The bachelor now has a pregnant wife, a daughter, a mother, mistresses, and a complicated life. Without really knowing what drives him to it John takes on Jean's life. The night is spent drinking and talking and come morning Jean is gone with John's identity, leaving the lonely Englishman an encumbered life filled with family and a failing business. The two men, John and Jean, strike up a conversation based on their eerie similarities. In the crowd he sees one face he didn't expect to see. As he gets ready to return to England to teach yet another term at school he looks at all the people and wonders how apart he is from them and if his life of no connections is really a failed life. John has spent yet another holiday in France walking the history that is his passion and his reason for living.

To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Book Review - Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.

Book Review - Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn.

Book Review - Daphen Du Maurier's The Scapegoat.

Book Review - Daphen Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel.

Book Review - Daphne Du Maurier's Myself When Young.

For his part, John has no choice but to take the Frenchman's place-as master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets.Loaded with suspense and crackling wit, 'The Scapegoat' tells the double story of the attempts by John, the imposter, to escape detection by the family, servants, and several mistresses of his alter ego, and of his constant and frustrating efforts to unravel the mystery of the enigmatic past that dominates the existence of all who live in the chateau. His French companion is gone, having stolen his identity. It is not until he awakes the next day that John, the Englishman, realizes that he may have spoken too much. Over the course of a long evening, they talk and drink. Someone jolted my elbow as I drank and said, 'Je vous demande pardon, ' and as I moved to give him space he turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realized, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well.I was looking at myself.'Two men-one English, the other French-meet by chance in a provincial railway station and are astounded that they are so much alike that they could easily pass for each other.

The scapegoat du maurier