"A Drama on the Seashore" by Honoré de Balzac is a short story published in 1834. A young writer and his lover, vacationing on the French coast, encounter a reclusive fisherman living in a cave. They learn his tragic history: years earlier, he drowned his own son as punishment for theft, driving his wife to death and himself into self-imposed exile. The devastating tale transforms the couple's carefree holiday into something darker, affecting the narrator's mental state. (This is an automatically generated summary.)