5 h 16 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 16 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does strength look like when love and the limits of a woman's world pull in different directions?
In Three Women, Pierre Mille places women's lives at the centre of a French tale of love and strength. The focus rests on character and choice, inviting you to look closely at the people within the story rather than hurry toward the next event.
The world around these women matters, too. French life of Mille's period gives family expectations, social class and money a powerful place in women's choices. His clear style and close observation offer a way into that world, where personal feeling meets the pressures of society.
What you’ll discover
- Women at the centre Meet a tale that asks you to understand its world through women's lives.
- Love beside strength Explore the connection between affection, character and the choices that shape a life.
- A closely observed world Notice how family expectations, class and money frame the possibilities open to women.
- Clear prose, human detail Enjoy Mille's economical style and the attention he brings to the people he depicts.
- Character before fast action Give your attention to women's lives rather than the rush of a heavy plot.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A rich father sets a price for rescue
- Paris Jews drift between old faith and new
- A staged divorce that hides a plot
- A woman meets her rival and changes
- A lonely translator becomes a woman again
- One morning brings joy and a terrible fall
- A clerk's wife wants one hour of happiness
- A friendship on the Seine grows into a secret
- Women's choices and how the tales are told
Who’s who
- Berthe WildenA practical, loving daughter of the rich Fauli family who wants to save her husband and her name, and learns to trust her own judgment.
- FauliBerthe'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 WildenBerthe's charming, careless husband and art dealer, who treats the divorce as a game and hopes to marry her again.
- Uriel Élisée BaërA famous violinist from Poland, once poor in Paris, who is moved by the sufferings of Jews abroad and by Berthe's beauty.
- Amanda ManginA shy translator at the National Library, living alone, who has never been looked at and begins to hope for love.
- André SnyderA comfortable young man who hires Amanda to translate and sets out to test a friend's theory about her.
- Thérèse LebeschardA clerk's wife who loves her great-grandmother's portrait and longs to be happy in a marriage that gives her little.
- MarlisA friendly painter who visits Thérèse often and quietly hopes to become more than a friend.
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Three Women
by Pierre Mille
A father pays 170,000 francs on one condition: his daughter must divorce the husband she loves.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
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.
Three Women at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h2 h 20 min fast, 3 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 42,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
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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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.
The author
Pierre Mille
1864–1941 · French writer
Pierre Mille was a French writer and journalist. He was born in Choisy-le-Roi, France, in 1864 and died in Paris in 1941. He wrote novels, short stories, and newspaper articles during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His books include Three Women. He lived and worked in France.
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