Doble error

"Doble error" by Prosper Mérimée is a novella written in the early 19th century. It offers a cool, ironic portrait of Parisian high society and a young wife’s growing disenchantment, centering on Julia de Chaverny, her coarse, indolent husband, the vain officer Châteaufort, and the poised diplomat Darcy whose return unsettles her. The tale promises a subtle study of attraction, pride, and reputation under the gloss of elegant manners. At the start of the story, Julia realizes she not only cannot love her husband but struggles even to respect him, enduring dull dinners, awkward silences, and his clumsy advances. A foppish admirer, Châteaufort, misreads a polite invitation as encouragement and enlists the honest Commander Perrin to promote his suit, while Julia’s husband publicly humiliates her with crude talk at home and then compromises her at the opera by installing a duke’s notorious mistress in their box. Shaken, Julia wavers over confronting her husband, then flees to the country to confide in a friend, where talk turns to Darcy, an old acquaintance newly back from the East with a chivalric (and comic) tale of rescuing a Turkish woman. Darcy arrives; their reunion is charged yet restrained, and his story, told with calm wit, highlights his character against Châteaufort’s growing jealousy. The section closes with Julia keenly attentive to Darcy and signaling a wish for more time together as she orders her carriage.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.