Story summary
Trama e riassunto di Tre donne
- 8 min di lettura
- 9 parts
- Audio a breve
A father pays 170,000 francs on one condition: his daughter must divorce the husband she loves.
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Tre donne in breve
Riassunto: 8 min di lettura
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 3 h2 h 20 min fast, 3 h 30 min slow
- Durata
- 42.400 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Medio longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
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Tre donne in short
Three Women gives you three portraits of Paris women at the edge of change. A father's money and a daughter's love collide in a staged divorce. A shy translator is awakened by a young man who is only amusing himself.
What Tre donne is about
What would you do if your father offered to save your husband from ruin, but only if you divorced him? That is the question Berthe Wilden faces in Three Women, by Pierre Mille. She loves her husband, and her father holds the money.
Mille, a French writer who died in 1941, gives three tales of women in Paris before the Great War. Berthe is a rich Jewish daughter who plays a clever game with the law. Amanda Mangin is a lonely translator whose heart wakes very late. Thérèse Lebeschard is a clerk's wife who dreams of one season of happiness. A dry, knowing narrator comments on money, faith and manners throughout.
A chi è rivolto. This book suits readers who like short stories about love and marriage, close portraits of women's inner lives, and the manners, faiths and money worries of Paris before 1914.
The story in 9 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A rich father sets a price for rescue
On a Saturday evening in Paris, Berthe Wilden tells her father, the old businessman Fauli, that her husband Jacques is about to be declared bankrupt. The debt stands at 170,000 francs.
Fauli is a devout Jew from Alsace who keeps the Sabbath strictly. He agrees to pay, but on one condition that wounds her: she must divorce Jacques. He says her husband lacks chuzbah, the nerve a man needs to succeed. Divorce does not shock him, since his law sees it as the plain end of a contract. When Berthe nearly switches on the lamp on the Sabbath, he smiles, glad that the old habit still lives in her.
Berthe goes home in tears, but Jacques takes the news lightly. He suggests that they divorce, wait for the money to be paid, and then marry again. Berthe, being in love, agrees. So begins a quiet contest between father and son-in-law, each sure that he is the clever one.
The old man believes he protects his daughter, yet he treats her like an entry in a ledger. When a rescue comes with a price, the one who pays may buy more trouble than relief.
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Paris Jews drift between old faith and new
Mille slows the story to draw the circle around Fauli.
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A staged divorce that hides a plot
The divorce is arranged with great calm.
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A woman meets her rival and changes
Berthe is called to her lawyer's office.
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A lonely translator becomes a woman again
The second tale opens in the vast reading room of the Rue de Richelieu library.
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One morning brings joy and a terrible fall
On a spring morning Amanda climbs the stairs to Snyder's rooms.
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A clerk's wife wants one hour of happiness
The third tale, The Portrait, begins in the small flat of Thérèse Lebeschard.
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A friendship on the Seine grows into a secret
Charlet tells Thérèse about his life.
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Women's choices and how the tales are told
Across the three stories, Mille keeps asking what a woman is allowed to want.
Read all 9 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Berthe Wilden A practical, loving daughter of the rich Fauli family who wants to save her husband and her name, and learns to trust her own judgment.
- Fauli Berthe's father, a strict Jewish businessman who pays his son-in-law's debts but demands a divorce, convinced that he alone sees clearly.
- Jacques Wilden Berthe's charming, careless husband and art dealer, who treats the divorce as a game and hopes to marry her again.
- Uriel Élisée Baër A famous violinist from Poland, once poor in Paris, who is moved by the sufferings of Jews abroad and by Berthe's beauty.
- Amanda Mangin A shy translator at the National Library, living alone, who has never been looked at and begins to hope for love.
- André Snyder A comfortable young man who hires Amanda to translate and sets out to test a friend's theory about her.
- Thérèse Lebeschard A clerk's wife who loves her great-grandmother's portrait and longs to be happy in a marriage that gives her little.
- Marlis A friendly painter who visits Thérèse often and quietly hopes to become more than a friend.
How it ends (spoiler)
Berthe gives up Jacques for good, turns away from Baër, and in time becomes the wife of Monsieur de Fresquienne-Austreberte, a rising prefect. Amanda lives, keeps her love hidden, and moves to England. Years later she learns that André has died in the war, sends his daughters gifts for six months, and dies gently in autumn 1917. Thérèse goes to Charlet's door and finds a notice saying he has died, and her husband barely listens.
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Domande su Tre donne
What is Three Women by Pierre Mille about?
It is a trio of short tales about women in Paris before the Great War. Berthe stages a divorce to satisfy her father, Amanda is a lonely translator who finds love late, and Thérèse is a clerk's wife who longs for happiness.
Who are the main characters in Three Women?
The main figures are Berthe Wilden, her father Fauli and her husband Jacques, then Amanda Mangin and the young man André Snyder, and finally Thérèse Lebeschard with the painter Marlis and the restorer Charlet.
What does chuzbah mean in A Divorce?
Chuzbah is a word Fauli uses for enterprise, boldness and nerve, the qualities he thinks a man needs in business. He says his son-in-law Jacques lacks it, and this belief drives his demand for a divorce.
Is Three Women a true story and when was it written?
It is fiction by Pierre Mille, set in Paris in the years before the Great War. The tales draw on real settings such as the National Library and the Left Bank, but their characters are invented.
Is Three Women easy to read?
Each tale has its own clear plot, short scenes and vivid settings, so you can enter any one of them separately. The narrator's witty asides and the strong everyday details make the stories lively and approachable.
Cita questa edizione
Mille, Pierre. Three Women. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/three-women.
Mille, P. (2026). Three women. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/three-women
Mille, Pierre. Three Women. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/three-women.
@book{mille2026three,
author = {Mille, Pierre},
title = {Three Women},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/three-women}
}
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