Emmanuelle de Maupassant QUOTES

14 " The cook says, ‘As a young lass, I thought nothing as important as the love of a brave and ‘andsome man; now I’m an old crone, I know full well that it is, but only when he’s moneyed enough to keep you. The young may think they can live on sweet embraces but they won’t fill your belly – or not as you may be intending at any rate! "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , The Gentlemen's Club (Noire #1)

15 " She is drawn to the river, and all its hideous, dead-eyed treasures: rot-bloated cats, and cold-meat corpses of unwanted infants, eels plucking at their tender fingers and toes. "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , The Gentlemen's Club (Noire #1)

16 " Girls barely budding open their legs to make a living, alongside the toothless and rancid of breath; hair thick with lice, they all find customers if the price is right, against the wall or on sheets well-soiled. Their holes cost but a shilling. Skins grow thick and claws sharp. "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , The Gentlemen's Club (Noire #1)

17 " The cold is waiting to ooze through the soles of your shoes. Maggot-damp, this city is festering: home to hollow faces of grey flesh. They stare from windows unclean, into the sun never reaches: dismal lives lived in dismal constriction. "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , The Gentlemen's Club (Noire #1)

18 " Ha!’ cackled the fiend, ‘I expect you’d like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn’t go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you’d be so kind as to lend me your body, I’ll set him dancing to my tune.’

The wife’s spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman’s pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap.

It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips.

When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , Cautionary Tales

19 " Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie.

The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop.

Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast.

'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he.

from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , Cautionary Tales

20 " Good and evil exist in all of us.
a moment’s temptation takes us on a wrong path.
On that path may lurk foul fiends,
inhuman, yet feeding, needing
all our weaknesses: vanity, indolence and envy,
Easy fruits for evil appetites,
our flesh, a tasty afterthought,
our bones flung asunder. "

― Emmanuelle de Maupassant , Cautionary Tales

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