Title of the Topic : Moonlight By Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Summary of the topic/fiction:

Madame Letore had gone to visit her sister Madame Roubere after vacationing with her husband.
Roubere noticed that in her sister’s jet-black hair, she had two white streaks at each temple and asked
why she had them all of a sudden. Letore told Roubere about her vacation with her husband. Letore’s
husband had returned home early to attend to some business that was calling him. On the vacation
though, They were walking and looking at a beautiful nature scene when Letore asked her husband to
kiss her because she was overcome with the beauty of the landscape. Her husband merely said that he
didn’t understand why he should kiss her. A few days later, Madame Letore went out in the evening for
a walk. Her husband was in bed with a headache. The moon was full and the scene was idyllic. Madame
Latore was once again overcome with the beauty of it and says she was “seized with an insatiable need
of love. “She begins sobbing, when a young man who was traveling with his mother happened upon her
and began to console her. One thing led to another, passion flew, and she ended up cheating on her
husband. Letore is adamant on telling her sister that she loves her husband and never thought she
would cheat on him. He is a good man, treats her well, provides for her and is nice, but at the same time
he is very stifling and not very emotionally connected to her. Roubere replies that it is all too often that
women don’t necessarily fall in love with the man they “love” but more-so with the idea of love and love
itself. Madame Latore is racked with guilt about this indiscretion. In the last line of the story, Madame
Roubere tells her sister that she is in love with love itself, and that moonlight was her real lover that
night.

Copy of the story :

Moonlight

by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Madame Julie Roubere was expecting her elder sister, Madame Henriette Letore, who had just returned
from a trip to Switzerland.

The Letore household had left nearly five weeks before. Madame Henriette had allowed her husband to
return alone to their estate in Calvados, where some business required his attention, and had come to
spend a few days in Paris with her sister. Night came on. In the quiet parlor Madame Roubere was
reading in the twilight in an absent-minded way, raising her eyes whenever she heard a sound.

At last, she heard a ring at the door, and her sister appeared, wrapped in a travelling cloak. And without
any formal greeting, they clasped each other in an affectionate embrace, only desisting for a moment to
give each other another hug. Then they talked about their health, about their respective families, and a
thousand other things, gossiping, jerking out hurried, broken sentences as they followed each other
about, while Madame Henriette was removing her hat and veil.

It was now quite dark. Madame Roubere rang for a lamp, and as soon as it was brought in, she scanned
her sister's face, and was on the point of embracing her once more. But she held back, scared and
astonished at the other's appearance.
On her temples Madame Letore had two large locks of white hair. All the rest of her hair was of a glossy,
raven-black hue; but there alone, at each side of her head, ran, as it were, two silvery streams which
were immediately lost in the black mass surrounding them. She was, nevertheless, only twenty-four
years old, and this change had come on suddenly since her departure for Switzerland.

Without moving, Madame Roubere gazed at her in amazement, tears rising to her eyes, as she thought
that some mysterious and terrible calamity must have befallen her sister. She asked:

"What is the matter with you, Henriette?"

Smiling with a sad face, the smile of one who is heartsick, the other replied:

"Why, nothing, I assure you. Were you noticing my white hair?"

But Madame Roubere impetuously seized her by the shoulders, and with a searching glance at her,
repeated:

"What is the matter with you? Tell me what is the matter with you. And if you tell me a falsehood, I'll
soon find it out."

They remained face to face, and Madame Henriette, who looked as if she were about to faint, had two
pearly tears in the corners of her drooping eyes.

Her sister continued:

"What has happened to you? What is the matter with you? Answer me!"

Then, in a subdued voice, the other murmured:

"I have--I have a lover."

And, hiding her forehead on the shoulder of her younger sister, she sobbed.

Then, when she had grown a little calmer, when the heaving of her breast had subsided, she
commenced to unbosom herself, as if to cast forth this secret from herself, to empty this sorrow of hers
into a sympathetic heart.

Thereupon, holding each other's hands tightly clasped, the two women went over to a sofa in a dark
corner of the room, into which they sank, and the younger sister, passing her arm over the elder one's
neck, and drawing her close to her heart, listened.

"Oh! I know that there was no excuse for me; I do not understand myself, and since that day I feel as if I
were mad. Be careful, my child, about yourself--be careful! If you only knew how weak we are, how
quickly we yield, and fall. It takes so little, so little, so little, a moment of tenderness, one of those
sudden fits of melancholy which come over you, one of those longings to open, your arms, to love, to
cherish something, which we all have at certain moments.

"You know my husband, and you know how fond I am of him; but he is mature and sensible, and cannot
even comprehend the tender vibrations of a woman's heart. He is always the same, always good, always
smiling, always kind, always perfect. Oh! how I sometimes have wished that he would clasp me roughly
in his arms, that he would embrace me with those slow, sweet kisses which make two
beings intermingle, which are like mute confidences! How I have wished that he were foolish, even
weak, so that he should have need of me, of my caresses, of my tears!

"This all seems very silly; but we women are made like that. How can we help it?

"And yet the thought of deceiving him never entered my mind. Now it has happened, without love,
without reason, without anything, simply because the moon shone one night on the Lake of Lucerne.

"During the month when we were travelling together, my husband, with his calm indifference, paralyzed
my enthusiasm, extinguished my poetic ardor. When we were descending the mountain paths at
sunrise, when as the four horses galloped along with the diligence, we saw, in the transparent morning
haze, valleys, woods, streams, and villages, I clasped my hands with delight, and said to him: 'How
beautiful it is, dear! Give me a kiss! Kiss me now!' He only answered, with a smile of chilling kindliness:
'There is no reason why we should kiss each other because you like the landscape.'

"And his words froze me to the heart. It seems to me that when people love each other, they ought to
feel more moved by love than ever, in the presence of beautiful scenes.

"In fact, I was brimming over with poetry which he kept me from expressing. I was almost like a boiler
filled with steam and hermetically sealed.

"One evening (we had for four days been staying in a hotel at Fluelen) Robert, having one of his sick
headaches, went to bed immediately after dinner, and I went to take a walk all alone along the edge of
the lake.

"It was a night such as one reads of in fairy tales. The full moon showed itself in the middle of the sky;
the tall mountains, with their snowy crests, seemed to wear silver crowns; the waters of the lake
glittered with tiny shining ripples. The air was mild, with that kind of penetrating warmth which
enervates us till we are ready to faint, to be deeply affected without any apparent cause. But how
sensitive, how vibrating the heart is at such moments! how quickly it beats, and how intense is its
emotion!

"I sat down on the grass, and gazed at that vast, melancholy, and fascinating lake, and a strange feeling
arose in me; I was seized with an insatiable need of love, a revolt against the gloomy dullness of my life.
What! would it never be my fate to wander, arm in arm, with a man I loved, along a moon-kissed bank
like this? Was I never to feel on my lips those kisses so deep, delicious, and intoxicating which lovers
exchange on nights that seem to have been made by God for tenderness? Was I never to know ardent,
feverish love in the moonlit shadows of a summer's night?

"And I burst out weeping like a crazy woman. I heard something stirring behind me. A man stood there,
gazing at me. When I turned my head round, he recognized me, and, advancing, said:

"'You are weeping, madame?'

"It was a young barrister who was travelling with his mother, and whom we had often met. His eyes had
frequently followed me.

"I was so confused that I did not know what answer to give or what to think of the situation. I told him I
felt ill.
"He walked on by my side in a natural and respectful manner, and began talking to me about what we
had seen during our trip. All that I had felt he translated into words; everything that made me thrill he
understood perfectly, better than I did myself. And all of a sudden he repeated some verses of Alfred de
Musset. I felt myself choking, seized with indescribable emotion. It seemed to me that the mountains
themselves, the lake, the moonlight, were singing to me about things ineffably sweet.

"And it happened, I don't know how, I don't know why, in a sort of hallucination.

"As for him, I did not see him again till the morning of his departure.

"He gave me his card!"

And, sinking into her sister's arms, Madame Letore broke into groans-- almost into shrieks.

Then, Madame Roubere, with a self-contained and serious air, said very gently:

"You see, sister, very often it is not a man that we love, but love itself. And your real lover that night was
the moonlight."

Unlocking difficulties :

1. Estate - an extensive area of land in the country, usually with a large house, owned by one
person, family, or organization
2. Parlor – A room in a house or apartment that is used for conversation or
for spending time with guests.
3. Cloak – A piece of clothing that is used as a coat, that has no sleeves,
and that is worn over the shoulders and attached at the neck.
4. Temples – flat area on the side of the head, in front of each ear
5. Heartstick – very sad or disappointed
6. Impetously – acting or done quickly without thought
7. Faint – close to losing consciousness
8. Subdued – lacking in vitality, intensity, or strength
9. Unbosom – to disclose the thought or feeling
10. Sensible – having or showing good sense or judgement
11. Deceiving – means to lie, mislead, or otherwise hide or distort the truth
12. Ardor – a strong feeling of energy or eagerness
13. Brimming – to be completely filled with something
14. Ripples – a small wave or series of waves on the surface of water, especially as caused by an
object dropping into it or a slight breeze.
15. Enervates – to make someone or something very weak or tired
16. Insatiable – always wanting more, not able to be satisfied
17. Ineffably – incapable of being expressed in words
Characters :

Main Characters :

 Madame Henriette Letore

A French woman in early twenties and an older sister of Julie. Henriette is developed as a
sensitive and emotional woman, trapped in a loveless marriage. Henriette is married to a man
who does not appreciate her romantic notions. Thus, she ended up cheating his husband wit a
young lover which is the antithesis of her husband.
 Madame Julie Roubere
Henriette’s younger sister, the more serious or level-headed one. She’s a very compassionate
and loving sister of Henriette whom became her crying shoulder in times of despair. Although
she is the younger ones, she act and think as an adult.

Supporting characters

 Henriette’s husband
Henriette described him as “perfect,” except for his emotional insensitivity toward Henriette
and his lack of passion.
 Henriette’s lover
A young man which Henriette met in a vacation to Switzerland. Henriette’s young lover is the
antithesis of her husband, seeming to feel and speak all that Henriette feels but cannot share
with her husband.

Analysis or Discussion :

The broadest setting location of Moonlight by Guy de Maupassant is in Paris, France; however, that
setting location doesn’t really matter. The entire story takes place in the home of Madame Julie
Roubere. More specifically, the two main characters spend the story talking with each other in the
parlor room. It is about two sisters who are reunited after one of the sisters has been out of the country
for five weeks. At first, the sisters are very excited to see each other. They hug,chatted excitedly, and
generally enjoy each other’s company. The story’s tone changes when Madame Roubere notices that
her twenty-four-year-old sister has two white streaks in her jet-black hair at each temple. And that’s
when Henriette started narrating about her husband’s lack of romantic sensibility and began to confess
about her lover. As for a theme, there is definitely a theme of love. I think the love theme is shown in
three distinct ways in this story. The first is that love is (or should be) an all-consuming combination of
emotional and physical attraction. It’s what Letore seems to want most out of a relationship. She admits
that her husband is a wonderful caregiver; however, that doesn’t seem to be solid enough evidence of
his love for her. That care and devotion for somebody is the second thematic display of love in this story.
The husband believes that he is showing his love through his care and his goodness. She longs for
physical love and he gives his devoted love. Both are wonderful expressions of love. Roubere points out
a third view of love in this story. She points out to Letore that in many cases love is nothing more than
an abstract concept. People love the idea of being in love. In the last line of the story, Madame Roubere
tells her sister that she is in love with love itself, and that moonlight was her real lover that night. She
says “And your real lover that night was the moonlight.” Meaning that she didn’t cheat with a man, but
with an idea. The overriding conflict in this story is man vs. self. When Henriette arrives, Julie is struck by
the fact that she has two white locks in her black hair. Henriette is in her early twenties, and so should
not have any white hairs. Julie knows something is wrong and begs her sister to tell her. Henriette is
dissatisfied in her marriage and believes she has had an affair with a she had just met. The conflict is not
man vs. man because Henriette’s husband is not aware of her conflict. She struggles within herself,
searching for the romance that is missing in her marriage.

Comprehension Questions:

1. Where is the main setting of the story?

a. Paris, France
b. Switzerland
c. Madame Juliet’s parlor
d. One evening beside the river
Ans. C
2. What does the author reveals about Madame Henriette characters.
a. She’s a cheater.
b. She’s very romantic.
c. She is very sensitive and emotional.
d. Both B and C
Ans. D
3. What symbols seems connected to the theme of the story?
a. Nature
b. Moonlight
c. Two locks of white hair
d. River
Ans.B
4. Julie says in the last paragraph: “…very often it is not a man that we love, but love itself.” Based
on your understanding what does it mean?
a. Love is very mysterious.
b. In their first passion women love their lovers, in the others they love love.
c. Loving someone is loving his/her entire being.
d. Love doesn’t matter at all.
Ans. B
5. What is the narrative point of view of the story?
a. First person
b. Second person
c. Third person
d. Third person omniscient
Ans. D
6. What type of conflict does the character encounters?
a. Man vs. Man
b. Man vs. Society
c. Man vs. Self
d. Both A and C
Ans. C
7. Why does Henriette ended up cheating with her husband?
a. Her husband doesn’t love her.
b. Her husband cheats at her first.
c. His lack of romantic sensibility.
d. He is a very busy man.
Ans. C
8. The following are the list of characteristics of Henriette except.
a. Strong desire for love
b. her vulnerability to the influences of nature
c. her conflicting conservative moral principles
d. None of the above.
Ans. D
9. What does the two locks of white hair at Henriette’s temple signifies.
a. She is tormented by her feelings of guilt
b. She’d been sick a week ago.
c. She was in great despair.
d. Both a and c
Ans. A
10. Do you think Henriette loves his husband?
a. Yes, she loves him not until he met her young lover.
b. No, she doesn’t love him that’s why she cheated.
c. Yes, she loves him but she’s influenced by her emotions and desire.
d. She was in love with the idea of love and not with the love itself.
Ans. D