Short Fiction · Chapter
The Chair Mender explained
At a hunting season dinner, a discussion arises about whether one can love truly more than once.
What happens
At a hunting season dinner, a discussion arises about whether one can love truly more than once. The doctor arbitrates by recounting the story of an old chair mender who loved the chemist Chouquet for fifty-five years without respite, a passion that ended only with her death. The tale reveals her lifelong devotion, from childhood encounters to her final bequest of savings to him, which is met with indignation by Chouquet and his wife.
Themes in this chapter
Obsession and Delusion
The chair mender's fifty-five-year devotion to Chouquet, based on childhood encounters and sustained by fantasy, exemplifies an obsessive and delusional love.
Social Class and Money
Chouquet's indignation at being loved by a 'vagabond' and his eventual acceptance of her savings highlight class prejudice and the role of money.
Characters to notice
- Doctor Heraclius Gloss
The doctor arbitrates the debate on love and recounts the story of the chair mender's lifelong passion.
- Duc de Servigny
The Marquis de Bertrans, host of the dinner, who combats the belief in singular love.
- Monsieur Saval
The doctor who narrates the chair mender's story, identified as an old Paris physician retired to the country.
Key passages
“I tell you that one can love many times with all one’s strength and all one’s soul.”
The Marquis argues that a person can fall deeply in love multiple times.
Sets up the central debate on the nature of love.
“As for myself, I have known of one passion which lasted fifty-five years without a day of respite, and which was terminated only by death.”
The doctor claims to have witnessed a love that endured for fifty-five years until death.
Introduces the chair mender's story as a counterexample to the debate.
“He is the only man I have seen on earth; I have not known that there are others existing.”
The chair mender declares that Chouquet was the only man she ever loved or acknowledged.
Illustrates the depth and exclusivity of her lifelong obsession.