Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete

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THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES

by Guy de Maupassant



GUY DE MAUPASSANT

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES

Translated by

ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.

A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.

MME. QUESADA and Others





CONTENTS OF THE 13 VOLUMES (180 Stories)

VOLUME I.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT--A STUDY BY POL. NEVEUX

BOULE DE SUIF
TWO FRIENDS
THE LANCER'S WIFE
THE PRISONERS
TWO LITTLE SOLDIERS
FATHER MILON
A COUP D'ETAT
LIEUTENANT LARE'S MARRIAGE
THE HORRIBLE
MADAME PARISSE
MADEMOISELLE FIFI
A DUEL



VOLUME II.

THE COLONEL'S IDEAS
MOTHER SAUVAGE
EPIPHANY
THE MUSTACHE
MADAME BAPTISTE
THE QUESTION OF LATIN
A MEETING
THE BLIND MAN
INDISCRETION
A FAMILY AFFAIR
BESIDE SCHOPENHAUER'S CORPSE



VOLUME III.

MISS HARRIET
LITTLE LOUISE ROQUE
THE DONKEY
MOIRON
THE DISPENSER OF HOLY WATER
THE PARRICIDE
BERTHA
THE PATRON
THE DOOR
A SALE
THE IMPOLITE SEX
A WEDDING GIFT
THE RELIC



VOLUME IV.

THE MORIBUND
THE GAMEKEEPER
THE STORY OF A FARM GIRL
THE WRECK
THEODULE SABOT'S CONFESSION
THE WRONG HOUSE
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE
THE MARQUIS DE FUMEROL
THE TRIP OF THE HORLA
FAREWELL
THE WOLF
THE INN



VOLUME V.

MONSIEUR PARENT
QUEEN HORTENSE
TIMBUCTOO
TOMBSTONES
MADEMOISELLE PEARL
THE THIEF
CLAIR DE LUNE
WAITER, A "BOCK"
AFTER
FORGIVENESS
IN THE SPRING
A QUEER NIGHT IN PARIS



VOLUME VI.

THAT COSTLY RIDE
USELESS BEAUTY
THE FATHER
MY UNCLE SOSTHENES
THE BARONESS
MOTHER AND SON
THE HAND
A TRESS OF HAIR
ON THE RIVER
THE CRIPPLE
A STROLL
ALEXANDRE
THE LOG
JULIE ROMAINE
THE RONDOLI SISTERS



VOLUME VII.

THE FALSE GEMS
FASCINATION
YVETTE SAMORIS
A VENDETTA
MY TWENTY-FIVE DAYS
"THE TERROR"
LEGEND OF MONT ST. MICHEL
A NEW YEAR'S GIFT
FRIEND PATIENCE
ABANDONED
THE MAISON TELLIER
DENIS
MY WIFE
THE UNKNOWN
THE APPARITION



VOLUME VIII.

CLOCHETTE
THE KISS
THE LEGION OF HONOR
THE TEST
FOUND ON A DROWNED MAN
THE ORPHAN
THE BEGGAR
THE RABBIT
HIS AVENGER
MY UNCLE JULES
THE MODEL
A VAGABOND
THE FISHING HOLE
THE SPASM
IN THE WOOD
MARTINE
ALL OVER
THE PARROT
A PIECE OF STRING



VOLUME IX.

TOINE
MADAME HUSSON'S ROSIER
THE ADOPTED SON
A COWARD
OLD MONGILET
MOONLIGHT
THE FIRST SNOWFALL
SUNDAYS OF A BOURGEOIS
A RECOLLECTION
OUR LETTERS
THE LOVE OF LONG AGO
FRIEND JOSEPH
THE EFFEMINATES
OLD AMABLE



VOLUME X.

THE CHRISTENING
THE FARMER'S WIFE
THE DEVIL
THE SNIPE
THE WILL
WALTER SCHNAFF'S ADVENTURE
AT SEA
MINUET
THE SON
THAT PIG OF A MORIN
SAINT ANTHONY
LASTING LOVE
PIERROT
A NORMANDY JOKE
FATHER MATTHEW



VOLUME XI.

THE UMBRELLA
BELHOMME'S BEAST
DISCOVERY
THE ACCURSED BREAD
THE DOWRY
THE DIARY OF A MAD MAN
THE MASK
THE PENGUINS ROCK
A FAMILY
SUICIDES
AN ARTIFICE
DREAMS
SIMON'S PAPA



VOLUME XII.

THE CHILD
A COUNTRY EXCURSION
ROSE
ROSALIE PRUDENT
REGRET
A SISTER'S CONFESSION
COCO
A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
A HUMBLE DRAMA
MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
THE CORSICAN BANDIT
THE GRAVE



VOLUME XIII.

OLD JUDAS
THE LITTLE CASK
BOITELLE
A WIDOW
THE ENGLISHMEN OF ETRETAT
MAGNETISM
A FATHERS CONFESSION
A MOTHER OF MONSTERS
AN UNCOMFORTABLE BED
A PORTRAIT
THE DRUNKARD
THE WARDROBE
THE MOUNTAIN POOL
A CREMATION
MISTI
MADAME HERMET
THE MAGIC COUCH





GUY DE MAUPASSANT

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES




VOLUME I.




GUY DE MAUPASSANT
A STUDY BY POL. NEVEUX

"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a
thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the
occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity,
not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten
years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the fertility
of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and travels, only to
sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and death. . . . .

In the month of April, 1880, an article appeared in the "Le Gaulois"
announcing the publication of the Soirees de Medan. It was signed by a
name as yet unknown: Guy de Maupassant. After a juvenile diatribe against
romanticism and a passionate attack on languorous literature, the writer
extolled the study of real life, and announced the publication of the new
work. It was picturesque and charming. In the quiet of evening, on an
island, in the Seine, beneath poplars instead of the Neapolitan cypresses
dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the continuous murmur of the
valley, and no longer to the sound of the Pyrennean streams that murmured
a faint accompaniment to the tales of Marguerite's cavaliers, the master
and his disciples took turns in narrating some striking or pathetic
episode of the war. And the issue, in collaboration, of these tales in
one volume, in which the master jostled elbows with his pupils, took on
the appearance of a manifesto, the tone of a challenge, or the utterance
of a creed.

In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they had
confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a general
title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the "Attaque
du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five young men gave
in their contributions. Each one read his story, Maupassant being the
last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a spontaneous impulse,
with an emotion they never forgot, filled with enthusiasm at this
revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous words, acclaimed him
as a master.

He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in cooperation
with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are familiar,
amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste for
mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential point, he
said, is to "unmoor" criticism.

It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical dissertation
in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume was a brilliant
success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty, the honesty of
effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the other stories.
Relegated to the second rank, they passed without notice. From his first
battle, Maupassant was master of the field in literature.

At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at the
present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient heroes
whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.

I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives, his
old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have furnished us
in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching remembrances of
the years preceding his literary debut. His worthy biographer, H. Edouard
Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the writings, condensing and
comparing them, has been able to give us some definite information
regarding that early period.

I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie. . . .

Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and through
his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous race,
whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to recall.
And just as the author of "Education sentimentale" seems to have
inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne, so de
Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors their
indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.

His childhood was passed at Etretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness. The
delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the charm of
voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath the dark
hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on nights when
there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of imaginary voyages.

Mme. de Maupassant, who had guided her son's early reading, and had gazed
with him at the sublime spectacle of nature, put, off as long as possible
the hour of separation. One day, however, she had to take the child to
the little seminary at Yvetot. Later, he became a student at the college
at Rouen, and became a literary correspondent of Louis Bouilhet. It was
at the latter's house on those Sundays in winter when the Norman rain
drowned the sound of the bells and dashed against the window panes that
the school boy learned to write poetry.

Vacation took the rhetorician back to the north of Normandy. Now it was
shooting at Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, across fields, bogs, and through
the woods. From that time on he sealed his pact with the earth, and those
"deep and delicate roots" which attached him to his native soil began to
grow. It was of Normandy, broad, fresh and virile, that he would
presently demand his inspiration, fervent and eager as a boy's love; it
was in her that he would take refuge when, weary of life, he would
implore a truce, or when he simply wished to work and revive his energies
in old-time joys. It was at this time that was born in him that
voluptuous love of the sea, which in later days could alone withdraw him
from the world, calm him, console him.

In 1870 he lived in the country, then he came to Paris to live; for, the
family fortunes having dwindled, he had to look for a position. For
several years he was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine, where he turned
over musty papers, in the uninteresting company of the clerks of the
admiralty.

Then he went into the department of Public Instruction, where
bureaucratic servility is less intolerable. The daily duties are
certainly scarcely more onerous and he had as chiefs, or colleagues,
Xavier Charmes and Leon Dierx, Henry Roujon and Rene Billotte, but his
office looked out on a beautiful melancholy garden with immense plane
trees around which black circles of crows gathered in winter.

Maupassant made two divisions of his spare hours, one for boating, and
the other for literature. Every evening in spring, every free day, he ran
down to the river whose mysterious current veiled in fog or sparkling in
the sun called to him and bewitched him. In the islands in the Seine
between Chatou and Port-Marly, on the banks of Sartrouville and Triel he
was long noted among the population of boatmen, who have now vanished,
for his unwearying biceps, his cynical gaiety of good-fellowship, his
unfailing practical jokes, his broad witticisms. Sometimes he would row
with frantic speed, free and joyous, through the glowing sunlight on the
stream; sometimes, he would wander along the coast, questioning the
sailors, chatting with the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at
full length amid the irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the
frail insects that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or
white butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow
leaves, or frogs asleep on the lily-pads.

The rest of his life was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming
despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry,
criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely submitted
his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his mother and
his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to assist the
young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make chefs-d'oeuvre
immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious research and to use
direct observation and who inculcated in him a horror of vulgarity and a
contempt for facility.

Maupassant himself tells us of those severe initiations in the Rue
Murillo, or in the tent at Croisset; he has recalled the implacable
didactics of his old master, his tender brutality, the paternal advice of
his generous and candid heart. For seven years Flaubert slashed,
pulverized, the awkward attempts of his pupil whose success remained
uncertain.

Suddenly, in a flight of spontaneous perfection, he wrote Boule de Suif.
His master's joy was great and overwhelming. He died two months later.

Until the end Maupassant remained illuminated by the reflection of the
good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the
dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of
Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither
work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, nor balmy nights.

At the end of his short life, while his mind was still clear: he wrote to
a friend: "I am always thinking of my poor Flaubert, and I say to myself
that I should like to die if I were sure that anyone would think of me in
the same manner."

During these long years of his novitiate Maupassant had entered the
social literary circles. He would remain silent, preoccupied; and if
anyone, astonished at his silence, asked him about his plans he answered
simply: "I am learning my trade." However, under the pseudonym of Guy de
Valmont, he had sent some articles to the newspapers, and, later, with
the approval and by the advice of Flaubert, he published, in the
"Republique des Lettres," poems signed by his name.

These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience of
love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
reveal the 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, henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness,"
had entered into eternal darkness.

He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium, where,
after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor" quietly
passed away.




BOULE DE SUIF

For several days in succession fragments of a defeated army had passed
through the town. They were mere disorganized bands, not disciplined
forces. The men wore long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they
advanced in listless fashion, without a flag, without a leader. All
seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching
onward merely by force of habit, and dropping to the ground with fatigue
the moment they halted. One saw, in particular, many enlisted men,
peaceful citizens, men who lived quietly on their income, bending beneath
the weight of their rifles; and little active volunteers, easily
frightened but full of enthusiasm, as eager to attack as they were ready
to take to flight; and amid these, a sprinkling of red-breeched soldiers,
the pitiful remnant of a division cut down in a great battle; somber
artillerymen, side by side with nondescript foot-soldiers; and, here and
there, the gleaming helmet of a heavy-footed dragoon who had difficulty
in keeping up with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the line. Legions
of irregulars with high-sounding names "Avengers of Defeat," "Citizens of
the Tomb," "Brethren in Death"--passed in their turn, looking like
banditti. Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants, or tallow or
soap chandlers--warriors by force of circumstances, officers by
reason of their mustachios or their money--covered with weapons,
flannel and gold lace, spoke in an impressive manner, discussed plans of
campaign, and behaved as though they alone bore the fortunes of dying
France on their braggart shoulders; though, in truth, they frequently
were afraid of their own men--scoundrels often brave beyond measure,
but pillagers and debauchees.

Rumor had it that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen.

The members of the National Guard, who for the past two months had been
reconnoitering with the utmost caution in the neighboring woods,
occasionally shooting their own sentinels, and making ready for fight
whenever a rabbit rustled in the undergrowth, had now returned to their
homes. Their arms, their uniforms, all the death-dealing paraphernalia
with which they had terrified all the milestones along the highroad for
eight miles round, had suddenly and marvellously disappeared.

The last of the French soldiers had just crossed the Seine on their way
to Pont-Audemer, through Saint-Sever and Bourg-Achard, and in their rear
the vanquished general, powerless to do aught with the forlorn remnants
of his army, himself dismayed at the final overthrow of a nation
accustomed to victory and disastrously beaten despite its legendary
bravery, walked between two orderlies.

Then a profound calm, a shuddering, silent dread, settled on the city.
Many a round-paunched citizen, emasculated by years devoted to business,
anxiously awaited the conquerors, trembling lest his roasting-jacks or
kitchen knives should be looked upon as weapons.

Life seemed to have stopped short; the shops were shut, the streets
deserted. Now and then an inhabitant, awed by the silence, glided swiftly
by in the shadow of the walls. The anguish of suspense made men even
desire the arrival of the enemy.

In the afternoon of the day following the departure of the French troops,
a number of uhlans, coming no one knew whence, passed rapidly through the
town. A little later on, a black mass descended St. Catherine's Hill,
while two other invading bodies appeared respectively on the Darnetal and
the Boisguillaume roads. The advance guards of the three corps arrived at
precisely the same moment at the Square of the Hotel de Ville, and the
German army poured through all the adjacent streets, its battalions
making the pavement ring with their firm, measured tread.

Orders shouted in an unknown, guttural tongue rose to the windows of the
seemingly dead, deserted houses; while behind the fast-closed shutters
eager eyes peered forth at the victors-masters now of the city, its
fortunes, and its lives, by "right of war." The inhabitants, in their
darkened rooms, were possessed by that terror which follows in the wake
of cataclysms, of deadly upheavals of the earth, against which all human
skill and strength are vain. For the same thing happens whenever the
established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists,
when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature
are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a
whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and engulfing in
its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead oxen
and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with glory,
murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the rest,
pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to the
thunder of cannon--all these are appalling scourges, which destroy
all belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught to
feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.

Small detachments of soldiers knocked at each door, and then disappeared
within the houses; for the vanquished saw they would have to be civil to
their conquerors.

At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm was
again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same table
with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness,
expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to take
part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude; besides, his
protection might be needful some day or other. By the exercise of tact
the number of men quartered in one's house might be reduced; and why
should one provoke the hostility of a person on whom one's whole welfare
depended? Such conduct would savor less of bravery than of
fool-hardiness. And foolhardiness is no longer a failing of the citizens
of Rouen as it was in the days when their city earned renown by its
heroic defenses. Last of all-final argument based on the national
politeness--the folk of Rouen said to one another that it was only
right to be civil in one's own house, provided there was no public
exhibition of familiarity with the foreigner. Out of doors, therefore,
citizen and soldier did not know each other; but in the house both
chatted freely, and each evening the German remained a little longer
warming himself at the hospitable hearth.

Even the town itself resumed by degrees its ordinary aspect. The French
seldom walked abroad, but the streets swarmed with Prussian soldiers.
Moreover, the officers of the Blue Hussars, who arrogantly dragged their
instruments of death along the pavements, seemed to hold the simple
townsmen in but little more contempt than did the French cavalry officers
who had drunk at the same cafes the year before.