An Uncomfortable Bed by Guy de Maupassant, 1883
The magic trick:
A lark of a story
We’ll still do an SSMT weekly double from time to time when it makes sense to combine two stories. Here, I thought it was interesting to look at two Guy de Maupassant stories back-to-back.
His work could be so simple and yet also so very deep.
Today, we start with an example of a simple story; a lark, a laugh.
“An Uncomfortable Bed” is actually a story pulled from the 1883 publication “The Prank.”
The narrator is visiting friends who he is sure are plotting to play a prank on him. His paranoia builds to a suitably funny and ironic ending.
And that’s quite a trick on Maupassant’s part.
The selection:
One autumn I went to spend the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy.
My friends were fond of practical jokes. I do not care to know people who are not.
When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once awakened suspicion in my mind. They fired off rifles, embraced me, made much of me, as if they expected to have great fun at my expense.
I said to myself:
“Look out, old ferret! They have something in store for you.”
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