Note: Barely genre. This story appears in one collection of Maupassant's fantastic fiction because of the morbid nature of the young man's ruminations on death and the experiences they lead him to. First published in Gil Blas, 29 July 1884, signed "Maufrigneuse".

Synopsis: Courbataille, a young lawyer, is arrested for desecrating a grave. In court, he explains why he dug up his lover from her grave: he eloquently describes his love, and how he suffered at the idea that he would never see her again, and sketches in indirect allusions the horror of digging her up and seeing the work of decomposition. The jury sets him free-- suggested to not be a happy ending because the horror will remain with him.