Note: Borderline speculative: this story is included in collections of Maupassant's fantastic stories because it is seen through the eyes of a madman, and the disorientation induced by his perceptions leaves it hard to know just what is imagination in the way he interprets his mistress. First published in Gil Blas, 23 August 1882, with the signature Maufrigneuse.

Synopsis: "[T]he narrator loves a certain woman to madness. However, he also hates her passionately, for he knows that she is impure and without a soul; he intensely desires both to possess her and to kill her. When she tires of him, he becomes insanely jealous, determines that her horse (which she rides enraptured) is his rival, and executes it with a bullet to the brain before also killing his mistress." -- Charles E. May