثر قالوا أن الترجمة ضعيفة، أنا لم أجدها ضعيفة، أنا وجدتها قوية.
وهذا الإجتهاد يحسب للمترجم محمد عبد المنع جلال.
September 24, 2015
Heard on audiobook. This is a very disturbing, and creepy tale. You can almost follow his madness as he is obsessed with his wife and her love of horseback riding. The dark ending was a nice surprise for the horror fan in me, and truly makes you wonder who's really mad.
August 14, 2014
بالنسبة للقصص الثلاثة الأخيرة (المشرد والفندق و قصة الجندي البروسي) فهي من أجود ما قرأت منذ فترة طويلة، وحجم السخرية المتبدية فيها من الحياة البشرية مدهش للغاية
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