Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories | Page 4

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.
Those who first saw Maupassant when the Contes de la Bécasse and
Bel Ami were published were somewhat astonished at his appearance.
He was solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air,
rather unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect
and social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and
beautiful shadows encircled his eyes.
He received visitors with the graciousness of the courteous head of a
department, who resigns himself to listen to demands, allowing them to
talk as he smiled faintly, and nonplussing them by his calmness.
How chilling was this first interview to young enthusiasts who had
listened to Zola unfolding in lyric formula audacious methods, or to the
soothing words of Daudet, who scattered with prodigality striking,
thrilling ideas, picturesque outlines and brilliant synopses.
Maupassant's remarks, in têtes-à-têtes, as in general conversation, were
usually current commonplaces and on ordinary time-worn topics.
Convinced of the superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded
them all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought
nobly expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so,
to see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the
most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of
the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life
work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical
anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move
him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical
joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the pleasure

of hoaxing and mystifying people.
He appeared besides to look upon art as a pastime, literature as an
occupation useless at best, while he willingly relegated love to the
performance of a function, and suspected the motives of the most
meritorious actions.
Some say that this was the inborn basis of his personal psychology. I do
not believe it. That he may have had a low estimate of humanity, that
he may have mistrusted its disinterestedness, contested the quality of its
virtue, is possible, even certain. But that he was not personally superior
to his heroes I am unwilling to admit. And if I see in his attitude, as in
his language, an evidence of his inveterate pessimism, I see in it also a
method of protecting his secret thoughts from the curiosity of the
vulgar.
Perhaps he overshot the mark. By dint of hearing morality, art