Complete Maupassant Original Short Stories | Page 7

creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native forests,
that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing to his
glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules Lemaitre said.
To mould the expression of his thought according to the strictest laws,
and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his aim. Following
the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being readily carried
away by precision of style and the rhythm of sentences, by the
imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the chant royal,
Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines. However, he never
liked this collection that he often regretted having published. His
encounters with prosody had left him with that monotonous weariness
that the horseman and the fencer feel after a period in the riding school,
or a bout with the foils.
Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
apprenticeship.
The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for
the sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in opposition
to the triumphant brutality of Zola.
From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire press,
set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from all
influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With a
quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which he

himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit, in
article after article, volume on volume.
He was now rich and famous . . . . He is esteemed all the more as they
believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that success
came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came also, and,
seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its threatening
countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed by nights
of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with narcotics
and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had troubled
him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist spoke of
abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man trembled
in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.
The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet, here
and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of nature that
are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the supernatural,
distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most commonplace, the
most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as the world and as
eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being alarmed, he thinks that
the author must be gifted with infallible intuition to follow out thus the
taints in his characters, even through their most dangerous mazes. The
reader does not know that these hallucinations which he describes so
minutely were experienced by Maupassant himself; he does not know
that the fear is in himself, the anguish of fear "which is not caused by
the presence of danger, or of inevitable death, but by certain abnormal
conditions, by certain mysterious influences in presence of vague
dangers," the "fear of fear, the dread of that horrible sensation of
incomprehensible terror."
How can one explain these physical sufferings and this morbid distress
that were known for some time to his intimates alone? Alas! the

explanation is only too simple. All his life, consciously or
unconsciously, Maupassant fought this malady, hidden as yet, which
was latent in him.
As his malady began to take a more definite form, he turned his steps
towards the south, only visiting Paris to see his physicians and
publishers. In the old port of Antibes beyond the causeway of Cannes,
his yacht, Bel Ami, which he cherished as a brother, lay at anchor and
awaited him. He took it to the white cities of the Genoese Gulf, towards
the palm trees of Hyeres, or the red bay trees of Antheor.
After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a desperate
fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was hopelessly vanquished,
and in a moment of supreme clearness of intellect, like Gerard de
Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate than the author of Sylvia,
he was unsuccessful. But his mind,