THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT
by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
April 2, 1894
Translated by Professor Leo Wiener, 1905
Distributed by the Tolstoy Library
It was, I think, in the year 1881 that Turgenev, during a
visit at my house, took a French novel, under the name of *Maison
Tellier*, out of his satchel and gave it to me.
"Read it, if you have a chance," he said, apparently with
indifference, just as the year before he had handed me a number of
the *Russian Wealth*, in which there was an article by Garshin, who
was making his debut. Evidently, as in the case of Garshin, so
even now, he was afraid he might influence me in one way or
another, and wished to know my uninfluenced opinion.
"He is a young French author," he said; "look at it, -- it is
not bad; he knows you and esteems you very much," he added, as
though to encourage me. "As a man he reminds me of Druzhinin. He
is just as excellent a son and friend, *un homme d'un commerce
sur*, as was Druzhinin, and, besides, he has relations with the
labouring people, whom he guides and aids. Even in his relations
to women he reminds me of Druzhinin."
And Turgenev told me something remarkable and incredible in
regard to Maupassant's relations in this respect.
This time, the year 1881, was for me the most ardent time of
the inner reconstruction of my whole world-conception, and in this
reconstruction the activity which is called artistic, and to which
I formerly used to devote all my strength, not only lost for me the
significance formerly ascribed to it, but even became distinctly
distasteful to me on account of the improper place which it had
occupied in my life and which in general it occupies in the
concepts of the men of the wealthy classes.
For this reason I was at that time not in the least interested
in such productions as the one which Turgenev recommended to me.
But, to oblige him, I read the book which he gave me.
Judging from the first story, *Maison Tellier*, I could not
help but see, in spite of the indecent and insignificant subject of
the story, that the author possessed what is called talent.
The author was endowed with that particular gift, called
talent, which consists in the author's ability to direct, according
to his tastes, his intensified, strained attention to this or that
subject, in consequence of which the author who is endowed with
this ability sees in those subjects upon which he directs his
attention, something new, something which others did not see.
Maupassant evidently possessed that gift of seeing in subjects
something which others did not see. But, to judge from the small
volume which I had read, he was devoid of the chief condition
necessary, besides talent, for a truly artistic production. Of the
three conditions: (1) a correct, that is, a moral relation of the
author to the subject, (2) the clearness of exposition, or the
beauty of form, which is the same, and (3) sincerity, that is, an
undisguised feeling of love or hatred for what the artist
describes, -- Maupassant possessed only the last two, and was
entirely devoid of the first. He had no correct, that is, no moral
relation to the subjects described. From what I had read, I was
convinced that Maupassant possessed talent, that is, the gift of
attention, which in the objects and phenomena of life revealed to
him those qualities which are not visible to other men; he also
possessed a beautiful form, that is, he expressed clearly, simply,
and beautifully what he wished to say, and also possessed that
condition of the worth of an artistic production, without which it
does not produce any effect, -- sincerity, -- that is, he did not
simulate love or hatred, but actually loved and hated what he
described. But unfortunately, being devoid of the first, almost the
most important condition of the worth of an artistic production, of
the correct, moral relation to what he represented, that is, of the
knowledge of the difference between good and evil, he loved and
represented what it was not right to love and represent, and did
not love and did not represent what he ought to have loved and
represented. Thus the author in this little volume describes with
much detail and love how women tempt men and men tempt women, and
even some incomprehensible obscenities, which are represented in
*La Femme de Paul*, and he describes the labouring country people,
not only with indifference, but even with contempt, as so many
animals.
Particularly striking was that lack of distinction between bad
and good in the story *Une Partie de Campagne*, in which, in the
form of a most clever and amusing jest, he gives a detailed account
of how two gentlemen with bared arms, rowing in a boat,
simultaneously tempted, the one an old mother, and the other a
young maiden, her daughter.
The author's sympathy is during the whole time obviously to
such an extent on the side of the two rascals, that he ignores, or,
rather, does not see what the tempted mother, the girl, the father,
and the young man, evidently the fiance of the daughter, must have
suffered, and so we not only get a shocking description of a
disgusting crime in the form of an amusing jest, but the event
itself is described falsely, because only the most insignificant
side of the subject, the pleasure afforded to the rascals, is
described.
In the same volume there is a story, *Histoire d'une Fille de
Ferme*, which Turgenev recommended to me more particularly, and
which more particularly displeased me on account of the author's
incorrect relation to the subject. The author apparently sees in
all the working people whom he describes nothing but animals, who
do not rise above sexual and maternal love, and so the description
leaves us with an incomplete, artificial impression.
The insufficient comprehension of the lives and interests of
the working classes, and the representation of the men from those
classes in the form of half-animals, which are moved only by
sensuality, malice, and greed, forms one of the chief and most
important defects of the majority of the modern French authors,
among them Maupassant, not only in this story, but also in all the
other stories, in which he touches on the people and always
describes them as coarse, dull animals, whom one can only ridicule.
Of course, the French authors must know the conditions of their
people better than I know them; but, although I am a Russian and
have not lived with the French people, I non the less assert that,
in describing their masses, the French authors are wrong, and that
the French masses cannot be as they are described. If there exists
a France as we know it, with her truly great men and with those
great contributions which these great men have made to science,
art, civil polity, and the moral perfection of humanity, those
labouring masses, which have held upon their shoulders this France
and her great men, do not consist of animals, but of men with great
spiritual qualities; and so I do not believe what I am told in
novels like *La Terre*, and in Maupassant's stories, just as I
should not believe if I were told of the existence of a beautiful
house standing on no foundation. It is very possible that the high
qualities of the masses are not such as are described in *La petit
Fadette* and in *La Mare au Diable*, but these qualities exist,
that I know for certain, and the writer who describes the masses,
as Maupassant does, by telling sympathetically of the "hanches" and
"gorges" of Breton domestics, and with contempt and ridicule the
life of the labouring people, commits a great error in an artistic
sense, because he describes the subject from only one, the most
uninteresting, physical side, and completely overlooks the other,
the most important, spiritual side, which forms the essence of the
subject.
In general, the reading of the volume which Turgenev gave me
left me completely indifferent to the young writer.
I was at that time so disgusted with the stories, *Une Partie
de Campagne*, *La Femme de Paul*, and *L'Histoire d'une Fille de
Ferme*, that I did not at that time notice the beautiful story, *Le
Papa de Simon*, and the superb story, so far as the description of
a night is concerned, *Sur l'Eau*.
"There are in our time, when there are so many who are willing
to write, a number of people with talent, who do not know to what
to apply it, or who boldly apply it to what ought not and should
not be described," I thought. I told Turgenev so. And I entirely
forgot about Maupassant.
The first thing from Maupassant's writings which after that
fell into my hands was *Une Vie*, which somebody advised me to
read. This book at once made me change my opinion concerning
Maupassant, and after that I read with interest everything which
was written over his name. *Une Vie* is an excellent novel, not
only incomparably the best novel by Maupassant, but almost the best
French novel since Hugo's *Les Miserables*. Besides the remarkable
power of his talent, that is, of that peculiar, strained attention,
directed upon an object, in consequence of which the author sees
entirely new features in the life which he is describing, this
novel combines, almost to an equal degree, all three conditions of
a true artistic production: (1) the correct, that is, the moral,
relation of the author to the subject, (2) the beauty of form, and
(3) sincerity, that is, love for what the author describes. Here
the meaning of life no longer presents itself to the author in the
experiences of all kinds of debauched persons, -- here the
contents, as the title says, are formed by the description of a
ruined, innocent, sweet woman, who is prepared for anything
beautiful, a woman who is ruined by that very gross, animal
sensuality which in the former stories presented itself to the
author as the central phenomenon of life, which dominates
everything, and the author's whole sympathy is on the side of the
good.
The form, which is beautiful even in the first stories, is
here carried to a high degree of perfection, such as, in my
opinion, has not been reached by any other French prose writer.
And, besides, what is most important, the author here really loves,
and loves strongly, the good family which he describes, and
actually despises that coarse male who destroys the happiness and
peace of this dear family and especially of the heroine of the
novel.
It is for that reason that all the events and persons of this
novel are so vivid and impress themselves on our memory: the weak,
good, slatternly mother; the noble, weak, dear father, and the
daughter, who is still dearer in her simplicity, absence of
exaggeration, and readiness for everything good; their mutual
relations, their first journey, their servants, their neighbours,
the calculating, coarsely sensuous, stingy, petty impudent fiance,
who, as always, deceives the innocent girl with the customary base
idealization of the grossest of sentiments; the marriage; Corsica,
with the charming descriptions of nature; then the life in the
country; the coarse deception of the husband; the seizure of the
power over the estate; his conflicts with his father-in-law; the
yielding of the good people; the victory of impudence,; the
relation to the neighbours, -- all that is life itself, with all
its complexity and variety. But not only is all this described
vividly and well, -- there is over all a sincere, pathetic tone,
which involuntarily affects the reader. One feels that the author
loves this woman, and that he does not love her mainly for her
external forms, but for her soul, for what there is good in it, and
that he sympathizes with her and suffers for her, and this
sensation is involuntarily transferred to the reader. And the
questions as to why, for what purpose this fair creature was
ruined, and why it should be so, naturally arise in the reader's
soul, and make him stop and reflect on the meaning and significance
of human life.
In spite of the false notes, which here and there occur in the
novel, as, for example, the detailed account of the girl's skin, or
the impossible and unnecessary details about how the deserted wife,
by the advice of the abbot, again becomes a mother, details which
destroy all the charm of the heroine's purity; in spite of the
melodramatic and unnatural history of the revenge of the insulted
husband, -- in spite of these blemishes, the novel not only appears
to me to be beautiful, but through it I no longer saw in the author
the talented babbler and jester, who does not know and does not
want to know what is good and what bad, such as he had appeared to
me to be, judging him from the first book, but a serious man, who
looks deeply into a man's life and is beginning to make things out
in it.
The next novel of Maupassant which I read was *Bel-Ami*.
*Bel-Ami* is a very filthy book. The author apparently gives
himself the reins in the description of what attracts him, and at
times seems to be losing the fundamental, negative point of view
upon his hero and passes over to his side; but in general, *Bel-
Ami*, like *Une Vie*, has for its basis a serious thought and
sentiment.
In *Une Vie* the fundamental thought is the perplexity in the
presence of the cruel senselessness of the agonizing life of a
beautiful woman, who is ruined by the gross sensuality of a man;
here it is not only the perplexity, but also the indignation of the
author at the sight of the welfare and success of a gross sensuous
beast, who by his very sensuality makes a career for himself and
attains a high position in the world, an indignation also at the
sight of the corruption of that milieu in which the hero attains
his success. There the author seems to ask: "Why, for what
purpose, is the fair creature ruined? Why did it happen?" Here he
seems to be answering the questions: "Everything pure and good has
perished and continues to perish in our society, because this
society is corrupt, senseless, and terrible."
The last scene of the novel, the marriage in a fashionable
church of the triumphant rascal, who is adorned with the Order of
the Legion of Honour, with the pure young maiden, the daughter of
the old, formerly irreproachable mother of the family, whom he
seduced, the marriage, which is blessed by the bishop and is
recognized as something good and proper by all the persons present,
expresses this idea with unusual force. In this novel, in spite of
its being clogged with obscene details, in which the author
unfortunately seems to delight, we can see the same serious
relations of the author to life.
Read the conversation of the old poet with Duroy, when they
come out after dinner from the Walters, I think. The old poet lays
bare life before his young interlocutor and shows it to him such as
it is, with its eternal, unavoidable companion and end, -- death.
"It already holds me, *la gueuse*," he says of death. "It has
already loosened by teeth, pulled out my hair, mauled my limbs, and
is about to swallow me. I am already in its power, -- it only
plays with me, as a cat plays with a mouse, knowing that I cannot
get away from it. Glory, wealth, -- what is it all good for, since
it is not possible to buy a woman's love with them, and it is only
a woman's love that makes life worth living. And death will take
that away. It will take this first, and then health, strength, and
life itself. And it is the same with everybody. And that is all."
Such is the meaning of the remarks of the aging poet. But
Duroy, the fortunate lover of all those women whom he likes, is so
full of sensuous energy and strength that he hears, and yet does
not hear, and understands, and yet does not understand, the words
of the old poet. He hears and understands, but the spring of his
sensuous life bubbles up with such force that the incontestable
truth, which promises the same end to him, does not appall him.
It is this inner contradiction which, besides its satirical
significance, forms the chief meaning of *Bel-Ami*. The same
thought sparkles in the beautiful scenes of the death of the
consumptive journalist. The author puts the question to himself as
to what life is and how the contradiction between the love of life
and the knowledge of unavoidable death is to be solved, -- and he
does not answer the questions. He seems to be seeking and waiting,
and does not decide one way or another. Consequently the moral
relation to life continues to be correct in this novel also.
But in the next novels after that this moral relation to life
begins to become entangled, the valuation of the phenomena of life
begins to waver, to grow dim, and in the last novels is completely
distorted.
In *Mont-Oriol* Maupassant seems to combine the motives of the
two preceding novels, and repeats himself as regards contents. In
spite of the beautiful descriptions, full of refined humour, of a
fashionable watering-place and of the activity of the doctors in
this place, we have here the same male, Paul, who is just as base
and heartless and the husband in *Une Vie*, and the same deceived,
ruined, yielding, weak, lonely, always lonely, dear woman, and the
same indifferent triumph of insignificance and baseness as in *Bel-
Ami*.
The thought is the same, but the author's relation to what he
describes is now considerably lower, especially lower than in the
first novel. The inner valuation of the author as to what is good
and bad begins to become entangled. In spite of all the mental
desire of the author to be objective without any bias, the rascal
Paul apparently enjoys the author's complete sympathy. For this
reason the history of Paul's love, his attempts to seduce, and his
success in this produce a false impression. The reader does not
know what the author wants, -- whether he wants to show the whole
emptiness and baseness of Paul, who with indifference turns away
from the woman and offends her, only because her form is spoiled
from being pregnant with a child by him, or whether he wants, on
the contrary, to show how agreeable and nice it is to live the way
this Paul lives.
In the next novels after that, *Pierre et Jean*, *Fort comme
la Mort*, and *Notre Coeur*, the moral relation of the author to
his persons is still more entangled, and is entirely lost in the
last. On all these novels already lies the stamp of indifference,
haste, fictiousness, and, above all, again that absence of a
correct moral relation to life which was noticeable in his first
writings. This begins at the same time that Maupassant's
reputation as a fashionable author becomes established, and he is
subject to that terrible temptation to which every well-known
author, particularly such an attractive one as Maupassant, falls a
prey. On the one side, the success of the first novels, newspaper
laudations, and flattery of society, especially of the women; on
the second, the evergrowing rewards, which, however, do not keep
pace with the constantly growing demands; on the third, -- the
insistence of publishers, who vie with one another, flatter,
implore, and no longer judge of the quality of the productions
offered by the author, but in ecstasy accept everything which
appears over the name that has established its reputation with the
reading public. All these temptations are so great that they
evidently intoxicate the author: he succumbs to them, and, though
he continues to work out his novels as regards their forms, and
does it even better than before, and even loves what he describes,
he no longer loves what he describes because it is good and moral,
that is, because it is loved by everybody, and hates what he
describes not because it is bad and despised by everybody, but only
because one thing accidentally pleases and another displeases him.
Upon all the novels of maupassant, beginning with *Bel-Ami*,
lies this stamp of haste and, above all, of fictiousness. From
that time on Maupassant no longer does what he did in his first two
novels, -- he does not take for the foundation of his novels
certain moral demands and on their basis describe the activity of
his persons, but writes his novels as all artisan novelists write
theirs, that is, he invents the most interesting and the most
pathetic or most contemporary persons and situations, and from
these composes his novel, adorning it with all those observations
which he has happened to make and which fit into the canvas of the
novel, without the slightest concern how the events described are
related to the demands of morality. Such are *Pierre et Jean*,
*Fort comme la Mort*, and *Notre Coeur*.
No matter how much we are accustomed to read in French novels
about how families live by threes, and how there is always a lover,
whom all but the husband know, it still remains quite
incomprehensible to us how it is that all husbands are always
fools, *cocus*, and *ridicules*, and all lovers, who in the end
marry and become husbands, are neither *ridicule* nor *cocus*, but
heroes. And still less can we understand in what way all women are
loose in morals and all mothers holy.
It is on these unnatural and improbable and, above all,
profoundly immoral situations that *Pierre et Jean* and *Fort comme
la Mort* are constructed. and so the sufferings of the persons who
are in these situations do not touch us much. Pierre's and Jean's
mother, who was able to pass all her life in deceiving her husband,
evokes little sympathy for herself when she is compelled to confess
her sin to her son, and still less when she justifies herself,
asserting that she could not help making use of the opportunity of
happiness which presented itself to her. Still less can we
sympathize with the gentleman who, in *Fort comme la Mort*, during
his whole life deceived his friend, corrupted his wife, and now
laments because, having grown old, he is not able to corrupt also
the daughter of his paramour. But the last novel, *Notre Coeur*,
does not even have any inner problem, except the description of all
kinds of shades of sexual love. What is described is a satiated,
idle debauchee, who does not know what he wants, and who now falls
in with just as debauched, mentally debauched, a woman, without
even any justification of sensuality, and now parts from her and
falls in with a servant girl, and now again falls in with the first
and, it seems, lives with both. Though in *Pierre et Jean* and
*Fort comme la Mort* there are touching scenes, this last novel
provokes nothing but disgust in us.
The question in Maupassant's first novel, *Une Vie*, stands
like this. Here is a good, clever, dear human being, ready for
anything good, and this being for some reason is sacrificed, at
first to a coarse, petty, stupid animal of a husband, and then to
just such a son, and perishes aimlessly, without having given
anything to the world. What is this for? The author puts the
question like that, and does not seem to give any answer. But his
whole novel, all his sentiments of sympathy for her and disgust
with what ruined her serve as an answer to his question. If there
is one man who has understood her sufferings and has given
expression to this understanding, these sufferings are redeemed, as
Job says to his friends, when they say that no one will find out
about his suffering. Let a suffering be made known and understood,
and it is redeemed. Here the author saw and comprehended this
suffering and showed it to men. And this suffering is redeemed,
because, as soon as it is understood by men, it will sooner or
later be destroyed.
In the next novel, *Bel-Ami*, the question is no longer as to
why there is any suffering for the worthy, but why there is wealth
and glory for the unworthy. And what are this wealth and glory,
and how are they acquired? And just as before, this question
includes an answer, which consists in the negation of everything
which is so highly valued by the crowd. The contents of this
second novel are still serious, but the moral relation of the
author to the subject described is considerably weakened, and while
in the first novel only here and there occur blemishes of
sensuality, which spoil the novel, in *Bel-Ami* these blemishes
expand, and many chapters are written in mere obscenity, in which
the author seems to revel.
In the next novel, *Mont-Oriol*, the questions as to why and
for what purpose are the sufferings of the dear woman and the
success and joys of the savage male are no longer put, but it seems
to be assumed that it ought to be so, and the moral demands are
almost not felt; instead there appear, without any need and evoked
by no artistic demands, obscene, sensuous descriptions. As a
striking example of this violation of art, in consequence of the
incorrect relation of the author to the subject, may with
particular vividness serve the detailed description of the
appearance of the heroine in the bathtub, which is given in this
novel. This description is of no use whatsoever, and is in no way
connected with the external or the internal meaning of the novel:
bubbles cling to the pink body.
"Well?" asks the reader.
"That's all," replies the author. "I describe, because I like
such descriptions."
In the next two novels, *Pierre et Jean* and *Fort comme la
Mort*, no moral demand whatever is to be found. Both novels are
constructed on debauchery, deception, and lying, which bring the
*dramatis personae* to tragic situations.
In the last novel, *Notre Coeur*, the condition of the
*dramatis personae* is most monstrous, savage, and immoral, and
these persons no longer struggle against anything, but only seek
enjoyments, of ambition, of the senses, of the sexual passion, and
the author seems to sympathize completely with their strivings.
The only conclusion one can draw from this last novel is this, that
the greatest happiness in life is sexual intercourse, and that,
therefore, we must in the most agreeable manner make use of this
happiness.
Still more startling in this immoral relation to life as it is
expressed in the quasi-novel, *Yvette*. The contents of this
terribly immoral production are as follows: a charming girl, with
an innocent soul, but corrupted in the forms which she has acquired
in the corrupt surroundings of her mother, deludes the debauchee.
He falls in love with her, but, imagining that this girl
consciously talks that insinuating nonsense which she has learned
in her mother's company, and which she repeats like a parrot,
without understanding it, he imagines that the girl is corrupt, and
coarsely proposes a *liaison* with her. This proposition frightens
and offends her (she love him), opens her eyes to her position and
to that of her mother, and makes her suffer deeply. The touching
situation -- the conflict of the beauty of the innocent soul with
the immorality of the world -- is beautifully described, and it
would have been well to stop here, but the author, without the
least external or internal need, continues his narration and causes
this gentleman to make his way to the girl at night and seduce her.
In the first part of the novel, the author had evidently been on
the side of the girl, and in the second he suddenly passed over to
the side of the debauchee. One impression destroys the other, and
the whole novel falls to pieces and breaks up, like bread which has
not been kneaded.
In all his novels after *Bel-Ami* (I am not speaking now of
his shorter stories, which form his chief desert and fame, -- of
them I shall speak later), Maupassant obviously surrendered himself
to the theory, which not only existed in his circle in Paris, but
which now exists everywhere among artists, that for an artistic
production we not only need have no clear conception of what is
good and what bad, but that, on the contrary, the artist must
absolutely ignore all moral questions, -- that in this does a
certain merit of the artist consist. According to this theory an
artist can and must represent what is true, what exists, or what is
beautiful, what, consequently, pleases him or even what can be
useful as material for "science," but it is not the business of the
artist to trouble himself about what is moral or immoral, good or
bad.
I remember, a famous painter showed me once his painting,
which represented a religious procession. Everything was
exquisitely painted, but I could not see any relation of the artist
to his subject.
"Well, do you consider these rites good, and do you think that
they ought to be performed, or do you not?" I asked that artist.
The artist said to me, with a certain condescension to my
naivete, that he did not know and did not consider it necessary to
know: his business was to represent life.
"But do you at least love this?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Well, do you despise these rites?"
"Neither the one nor the other," replied, with a smile of
compassion for my stupidity, the modern highly cultured artist, who
represented life without understanding its meaning and without
either loving or hating its phenomena. Even so unfortunately
thought Maupassant.
In his introduction to *Pierre et Jean* he says that people
tell the writer: *"Consolez-moi, attristez-moi, attendrissez-moi,
faites-moi rever, faites-moi rire, faites-moi fremir, faites-moi
pleurer, faites-moi penser. Seuls quel-eues esprits d'elites
demandent a l'artist: faites-moi quel-que chose de beau dans la
forme qui vous conviendra le mieux d'apres votre temperament."*
It was to satisfy the demand of these chosen spirits that
Maupassant wrote his novels, imagining naively that that which was
considered beautiful in his circle was the beautiful which art
ought to serve.
In the same circle in which Maupassant moved, it is woman, a
young, beautiful, for the most part a nude woman, and the sexual
intercourse with her that have preeminently been considered to be
that beauty which art must serve. Such an opinion was held not
only by Maupassant's fellows in "art," by painters, sculptors,
novelists, and poets, but also by philosophers, the teachers of the
younger generations. Thus the famous Renan says frankly in his
work, *Marc Aurele*, while condemning Christianity for its lack of
appreciation of feminine beauty:
*"Le defaut du christianisme apparait bien ici, il est trop
uniquement moral: la beaute chez-lui est tout-a-fait sacrifiee.
Or, aux yeux d'une philosophie complete, la beaute, loin d'etre un
avantage superviciel, un danger, un inconvenient, est un don de
Dieu, comme la vertu. Elle vaut la vertu; la femme belle exprime
aussi bien une face du but divin, une des fins de Dieu, que l'homme
de genie ou la femme vertueuse. Elle le sait et de la sa fierte.
Elle sent instinctivement le tresor infini qu'elle porte en son
corps; elle sait bien, que sans esprit, sans talent, sans grave
vertu, elle compte entre les premieres manifestations de Dieu: et
pourquoi lui interdire de mettre en valeur le don, qui lui a ete
fait, de sortir le diamant qui lui est echu?
"La femme, en se passant, accomplit un devoir; elle pratique
un art, art exquis, en un sens le plus charmant des arts. Ne nous
laissons pas egarer par le sourire que certains mots provoquent
chez les gens frivoles. On decerne la palme du genie a l'artiste
grec qui a su resoudre le plus delicat des problemes, orner le
corps humain, c'est a orner la perfection meme, et l'on ne veut
voir qu'une affaire de chiffons dans l'essai de collaborer a la
plus belle oeuvre de Dieu, a la beaute de la femme! La toilette de
la femme, avec tous ses raffinements, est du grand art a sa
maniere.
"Les siecles et les pays, qui savent y reussir, -- sont les
grands siecles, les grands pays, et le christianisme montra par
l'exclusion dont il frappa le genre de recherches que l'ideal
social qu'il concevait ne deviendrait le cadre d'une societe
complete que bien plus tard, quand la revolte des genes du monde
aurait brise le joug etroit impose primitivement a la secte par un
pietisme exalte" (Marc Aurele, p. 555).*
(Thus, according to the opinion of this guide of the younger
generations, it is only now that the Parisian tailors and wigmakers
have mended the mistake made by Christianity, and have
reestablished beauty in its real, high significance.)
To leave no doubt in what sense beauty is to be taken, this
same famous writer, historian, and scholar wrote a drama,
*L'Abbesse de Jouarre*, in which he showed that sexual intercourse
with a woman is that very ministration to beauty, that is, a high
and good work. In this drama, which is remarkable for its absence
of talent and especially for the coarseness of Darcy's
conversations with the Abbess, where we can see from the very first
words of what love this gentleman is speaking with the apparently
innocent and highly moral girl, who is not in the least offended by
this, -- it appears that the most highly moral people, in the sight
of death, to which they are condemned, a few hours before it can do
nothing more beautiful that surrender themselves to their animal
passion.
Thus, in the circle in which Maupassant grew up and was
educated, the representation of feminine beauty and love has quite
seriously, and as something long ago decided and determined by the
cleverest and most learned of men, been considered to be the true
problem of the highest art, -- *le grand art*.
It is to this theory, frightful in its insipidity, that
Maupassant was subjected, when he became a fashionable writer.
And, as was to have been expected, in the novels this false ideal
led Maupassant to a series of mistakes and to weaker and ever
weaker productions.
In this showed itself the radical difference which exists
between the demands of the novel and those of the story. The novel
has for its problem, even for its external problem, the description
of the whole human life or of many human lives, and so the writer
of a novel must have a clear and firm idea of what is good and what
bad in life, and Maupassant did not possess that; on the contrary,
according to the theory to which he held, it was thought that that
was not necessary. If he had been a novelist like some untalented
writers of sensuous novels, he would have calmly described as good
what is bad, and his novels would be complete and interesting for
people sharing the same views as the author. But Maupassant had
talent, that is, he saw things in their real form, and so he
involuntarily revealed the truth: he involuntarily saw the bad in
what he wanted to regard as good. For this reason his sympathy is
constantly wavering in all his novels, with the exception of the
first: now he represents the bad as being good, now he recognizes
the bad to be bad and the good to be good, and now again he keeps
all the time jumping from one to the other. But this destroys the
very essence of every artistic impression, the *charpente*, on
which he stands. People who are not very sensitive to art
frequently imagine that an artistic production forms one whole,
because the same persons act in it all the time, because everything
is constructed on one plot, or because the life on one man is
described. That is not true. That only seems to the superficial
observer: the cement which binds every artistic production into
one whole and so produces the illusion of a reflection of life is
not the unity of persons and situations, but the unity of the
original, moral relation of the author to his subject. In reality,
when we read or contemplate an artistic production by a new author,
the fundamental question which arises in our soul is always this:
"Well, what kind of a man are you? How do you differ from all
other men whom I know, and what new thing can you tell me about the
way we ought to look upon our life?" No matter what the artist may
represent, -- saints, robbers, kings, lackeys, -- we seek and see
only the artist's soul. If he is an old, familiar artist, the
question is no longer, "who are you?" but, "Well, what new thing
can you tell me? From what new side will you now illumine my life
for me?" And so an author who has no definite, clear, new view of
the world, and still more so the one who does not consider this to
be necessary, cannot give an artistic production. He can write
beautifully, and a great deal, but there will be no artistic
production. Even so it was with Maupassant in his novels. In his
first two novels, especially in the first, *Une Vie*, there was
that clear, definite, new relation to life, and so there was an
artistic production; but as soon as he, submitting to the
fashionable theory, decided that there is no need whatever for this
relation of the author to life, and began to write only in order to
*faire quelque chose de beau*, his novels ceased to be artistic
productions. In *Une Vie* and *Bel-Ami* the author knows who is to
be loved and who is to be hated, and the reader agrees with him and
believes him, believes in those persons and events which are
described to him. But in *Notre Coeur* and in *Yvette* the author
does not know who is to be loved and who is to be hated; nor does
the reader know it. And as the reader does not know it, he does
not believe in the events described and is not interested in them.
And so, with the exception of the first tow, or, speaking strictly,
of the one first novel, all of Maupassant's novels, as novels, are
weak; and if Maupassant had left us only his novels, he would be a
striking example of how a brilliant gift may perish in consequence
of that false milieu in which it was evolved, and of those false
theories of art which are invented by men who do not love it and so
do not understand it. But, fortunately, Maupassant has written
short stories, in which he did not succumb to the false theory
which he adopted, and wrote, not *quelque chose de beau*, but what
touched and provoked his moral feeling. It is in these stories,
not in all, but in the best of them, that we see how the moral
feeling grew in the author.
In this, indeed, does the remarkable quality of every true
talent consist, so long as it does not do violence to itself under
the influence of a false theory, that it teaches its possessor,
leads him on over the path of moral development, makes him love
what is worth of love, and hate what is worthy of hatred. An
artist is an artist for the very reason that he sees the objects,
not as he wants to see them, but as they are. The bearer of
talent, -- man, -- may make mistakes, but the talent, as soon as
the reins are given to it, as was done by Maupassant in his
stories, will reveal and lay bare the subject and will make the
writer love it, if it is worth of love, and hate it, if it is
worthy of hatred. What happens to every true artist, when, under
the influence of his surroundings, he begins to describe something
different from what he ought to describe, is what happened to
Balaam, who, when he wanted to bless, cursed that which ought to
have been cursed, and, when he wanted to curse, began to bless that
which ought to have been blessed; he will involuntarily do, not
what he wants, but what he ought to do. The same happened with
Maupassant.
There has hardly been another such an author, who thought so
sincerely that all the good, the whole meaning of life was in
woman, in love, and who with such force of passion described woman
and the love of her from all sides, and there has hardly been
another author, who with such clearness and precision has pointed
out all the terrible sides of the same phenomenon, which to him
seemed to be the highest, and one that gives the greatest good to
men. The more he comprehended this phenomenon, the more did it
become unveiled; the shrouds fell off, and all there was left was
its terrible consequences and its still more terrible reality.
Read his *Idiot Son," "A Night with the Daughter"
(*L'Ermite*), "The Sailor and His Sister" (*Le Port*), "Field of
Olives," *La Petit Roque*, the English *Miss Harriet*, *Monsieur
Parent*, *L'Armoire* (the girl that fell asleep in the safe), "The
Marriage" in *Sur l'Eau, and the last expression of everything, *Un
Cas de Divorce*. What Marcus Aurelius said, trying to find means
with which to destroy in imagination the attractiveness of this
sin, Maupassant does in glaring, artistic pictures, which upset one
completely. He wants to laud love, but the more he knew of it, the
more he cursed it. He cursed it for the calamities and sufferings
which it brings with it, and for the disappointments, and, above
all, for the simulation of true love, for the deception which is in
it, and from which man suffers the more, the more he abandons
himself to this deception.
The might moral growth of the author, during his literary
activity, is written in indelible characters in these exquisite
short stories and in his best book, *Sur l'Eau*.
And not merely in this discrowning, this involuntary and,
therefore, so much more powerful discrowning of sexual love, do we
see the author's moral growth; we see it also in all those higher
and ever higher demands which he makes on life.
Not only in sexual love does he see the inner contradiction
between the demands of the animal and of the rational man, -- he
sees it in the whole structure of the world.
He sees that the world, the material world, such as it is, is
not only not the best of worlds, but, on the contrary, might have
been quite different, -- this idea is strikingly expressed in
*Horla*, -- and does not satisfy the demands of reason and of love;
he sees that there is a certain other world, or at least there are
the demands for such a world, in man's soul.
He is tormented, not only by the irrationality of the material
world and the absence of beauty in it, but also by its lack of
love, by its disunion. I know of no more heartrending cry of
despair of an erring man who recognizes his loneliness, than the
expression of this idea in the exquisite story, *Solitude*.
The phenomenon which more than any other tortured Maupassant,
and to which he frequently returned, is the agonizing state of
loneliness, the spiritual loneliness of a man, that barrier which
stands between a man and others, that barrier which, as he says, is
felt the more painfully, the closer the bodily contact.
What is it that tortures him? And what would he have? What
destroys this barrier, what puts a stop to this loneliness? Love,
not love of woman, of which he is tired, but pure, spiritual,
divine love. and it is this that Maupassant seeks; toward this
saviour of life, which was long ago clearly revealed to all, that
he painfully tugs at the feters with which he feels himself bound.
He is not yet able to name what he is seeking, he does not
want to name it with his lips alone, for fear of defiling his
sanctuary. But his unnamed striving, which is expressed by his
terror in the presence of solitude, is so sincere that it infects
us and draws us more powerfully than many, very many sermons of
love, which are enunciated with the lips alone.
The tragedy of Maupassant's life consists in this, that,
living in surroundings that are terrible because of their
monstrousness and immorality, he by the force of his talent, that
unusual light which was in him, broke away from the world-
conception of his circle, was near to liberation, already breathed
the air of freedom, but, having spent his last strength in this
struggle, perished without becoming free, because he did not have
the strength to make this one last effort.
The tragedy of this ruin consists in the same in which it even
now continues to consist for the majority of the so-called men of
our time.
Men have in general never lived without an explanation of the
meaning of the life they live. Everywhere and at all times there
have appeared advanced, highly gifted men, prophets, as they are
called, who have explained to men this meaning and significance of
life, and at all times the men of the rank and file, who have no
strength to make this meaning clear to themselves, have followed
that explanation of life which their prophets revealed to them.
This meaning was eighteen hundred years ago simply, lucidly,
indubitably, and joyously explained by Christianity, as is proved
by the life of all those who have accepted this meaning and follow
that guide of life which follows from this meaning.
But there appeared men who interpreted this meaning in such a
way that it became nonsense. And people are as in a dilemma, --
whether to recognize Christianity, as it is interpreted by
Catholicism, Lourdes, the Pope, the dogma of the seedless
conception, and so forth, or to live on, being guided by the
instructions of Renan and his like, that is, to live without any
guidance and comprehension of life, surrendering themselves to
their lusts, so long as they are strong, and to their habits, when
the passions have subsided.
and the people, the people of the rank and file, choose one or
the other, sometimes both, at first libertinism, and then
Catholicism. And people continue to live thus for generations,
shielding themselves with different theories, which are not
invented in order to find out the truth, but in order to conceal
it. And the people of the rank and file, especially the dull ones
among them, feel at ease.
But there are also other people, -- there are but a few of
them and they are far between -- and such was Maupassant, who with
their own eyes see things as they are, see their meaning, see the
contradictions of life, which are hidden from others, and vividly
present to themselves that to which these contradictions must
inevitably lead them, and seek for their solutions in advance. They
seek for them everywhere except where they are to be found, in
Christianity, because Christianity seems to them to have outlived
its usefulness, to be obsolete and foolish and repellent by its
monstrosity. Trying in vain to arrive by themselves at these
solutions, they come to the conclusion that there are no solutions,
that the property of life consists in carrying within oneself these
unsolved contradictions. Having arrived at such a solution, these
people, if they are weak, unenergetic natures, make their peace
with such a senseless life, are even proud of their condition,
considering their lack of knowledge to be a desert, a sign of
culture; but if they are energetic, truthful, and talented natures,
such as was Maupassant, they cannot bear it and in one way or
another go out of this insipid life.
It is as though thirsty people in the desert should be looking
everywhere for water, except near those men who, standing near a
spring, pollute it and offer ill-smelling mud instead of water,
which still keeps on flowing farther down, below the mud.
Maupassant was in that position; he could not believe, -- it even
never occurred to him that the truth which he was seeking had been
discovered long ago and was near him; nor could he believe that it
was possible for a man to live in a contradiction such as he felt
himself to be living in.
Life, according to those theories in which he was brought up,
which surrounded him, and which were verified by all the passions
of his youthful and spiritually and physically strong being,
consists in enjoyment, chief of which is woman and the love of her,
and in the doubly reflected enjoyment, -- in the representation of
this love and the excitation of this love in others. All that
would be very well, but, as we look closely at these enjoyments, we
see amidst them appear phenomena which are quite alien and hostile
to this love and this beauty: woman for some reason grows homely,
looks horrid in her pregnancy, bears a child in nastiness, then
more children, unwished-for children, then deceptions, cruelties,
then moral sufferings, then simply old age, and finally death.
And then, is this beauty really beauty? And the, what is it
all for? It would be nice, if it were possible to arrest life.
But it goes on. What does it mean, -- life goes on? Life goes on,
means, -- the hair falls out and grows gray, the teeth decay, there
appear wrinkles, and there is an odour in the mouth. Even before
everything ends, everything becomes terrible and disgusting: you
perceive the pasty paint and powder, the sweat, thee stench, the
homeliness. Where is that which I served? Where is beauty? And
it is all. If it is not, -- there is nothing. There is no life.
Not only is there no life in what seemed to have life, but
you, too, begin to get away from it, to grow feeble, to look
homely, to decay, while others before your very eyes seize from you
those pleasures in which was the whole good of life. More than
that: there begins to glint the possibility of another life,
something else, some other union of men with the whole world, such
as excludes all those deceptions, something else, something that
cannot be impaired by anything, that is true and always beautiful.
But that cannot be, -- it is only the provoking sight of an oasis,
when we know that it is not there and that everything is sand.
Maupassant lived down to that tragic moment of life when there
began the struggle between the lie of the life which surrounded
him, and the truth which he was beginning to see. He already had
symptoms of spiritual birth.
It is these labours of birth that are expressed in his best
productions, especially in his short stories.
If it had been his fate not to die in the labour of birth, but
to be born, he would have given great, instructive productions, but
even what he gave us during the process of his birth is much. Let
us be grateful to this strong, truthful man for what he gave us.
Voronezh, April 2, 1894.
(
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