Useless Beauty by Guy de Maupassant. Short summary

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The Comtesse de Mascaret has become a mother seven times in eleven years. She is not happy with her own beauty, which she considers useless as long as she is a factory for the production of numerous offspring.

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The work is about the life of the Countess de Mascaret and her husband. The couple lived together for 11 years. During that time they had seven children. The Countess paid no attention to her husband’s senseless flattery. She feels that her spouse is only interested in the fact that he is entitled to her life and youth, which he judges by her ability to have children.

De Mascaret hides a terrible secret from her husband. One of her 7 children was not born to him. One day she confesses what she has done at the church altar. The Count stays in the church and the Countess goes home.

After what has happened, the husband takes all possible measures to find out which of the children is a stranger to him. The Countess flatly refuses to tell him the truth. Her beauty seems absurd to her as she has one child after another. In the finale of the work, the heroine confesses that she lied in order to avoid becoming a factory for the production of successive heirs.