The Red Lily by Anatole France (1894)

I started out wondering if this was a very elaborate joke - the 'typical' France would have been likely to tell one of this nature, and many of his subsidiary characters here have comic undersides and satiric overtones. But it turns out that this is a tragedy told from within this nest of humour. Countess Therese Martin-Belleme is a standard privileged Parisienne of her period, married to a politician, interested in the arts, with a lover in tow. And France has her be a very beautiful coquette: the moment her lover doesn't quite come up to the mark in terms of minute attention, she ditches him capriciously and seeks another. This other is sculptor Jacques Dechartres, and he's smitten. Her former lover, Le Menil, is lost and nonplussed at being so unceremoniously thrown over and dips into depression. Around all this secretive angling, their world swings on. Their immediate set is constructed of largely subtle comic personalities: Choulette, a big, blowzy, original thinker, who feels all sorts of brotherhood toward the poor and yet is a confirmed monarchist; Madame Marmet, a nervous, ferret-like woman who talks too much; Vivian Bell, an Englishwoman of great exclamative energy, who is in love with Tuscany and the mood of Italy as a panacea for the world's ills, based on the writer Vernon Lee I think, and likened to her openly by France; and her friend Prince Albertinelli, a slightly bitchy and effeminate type who is apparently in love with Miss Bell (a sideglancing reference to Vernon Lee's lesbianism and the possibility of a mariage de convenance?). To get away from the reawakening attempts at reconciliation by Le Menil, Therese decides to go to Florence to stay with Miss Bell and the others, and Dechartres 'just happens' to head there too. It is here that things change for Therese: her feelings grow more and more intense for Jacques as they meet in a hired room which they decorate themselves to create their idyll. He is overwhelmed by her, and this feeds his jealousy. He sees her send a letter to Le Menil; Le Menil then turns up in Florence and he catches Therese talking to him at the station. Therese has not been completely honest with him about her relation to Le Menil, but doesn't think it matters as her attention is fully taken now by the growing realisation of her love for Dechartres; she is simply dismissing Le Menil insistently from her life. Jacques is troubled by jealousy but she manages to 'convince' him that all is as it seems. Back in Paris, at the opera, Le Menil corners her in her box, saying that he will wait for her in their old trysting place, still gamely hoping. Unfortunately Jacques is just behind the inner door, hears the exchange, and is devastated at her dishonesty. She seeks him out, and desperately tries to reassure him one more time, this time by telling the truth, emphasising how much his love has changed things for her since her time with Le Menil, but it's too late: all he can say is 'I don't believe you!' in agonized and agitated tones. The trust in their connection is gone. This reads almost like it was France's attempt to emulate the more typical French novelists of his day, like Flaubert, Daudet and Maupassant, in a wide sweep of fateful tragic love. He's a fine enough writer that it's sadly convincing, and he retains enough counterbalancing humour in the supporting cast to ballast the portrait.