The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of?by Guy de Maupassant

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Title: The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) Boule de Suif and Other Stories
Author: Guy de Maupassant
Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #21327]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The Works of
Guy de Maupassant
VOLUME I
BOULE DE SUIF
AND OTHER STORIES

NATIONAL LIBRARY COMPANY
NEW YORK
1909
BIGELOW, SMITH & CO.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE INTRODUCTION x
BOULE DE SUIF 1
MISS HARRIET 54
FRANCESCA AND CARLOTTA RONDOLI 82
CH?LI 117
THE UMBRELLA 131
MY UNCLE SOSTHENES 143
HE? 152
A PHILOSOPHER 162
ALWAYS LOCK THE DOOR! 171
A MEETING 179
THE LITTLE CASK 190
HOW HE GOT THE LEGION OF HONOR 198
THE ACCURSED BREAD 206
WHAT WAS REALLY THE MATTER WITH ANDREW 213
MY LANDLADY 221
THE HORLA, OR MODERN GHOSTS 228
LOVE. THREE PAGES FROM A SPORTSMAN'S BOOK 263
THE HOLE 270
SAVED 279
BELLFLOWER 286
THE MARQUIS DE FUMEROL 293
THE SIGNAL 303
THE DEVIL 311
EPIPHANY 321
IN THE WOOD 336
A FAMILY 343
JOSEPH 350
THE INN 358
UGLY 376

WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT

INTRODUCTION
BY
ARTHUR SYMONS
The first aim of art, no doubt, is the representation of things as they are. But then things are as our eyes see them and as our minds make them; and it is thus of primary importance for the critic to distinguish the precise qualities of the eyes and minds which make the world into imaginative literature. Reality may be so definite and so false, just as it may be so fantastic and so true; and, among work which we can apprehend as dealing justly with reality, there may be quite as much difference in all that constitutes outward form and likeness as there is between a Dutch interior by Peter van der Hooch, the portrait of a king by Velasquez, and the image of a woman smiling by Leonardo da Vinci. The soul, for instance, is at heart as real as the body; but, as we can hear it only through the body speaking, and see it only through bodily eyes, and measure it, often enough, only in the insignificant moment of its action, it may come to seem to us, at all events less realizable; and thus it is that we speak of those who have vividly painted exterior things as realists. Properly speaking, Maupassant is no more a realist than Maeterlinck. He paints a kind of reality which it is easier for us to recognize; that is all.
Every artist has his own vision of the world. Maupassant's vision was of solid superficies, of texture which his hands could touch, of actions which his mind could comprehend from the mere sight of its incidents. He saw the world as the Dutch painters saw it, and he was as great a master of form, of rich and sober color, of the imitation of the outward gestures of life, and of the fashion of external things. He had the same view of humanity, and shows us, with the same indifference, the same violent ferment of life--the life of full-blooded people who have to elbow their way through the world. His sense of desire, of greed, of all the baser passions, was profound: he had the terrible logic of animalism. Love-making, drunkenness, cheating, quarreling, the mere idleness of sitting drowsily in a chair, the gross life of the farmyard and the fields, civic dissensions, the sordid provincial dance of the seven deadly sins, he saw in the same direct, unilluminating way as the Dutch painters; finding, indeed, no beauty in any of these things, but getting his beauty in the deft arrangement of them, in the mere act of placing them in a picture. The world existed for him as something formless which could be cut up into little pictures. He saw no farther than the lines of his frame. The interest of the thing began inside that frame, and what remained outside was merely material.
A story of Maupassant, more than almost anything in the world, gives you the impression of manual dexterity. It is adequately thought out, but it does not impress you by its thought; it is clearly seen, but it does not impress you specially by the fidelity of its detail; it has just enough of ordinary human feeling for the limits it has imposed on itself. What impresses you is the extreme ingenuity of its handling; the way in which this juggler keeps his billiard-balls harmoniously rising and falling in the air. Often, indeed, you cannot help