"Complices" by Robert de Traz is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. Through intimate first-person voices, it probes moral complicity, family loyalties, and the allure of transgression as perceived by children and adolescents. The opening pieces follow Gilbert, a boy mesmerized by his disgraced cousin Malrose, and Léopold, a teenager who idolizes his older cousin Étienne and is drawn into the orbit of Étienne’s romance. The tone is subtle and psychological, showing how admiration can turn into collusion or jealousy.
The opening of this collection first presents Gilbert’s household unsettled by the arrival of Cousin Malrose, a gaunt, magnetic traveler whose past scandals divide Gilbert’s gentle father and severe mother. Both frightened and fascinated, Gilbert coaxes fragments of Malrose’s life—failed colonial schemes, moral lapses, mounting despair—and, when he later catches him at the family money chest, impulsively hands him the cash and offers to take the blame, sealing a troubling “complicity.” The next tale shifts to Léopold, fourteen, bullied by his brothers but devoted to his confident older cousin Étienne, who secretly announces his engagement to Laure and enlists Léopold as go‑between. Léopold escorts Laure on woodland walks, basks in her kindness, withholds a lover’s letter out of hurt pride, and endures being exiled to Germany during the wedding, returning months later to face the newlyweds with a mix of loyalty and wounded jealousy. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
