The Foreign Soul & the Angelus

Book excerpt: In The Foreign Soul we are in classic Maupassant territory. Robert Mariolle, a wealthy Parisian bachelor, has just arrived in the fashionable spa town of Aix-les-Bains determined to enjoy himself at the casino in the company of high society, attempting to get over his break up with mistress, Henriette Lambel. The Angelus was intended to be Maupassant's great masterpiece, an ambitious inverted allegory of Christianity into which the author would pour his growing pessimism and despair. Set during the Franco-Prussian War, as were some of Maupassant's finest short stories, The Angelus finds the pregnant Countess de Bremontal alone in her chateau as Prussian troops move into the neighbourhood. Here are the first English translations of Maupassant's two unfinished novels, The Foreign Soul [L'Ame etrangere] and The Angelus [L'Angelus], together with full critical apparatus, including secondary sources outlining Maupassant's future plot ideas and an essay on The Foreign Soul by Paul Bourget.