Abandoned
by Guy de MaupassantGenre: Drama
Setting:
Format of Original Source: Short Story
Recommended Adaptation Length:
Candidate for Adaptation? Promising
EXCERPT:
She had taken her old friend’s arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted gaze, and at last she said:
“And so you have not seen him again, either?”
“No, never.”
“Is it possible?”
“My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to fear from other people’s opinion.”
She did not reply; she was thinking of her long past youth and of many sad things that had occurred. How well she recalled all the details of their early friendship, his smiles, the way he used to linger, in order to watch her until she was indoors. What happy days they were, the only really delicious days she had ever enjoyed, and how quickly they were over!
And then–her discovery–of the penalty she paid! What anguish!
COMMENTS:
40 years after having abandoned a son, a woman goes to visit him. Her husband doesn’t know what she’s up to, and the woman is torn about whether to acknowledge her relationship to her son. The boy’s biological father accompanies the woman to visit the son. If you tell the events of the back story as well as the present tense events, there might be enough action and emotion to fill out a full length one act.
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