It was, I think, in the year 1881 that Turgénev, 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 Garshín, who
was making his début. Evidently, as in the case of Garshín, 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 Druzhínin. He is just
as excellent a son and friend, _un homme d'un commerce sur_, as was
Druzhínin, and, besides, he has relations with the labouring people,
whom he guides and aids. Even in his relations to women he reminds
me of Druzhínin."
And Turgénev 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 Turgénev 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 fiancé 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 Turgénev 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 none the less assert that,
in describing their masses, the French authors are wrong, and
that the French masses cannot be such 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 petite
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 Turgénev 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 Turgénev 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 Misérables_. 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 fiancé, 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 merely 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 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 my 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 appal 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 as 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 Cœur_, 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,
fictitiousness, 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 fictitiousness. 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 Cœur_.
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 _ridicules_ 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 Cœur_, 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 personæ_ to tragic situations.
In the last novel, _Notre Cœur_, the condition of the _dramatis
personæ_ 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 is 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 loves 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 the artist.
The artist said to me, with a certain condescension to my naïveté,
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
râcer, faites-moi rire, faites-moi frémir, faites-moi pleurer,
faites-moi penser. Seuls quelques esprits d'élites demandent á
l'artiste: faites-moi quelque chose de beau dans la forme qui vous
conviendra le mieux d'après votre tempérament._"
It was to satisfy the demand of these chosen spirits that Maupassant
wrote his novels, imagining naïvely 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 preëminently 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
Aurèle_, while condemning Christianity for its lack of appreciation
of feminine beauty:
"_Le défaut du christianisme apparait bien ici, il est trop
uniquement moral: la beauté chez-lui est tout-à-fait sacrifiée.
Or, aux yeux d'une philosophie complète, la beauté, loin d'être un
avantage superficiel, un danger, un inconvénient, est un don de
Dieu, comme la vertu. Elle vaut la rertu; la femme belle exprime
aussi bien une face du but divin, une des fins de Dieu, que l'homme
de génie ou la femme vertueuse. Elle le sait et de là sa fierté.
Elle sent instinctivement le trésor infini qu'elle porte en son
corps; elle sait bien, que sans esprit, sans talent, sans grace
vertu, elle compte entre les premières manifestations de Dieu: et
pourquoi lui interdire de mettre en valeur le don, qui lui a été
fait, de sortir le diamant qui lui est échu?_
"_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 égarer par le sourire que certains mots provoquent chez
les gens frivoles. On décerne la palme du génie à l'artiste grec qui
a su résoudre le plus délicat des problèmes, orner le corps humain,
c'est à orner la perfection même, et l'on ne veut voir qu'une
affaire de chiffons dans l'essai de collaborer à la plus belle
œuvre de Dieu, à la beauté de la femme! La toilette de la femme,
avec tous ses raffinements, est du grand art à sa manière._
"_Les siècles et les pays, qui savent y réussir,--sont les grands
siècles, les grands pays, et le christianisme montra par l'exclusion
dont il frappa le genre de recherches que l'idéal social qu'il
concevait ne deviendrait le cadre d'une société complète que bien
plus tard, quand la révolte des gens du monde aurait brisé le joug
étroit imposé primitivement à la secte par un piétisme exalté_"
(_Marc Aurèle_, 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 than
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 of one man is
described. That is not true. That only seems so 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 Cœur_ 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 two,
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
worthy 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 worthy 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 Petite
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 mighty 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
fetters 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 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 then, 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, the 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.
_Vorónezh, April 2, 1894._