Abandoned by Guy de Maupassant

‘Abandoned’ is the story of a woman who has an illegitimate child from an affair she has in her youth. However, in order to avoid the public embarrassment which this child would have caused, she and her lover choose to give it away to a peasant couple to raise as their own child. Despite the fact that she gave her child up after birth, the woman does not forget him and continues to wish that she can see him again. The story begins forty years after the woman gives up her child when she brings her husband to the town close to where her son lives. With them is s close friend of the woman who also happens to have been her lover, and father of her child. The husband is oblivious of the reason for his wife bringing him to this town and he complains bitterly about it. When she asks him to take her for a walk, he refuses to do so and instead encourages her to ask her friend to take her. The woman and her former lover leave for the farm in which their son resides. Both of them seem to be anxious to see him again, but while the woman is emotional about the encounter, her friend hides his true feelings, stating that the woman is going to betray them to their son. The main fear of the friend is that their son might find out about them being his parents, and because of their social status, might decide to blackmail them.

The two former lovers continue to walk along the path and after asking for directions arrive at their son’s farm, which at first sight it seems to be a prosperous one. However, on their arrival, there is no one at home except for a young girl who tells them that she does not know where her father is while her mother has gone after the cows. When the girl’s mother returns, it is noted that she looks older than her true age and that she limps on her right leg. At first, she ignores the two visitors completely after looking at them with anger and suspicion. The woman’s friend calls her back and to get her attention, asks her to sell them some milk. The opportunity to make money makes the woman suddenly become extremely courteous and she immediately gets them the milk they want. The former lovers take this opportunity to make enquiries concerning their son, who as they speak of him, comes home. At first sight of him, the couple is extremely shocked at what they see. Their son, despite being only forty years old, is bent over like an old man and has lost the vigor which a man of his age should have. The woman is so shocked and distraught that she asks her former lover that they leave their son’s farm. She blames her former lover of having destroyed their son’s life, while he defends himself by stating that he did what he had to do. When they get back to the place where they are staying, they choose to behave as if nothing had happened that afternoon.