Thursday 27 October 2011

Maupassant on Marriage

From "Une Ruse" (1882), a charmingly satirical definition of married life!

"un échange de mauvaises humeurs pendant le jour et de mauvaises odeurs pendant la nuit"


This quote appears to have a certain universal appeal, but I hadn't come across it before reading the story in Penguin Classics (Selected Short Stories, translated by Roger Colet). Colet renders it thus:

"nothing but an exchange of bad tempers during the day and bad smells during the night".

Poor Guy, no wonder he came to a bad end.

No comments:

Post a Comment