Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant | Page 8

phase so noble or so mean, so honorable or
so contemptible, so lofty or so low as to be unworthy of
chronicling,--no groove of human virtue or fault, success or failure,
wisdom or folly that did not possess its own peculiar psychological
aspect and therefore demanded analysis.
To this analysis Maupassant brought a facile and dramatic pen, a
penetration as searching as a probe, and a power of psychological
vision that in its minute detail, now pathetic, now ironical, in its
merciless revelation of the hidden springs of the human heart, whether
of aristocrat, bourgeois, peasant, or priest, allow one to call him a
Meissonier in words.
The school of romantic realism which was founded by Merimee and
Balzac found its culmination in De Maupassant. He surpassed his
mentor, Flaubert, in the breadth and vividness of his work, and one of
the greatest of modern French critics has recorded the deliberate
opinion, that of all Taine's pupils Maupassant had the greatest
command of language and the most finished and incisive style. Robust
in imagination and fired with natural passion, his psychological
curiosity kept him true to human nature, while at the same time his
mental eye, when fixed upon the most ordinary phases of human
conduct, could see some new motive or aspect of things hitherto
unnoticed by the careless crowd.
It has been said by casual critics that Maupassant lacked one quality
indispensable to the production of truly artistic work, viz: an absolutely
normal, that is, moral, point of view. The answer to this criticism is
obvious. No dissector of the gamut of human pas- sion and folly in all
its tones could present aught that could be called new, if ungifted with a
viewpoint totally out of the ordinary plane. Cold and merciless in the
use of this point de vue De Maupassant undoubtedly is, especially in
such vivid depictions of love, both physical and maternal, as we find in
"L'histoire d'une fille de ferme" and "La femme de Paul." But then the

surgeon's scalpel never hesitates at giving pain, and pain is often the
road to health and ease. Some of Maupassant's short stories are sermons
more forcible than any moral dissertation could ever be.
Of De Maupassant's sustained efforts "Une Vie" may bear the palm.
This romance has the distinction of having changed Tolstoi from an
adverse critic into a warm admirer of the author. To quote the Russian
moralist upon the book:
" 'Une Vie' is a romance of the best type, and in my judgment the
greatest that has been produced by any French writer since Victor Hugo
penned 'Les Miserables.' Passing over the force and directness of the
narrative, I am struck by the intensity, the grace, and the insight with
which the writer treats the new aspects of human nature which he finds
in the life he describes."
And as if gracefully to recall a former adverse criticism, Tolstoi adds:
"I find in the book, in almost equal strength, the three cardinal qualities
essential to great work, viz: moral purpose, perfect style, and absolute
sincerity. . . . Maupassant is a man whose vision has penetrated the
silent depths of human life, and from that vantage- ground interprets
the struggle of humanity."
"Bel-Ami" appeared almost two years after "Une Vie," that is to say,
about 1885. Discussed and criticised as it has been, it is in reality a
satire, an indignant outburst against the corruption of society which in
the story enables an ex-soldier, devoid of conscience, honor, even of
the commonest regard for others, to gain wealth and rank. The purport
of the story is clear to those who recognize the ideas that governed
Maupassant's work, and even the hasty reader or critic, on reading
"Mont Oriol," which was published two years later and is based on a
combination of the motifs which inspired "Une Vie" and "Bel-Ami,"
will reconsider former hasty judgments, and feel, too, that beneath the
triumph of evil which calls forth Maupassant's satiric anger there lies
the substratum on which all his work is founded, viz: the persistent,
ceaseless questioning of a soul unable to reconcile or explain the
contradiction between love in life and inevitable death. Who can read
in "Bel-Ami" the terribly graphic description of the consumptive
journalist's demise, his frantic clinging to life, and his refusal to credit
the slow and merciless approach of death, without feeling that the
question asked at Naishapur many centuries ago is still waiting for the

solution that is always promised but never comes?
In the romances which followed, dating from 1888 to 1890, a sort of
calm despair seems to have settled down upon De Maupassant's attitude
toward life. Psychologically acute as ever, and as perfect in style and
sincerity as before, we miss the note of anger. Fatality is