What do you think?
Rate this book
A Mother of Monsters
I recalled this horrible story, the events of which occurred long ago, and this horrible woman, the other day at a fashionable seaside resort, where I saw on the beach a well-known young, elegant and charming Parisienne, adored and respected by everyone.
28 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2014
26 people want to read
About the author
Guy de Maupassant
7,566 books3,070 followersHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's short stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient effortless dénouement. He also wrote six short novels. A number of his stories often denote the futility of war and the innocent civilians who get crushed in it - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 28, 2016
Good but not like Maupassant's previous stories. =_=
March 6, 2023
Guy de Maupassant's "A Mother of Monsters" is a short about two mothers that basically do the same thing but for different reasons, one money and the other beauty. Extremely terrible and indeed monsters!!!
Story in short- Two mothers are different but the same in being momsters!
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24007
I recalled this horrible story, the events of which occurred long ago, and this horrible woman, the other day at a fashionable seaside resort, where I saw on the beach a well-known young, elegant and charming Parisienne, adored and respected by everyone. I had been invited by a friend to pay him a visit in a little provincial
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24009
town. He took me about in all directions to do the honors of the place, showed me noted scenes, chateaux, industries, ruins. He pointed out monuments, churches, old carved doorways, enormous or distorted trees, the oak of St. Andrew, and the yew tree of Roqueboise. When I had exhausted my admiration and enthusiasm over all the sights, my friend said with a distressed expression on his face, that there was nothing left to look at. I breathed freely. I would now be able to rest under the shade of the trees.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24013
But, all at once, he uttered an exclamation: “Oh, yes! We have the ‘Mother of Monsters’; I must take you to see her.” “Who is that, the ‘Mother of Monsters’?” I asked. “She is an abominable woman,” he replied, “a regular demon, a being who voluntarily brings into the world deformed, hideous, frightful children, monstrosities, in fact, and then sells them to showmen who exhibit such things.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24017
“These exploiters of freaks come from time to time to find out if she has any fresh monstrosity, and if it meets with their approval they carry it away with them, paying the mother a compensation. “She has eleven of this description. She is rich. “You think I am joking, romancing, exaggerating. No, my friend; I am telling you the truth, the exact truth. “Let us go and see this woman. Then I will tell you her history.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
The narrator tells about his visit to a provincial town where a friend shows him all the sites including a mother, a so called mother who looks to reproduce children fit for the circus, since the first one paid good. She was an unmarried servant who became pregnant and not wanting anyone to know she placed a lot of bindings that caused the baby to look deformed. When he went to the beach he saw a beautiful woman with some children that have deformities and the narrator feels sorry for her but the doctor tells him to feel sorry for the kids because she was warned not to wear tight corsets, she did not heed, the children had issues, but she kept her figure. Unbelievable mothers!
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24021
He took me into one of the suburbs. The woman lived in a pretty little house by the side of the road. It was attractive and well kept. The garden was filled with fragrant flowers. One might have supposed it to be the residence of a retired lawyer. A maid ushered us into a sort of little country parlor, and the wretch appeared. She was about forty. She was a tall, big woman with hard features, but well formed, vigorous and healthy, the true type of a robust peasant woman, half animal, and half woman. She was aware of her reputation and received everyone with a humility that smacked of hatred. “What do the gentlemen wish?” she asked. “They tell me that your last child is just like an ordinary child, that he does not resemble his brothers at all,” replied my friend. “I wanted to be sure of that. Is it true?” She cast on us a malicious and furious look as she said:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24029
“Oh, no, oh, no, my poor sir! He is perhaps even uglier than the rest. I have no luck, no luck! “They are all like that, it is heartbreaking! How can the good God be so hard on a poor woman who is all alone in the world, how can He?” She spoke hurriedly, her eyes cast down, with a deprecating air as of a wild beast who is afraid. Her harsh voice became soft, and it seemed strange to hear those tearful falsetto tones issuing from that big, bony frame, of unusual strength and with coarse outlines, which
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24033
seemed fitted for violent action, and made to utter howls like a wolf. “We should like to see your little one,” said my friend. I fancied she colored up. I may have been deceived. After a few moments of silence, she said in a louder tone: “What good will that do you?” “Why do you not wish to show it to us?” replied my friend. “There are many people to whom you will show it; you know whom I mean.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24037
She gave a start, and resuming her natural voice, and giving free play to her anger, she screamed: “Was that why you came here? To insult me? Because my children are like animals, tell me? You shall not see him, no, no, you shall not see him! Go away, go away! I do not know why you all try to torment me like that.” She walked over toward us, her hands on her hips. At the brutal tone of her voice, a sort of moaning, or rather a mewing, the lamentable cry of an idiot, came from
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24041
the adjoining room. I shivered to the marrow of my bones. We retreated before her. “Take care, Devil” (they called her the Devil); said my friend, “take care; some day you will get yourself into trouble through this.” She began to tremble, beside herself with fury, shaking her fist and roaring: “Be off with you! What will get me into trouble? Be off with you, miscreants!” She was about to attack us, but we fled, saddened at what we had seen.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24045
When we got outside, my friend said: “Well, you have seen her, what do you think of her?” “Tell me the story of this brute,” I replied. And this is what he told me as we walked along the white high road, with ripe crops on either side of it which rippled like the sea in the light breeze that passed over them. “This woman was one a servant on a farm. She was an honest girl, steady and economical. She was never known to have an admirer,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24049
and never suspected of any frailty. But she went astray, as so many do. “She soon found herself in trouble, and was tortured with fear and shame. Wishing to conceal her misfortune, she bound her body tightly with a corset of her own invention, made of boards and cord. The more she developed, the more she bound herself with this instrument of torture, suffering martyrdom, but brave in her sorrow, not allowing anyone to see, or suspect, anything. She maimed the little unborn being, cramping it with that
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24053
frightful corset, and made a monster of it. Its head was squeezed and elongated to a point, and its large eyes seemed popping out of its head. Its limbs, exaggeratedly long, and twisted like the stalk of a vine, terminated in fingers like the claws of a spider. Its trunk was tiny, and round as a nut. “The child was born in an open field, and when the weeders saw it, they fled away, screaming, and the report spread that she had given birth to a demon. From that time on, she was called ‘the Devil.’
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24057
“She was driven from the farm, and lived on charity, under a cloud. She brought up the monster, whom she hated with a savage hatred, and would have strangled, perhaps, if the priest had not threatened her with arrest. “One day some travelling showmen heard about the frightful creature, and asked to see it, so that if it pleased them they might take it away. They were pleased, and counted out five hundred francs to the mother. At first, she had refused to let them see the little animal,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24061
as she was ashamed; but when she discovered it had a money value, and that these people were anxious to get it, she began to haggle with them, raising her price with all a peasant’s persistence. “She made them draw up a paper, in which they promised to pay her four hundred francs a year besides, as though they had taken this deformity into their employ. “Incited by the greed of gain, she continued to produce these phenomena, so as to have an assured income like a bourgeoise.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24065
“Some of them were long, some short, some like crabs-all bodies-others like lizards. Several died, and she was heartbroken. “The law tried to interfere, but as they had no proof they let her continue to produce her freaks. “She has at this moment eleven alive, and they bring in, on an average, counting good and bad years, from five to six thousand francs a year. One, alone, is not placed, the one she was unwilling to show us. But she will not keep it long, for she is known to all the showmen in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24069
world, who come from time to time to see if she has anything new. “She even gets bids from them when the monster is valuable.” My friend was silent. A profound disgust stirred my heart, and a feeling of rage, of regret, to think that I had not strangled this brute when I had the opportunity. I had forgotten this story, when I saw on the beach of a fashionable resort the other day, an elegant, charming, dainty woman, surrounded by men who paid her respect as well as admiration.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24073
I was walking along the beach, arm in arm with a friend, the resident physician. Ten minutes later, I saw a nursemaid with three children, who were rolling in the sand. A pair of little crutches lay on the ground, and touched my sympathy. I then noticed that these three children were all deformed, humpbacked, or crooked; and hideous. “Those are the offspring of that charming woman you saw just now,” said the doctor. I was filled with pity for her, as well as for them, and exclaimed:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24077
“Oh, the poor mother! How can she ever laugh!” “Do not pity her, my friend. Pity the poor children,” replied the doctor. “This is the consequence of preserving a slender figure up to the last. These little deformities were made by the corset. She knows very well that she is risking her life at this game. But what does she care, as long as he can be beautiful and have admirers!” And then I recalled that other woman, the peasant, the “Devil,”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24081
who sold her children, her monsters.
Story in short- Two mothers are different but the same in being momsters!
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24007
I recalled this horrible story, the events of which occurred long ago, and this horrible woman, the other day at a fashionable seaside resort, where I saw on the beach a well-known young, elegant and charming Parisienne, adored and respected by everyone. I had been invited by a friend to pay him a visit in a little provincial
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24009
town. He took me about in all directions to do the honors of the place, showed me noted scenes, chateaux, industries, ruins. He pointed out monuments, churches, old carved doorways, enormous or distorted trees, the oak of St. Andrew, and the yew tree of Roqueboise. When I had exhausted my admiration and enthusiasm over all the sights, my friend said with a distressed expression on his face, that there was nothing left to look at. I breathed freely. I would now be able to rest under the shade of the trees.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24013
But, all at once, he uttered an exclamation: “Oh, yes! We have the ‘Mother of Monsters’; I must take you to see her.” “Who is that, the ‘Mother of Monsters’?” I asked. “She is an abominable woman,” he replied, “a regular demon, a being who voluntarily brings into the world deformed, hideous, frightful children, monstrosities, in fact, and then sells them to showmen who exhibit such things.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24017
“These exploiters of freaks come from time to time to find out if she has any fresh monstrosity, and if it meets with their approval they carry it away with them, paying the mother a compensation. “She has eleven of this description. She is rich. “You think I am joking, romancing, exaggerating. No, my friend; I am telling you the truth, the exact truth. “Let us go and see this woman. Then I will tell you her history.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
The narrator tells about his visit to a provincial town where a friend shows him all the sites including a mother, a so called mother who looks to reproduce children fit for the circus, since the first one paid good. She was an unmarried servant who became pregnant and not wanting anyone to know she placed a lot of bindings that caused the baby to look deformed. When he went to the beach he saw a beautiful woman with some children that have deformities and the narrator feels sorry for her but the doctor tells him to feel sorry for the kids because she was warned not to wear tight corsets, she did not heed, the children had issues, but she kept her figure. Unbelievable mothers!
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24021
He took me into one of the suburbs. The woman lived in a pretty little house by the side of the road. It was attractive and well kept. The garden was filled with fragrant flowers. One might have supposed it to be the residence of a retired lawyer. A maid ushered us into a sort of little country parlor, and the wretch appeared. She was about forty. She was a tall, big woman with hard features, but well formed, vigorous and healthy, the true type of a robust peasant woman, half animal, and half woman. She was aware of her reputation and received everyone with a humility that smacked of hatred. “What do the gentlemen wish?” she asked. “They tell me that your last child is just like an ordinary child, that he does not resemble his brothers at all,” replied my friend. “I wanted to be sure of that. Is it true?” She cast on us a malicious and furious look as she said:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24029
“Oh, no, oh, no, my poor sir! He is perhaps even uglier than the rest. I have no luck, no luck! “They are all like that, it is heartbreaking! How can the good God be so hard on a poor woman who is all alone in the world, how can He?” She spoke hurriedly, her eyes cast down, with a deprecating air as of a wild beast who is afraid. Her harsh voice became soft, and it seemed strange to hear those tearful falsetto tones issuing from that big, bony frame, of unusual strength and with coarse outlines, which
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24033
seemed fitted for violent action, and made to utter howls like a wolf. “We should like to see your little one,” said my friend. I fancied she colored up. I may have been deceived. After a few moments of silence, she said in a louder tone: “What good will that do you?” “Why do you not wish to show it to us?” replied my friend. “There are many people to whom you will show it; you know whom I mean.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24037
She gave a start, and resuming her natural voice, and giving free play to her anger, she screamed: “Was that why you came here? To insult me? Because my children are like animals, tell me? You shall not see him, no, no, you shall not see him! Go away, go away! I do not know why you all try to torment me like that.” She walked over toward us, her hands on her hips. At the brutal tone of her voice, a sort of moaning, or rather a mewing, the lamentable cry of an idiot, came from
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24041
the adjoining room. I shivered to the marrow of my bones. We retreated before her. “Take care, Devil” (they called her the Devil); said my friend, “take care; some day you will get yourself into trouble through this.” She began to tremble, beside herself with fury, shaking her fist and roaring: “Be off with you! What will get me into trouble? Be off with you, miscreants!” She was about to attack us, but we fled, saddened at what we had seen.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24045
When we got outside, my friend said: “Well, you have seen her, what do you think of her?” “Tell me the story of this brute,” I replied. And this is what he told me as we walked along the white high road, with ripe crops on either side of it which rippled like the sea in the light breeze that passed over them. “This woman was one a servant on a farm. She was an honest girl, steady and economical. She was never known to have an admirer,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24049
and never suspected of any frailty. But she went astray, as so many do. “She soon found herself in trouble, and was tortured with fear and shame. Wishing to conceal her misfortune, she bound her body tightly with a corset of her own invention, made of boards and cord. The more she developed, the more she bound herself with this instrument of torture, suffering martyrdom, but brave in her sorrow, not allowing anyone to see, or suspect, anything. She maimed the little unborn being, cramping it with that
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24053
frightful corset, and made a monster of it. Its head was squeezed and elongated to a point, and its large eyes seemed popping out of its head. Its limbs, exaggeratedly long, and twisted like the stalk of a vine, terminated in fingers like the claws of a spider. Its trunk was tiny, and round as a nut. “The child was born in an open field, and when the weeders saw it, they fled away, screaming, and the report spread that she had given birth to a demon. From that time on, she was called ‘the Devil.’
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24057
“She was driven from the farm, and lived on charity, under a cloud. She brought up the monster, whom she hated with a savage hatred, and would have strangled, perhaps, if the priest had not threatened her with arrest. “One day some travelling showmen heard about the frightful creature, and asked to see it, so that if it pleased them they might take it away. They were pleased, and counted out five hundred francs to the mother. At first, she had refused to let them see the little animal,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24061
as she was ashamed; but when she discovered it had a money value, and that these people were anxious to get it, she began to haggle with them, raising her price with all a peasant’s persistence. “She made them draw up a paper, in which they promised to pay her four hundred francs a year besides, as though they had taken this deformity into their employ. “Incited by the greed of gain, she continued to produce these phenomena, so as to have an assured income like a bourgeoise.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24065
“Some of them were long, some short, some like crabs-all bodies-others like lizards. Several died, and she was heartbroken. “The law tried to interfere, but as they had no proof they let her continue to produce her freaks. “She has at this moment eleven alive, and they bring in, on an average, counting good and bad years, from five to six thousand francs a year. One, alone, is not placed, the one she was unwilling to show us. But she will not keep it long, for she is known to all the showmen in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24069
world, who come from time to time to see if she has anything new. “She even gets bids from them when the monster is valuable.” My friend was silent. A profound disgust stirred my heart, and a feeling of rage, of regret, to think that I had not strangled this brute when I had the opportunity. I had forgotten this story, when I saw on the beach of a fashionable resort the other day, an elegant, charming, dainty woman, surrounded by men who paid her respect as well as admiration.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24073
I was walking along the beach, arm in arm with a friend, the resident physician. Ten minutes later, I saw a nursemaid with three children, who were rolling in the sand. A pair of little crutches lay on the ground, and touched my sympathy. I then noticed that these three children were all deformed, humpbacked, or crooked; and hideous. “Those are the offspring of that charming woman you saw just now,” said the doctor. I was filled with pity for her, as well as for them, and exclaimed:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24077
“Oh, the poor mother! How can she ever laugh!” “Do not pity her, my friend. Pity the poor children,” replied the doctor. “This is the consequence of preserving a slender figure up to the last. These little deformities were made by the corset. She knows very well that she is risking her life at this game. But what does she care, as long as he can be beautiful and have admirers!” And then I recalled that other woman, the peasant, the “Devil,”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 24081
who sold her children, her monsters.
May 19, 2025
4.25⭐
AKA: La mère aux monstres
On seeing an elegant woman on the beach whose children had been deformed because of her mania for wearing tight corsets during her pregnancy to maintain her svelte figure, the narrator remembers a similar and even worse example of this evil practice that he’d witnessed a long time before among a peasant woman of the lower classes deliberately deformed her unborn children using a homemade corset, creating deformed children that she sold to circus proprietors for exhibition at a substantial price.
AKA: La mère aux monstres
On seeing an elegant woman on the beach whose children had been deformed because of her mania for wearing tight corsets during her pregnancy to maintain her svelte figure, the narrator remembers a similar and even worse example of this evil practice that he’d witnessed a long time before among a peasant woman of the lower classes deliberately deformed her unborn children using a homemade corset, creating deformed children that she sold to circus proprietors for exhibition at a substantial price.
May 12, 2017
Mother savage
Read
October 27, 2021the price of being pretty
August 30, 2023
Una peculiar historia, muy difícilmente sea falsa.
September 11, 2023
un niño
gran relato sobre un aborto y el desborde de sentidos
gran relato sobre un aborto y el desborde de sentidos
January 1, 2026
li esse aqui por causa da minha iniciação científica e se tornou o meu conto fantástico favorito do Maupassant! muito bom e eu gosto muito dos aspectos grotescos tbm…
December 27, 2014
a terrible true to life story which is actual even today. it nakes us think that everything we do to our bodies and souls has immense impact on our future...
September 16, 2016
"Eybəcərlər anası" hekayəsi ilk dəfə "Gil Blas" gündəlik ədəbiyyat qəzetində dərc edilmişdir.
130 il əvvəl yazılmış əsər bu gün üçün ancaq bu qədər aktual ola bilər.
130 il əvvəl yazılmış əsər bu gün üçün ancaq bu qədər aktual ola bilər.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews