Short Fiction · Chapter
For Sale explained
The narrator describes a blissful morning walk along the Brittany coast, where he encounters a charming seaside house with a 'For Sale' sign.
What happens
The narrator describes a blissful morning walk along the Brittany coast, where he encounters a charming seaside house with a 'For Sale' sign. He feels an inexplicable familiarity and love for the place. Inside, he sees a photograph of a woman he feels he has always known. The servant reveals that the woman was the mistress of the owner, Monsieur Tournelle, but she disappeared one day, leaving him heartbroken. The narrator, now obsessed, steals the photograph and sets off in pursuit, convinced he will find her and share the house with her.
Themes in this chapter
Obsession and Delusion
The narrator's immediate, intense fixation on the unknown woman in the photograph and his conviction that he is destined to meet her.
Illusion vs. Reality
The narrator's dreamlike perception of the house and the woman contrasts with the servant's stark account of abandonment and loss.
Isolation and Loneliness
The solitary walk, the empty house for sale, and the servant's lonely vigil all underscore a sense of isolation.
Characters to notice
- Guy de Maupassant
The narrator, who walks along the Brittany coast and becomes enchanted by a house for sale.
- Césaire Houlbrèque
The servant who answers the door and tells the story of her master and the missing woman.
Key passages
“To set out on foot, when the sun is just rising, and walk through the dew, by the side of the fields, at the verge of the quiet sea, what ecstasy!”
Walking at dawn along the fields and sea brings overwhelming joy.
Opens the chapter with a vivid description of the narrator's euphoric walk.
“I felt a sharp thrill of delight, as if this dwelling had been offered to me, as if I had been given it.”
Seeing the 'For Sale' sign filled me with a sudden, irrational joy as if the house were already mine.
Highlights the narrator's immediate emotional attachment to the house.
“It was she, the inexpressible she, she for whom I was waiting, whom I desired, she whom I summoned, whose face haunted my dreams.”
The woman in the photograph was the one I had always longed for and imagined.
Reveals the narrator's belief that the woman is his ideal, preordained love.