# The Father explained — Short Fiction > Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Guy de Maupassant. ## What happens François Tessier, a lonely bureaucrat, becomes obsessed with a young woman he sees daily on the omnibus. After a brief affair, she becomes pregnant, and he abandons her in fear. Years later, he sees her again with their son in the Parc Monceau, and is consumed by remorse and a desperate longing to connect with the child. He eventually contacts her husband, and is granted a single, painful meeting with the boy. ## Themes in this chapter ### Obsession and Delusion Tessier's fixation on the woman and later on his son drives the plot, blinding him to the consequences of his actions and fueling his later remorse. ### Isolation and Loneliness Tessier leads a monotonous, solitary life as a bachelor, and his longing for connection—first romantic, then paternal—underscores his profound loneliness. ### Cruelty and Suffering Tessier's abandonment of Louise and his child causes lasting pain, and his own subsequent suffering from guilt and unfulfilled paternal love highlights the cycle of cruelty. ## Character check-ins ### François Tessier The protagonist, a lonely bureaucrat who falls in love with a woman on the omnibus, fathers a child, abandons her, and later seeks to reconnect with his son. ### Louise The young woman Tessier pursues; she becomes his mistress, bears his child, and later marries another man, raising the boy as her own. ### Monsieur Flamel Louise's husband, a kind and dignified man who acknowledges the child and grants Tessier a meeting with his son. ## Key lines > Every day he rose at the same hour, went down the same streets, walked through the same door past the same hall-porter, entered the same office, sat down on the same seat, and worked at the same task. His life was a repetitive, unchanging routine, marked by the same actions and surroundings day after day. _Illustrates Tessier's monotonous existence and emotional stagnation._ > He suffered terribly in his wretched loneliness, an old bachelor with nothing to love; he suffered a frightful anguish, torn by a fatherly love made up of remorse, longing, jealousy, and that need of small creatures to love which nature has planted in the secret depths of every human being. His loneliness was agonizing, and his paternal feelings were a painful mix of regret, desire, envy, and an innate human need to nurture. _Captures the depth of Tessier's emotional turmoil and the complexity of his fatherly love._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/the-father - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_23_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters