Mademoiselle Fifi
Recollections of Guy de Maupassant by His Valet by François Tassart Essays on Maupassant:
Guy de Maupassant by Joseph Conrad
Guy de Maupassant by Henry James
Guy de Maupassant: A Study by P. Neveux
A Note on Maupassant by Brander Matthews
Introduction to the Works of Guy de Maupassant by Leo Tolstoy
It was, I think, in 1881 that Turgénev while visiting me took out of his portmanteau a small French book entitled La Maison Tellier, and gave it to me.
“Read it some time,” said he in an off-hand way just as, a year before, he had given me a number of Russian Wealth that contained an article by Garshin, who was then only beginning to write. Evidently on this occasion, as in Garshin’s case, he was afraid of influencing me one way or the other and wished to know my own unbiassed opinion.
“It is by a young French writer,” said he. “Have a look at it. It isn’t bad. He knows you and appreciates you highly,” he added as if wishing to propitiate me. “As a man he reminds me of Druzhinin. He is, like Druzhmin, an excellent son, an admirable friend, un homme d’un commerce sûr, and, besides that, he associates with the working people, guides them, and helps them. Even in his relations with women he reminds me of Druzhinin.” And Turgénev told me something astonishing, incredible, of Maupassant’s conduct in that respect.
That time (1881) was for me a period of most ardent inner reconstruction of my whole outlook on life, and in this reconstruction the activity called the fine arts, to which I had formerly devoted all my powers, had not only lost the importance I formerly attributed to it, but had become simply obnoxious to me on account of the unnatural position it had hitherto occupied in my life, as it does generally in the estimation of the people of the well-to-do classes.
And therefore such works as the one Turgénev was recommending to me did not then interest me in the least. But to please him I read the book he had handed me.
From the first story, La Maison Tellier, despite the indecency and insignificance of the subject of the story, I could not help recognizing that the author had what is called talent.
He possessed that particular gift called talent, which consists in the capacity to direct intense concentrated attention according to the author’s tastes on this or that subject, in consequence of which the man endowed with this capacity sees in the things to which he directs his attention some new aspect which others have overlooked; and this gift of seeing what others have not seen Maupassant evidently possessed. But judging by the little volume I read, he unfortunately lacked the chief of the three conditions, besides talent, essential to a true work of art. These are: (1) a correct, that is, a moral relation of the author to his subject; (2) clearness of expression, or beauty of form, — the two are identical; and (3) sincerity, that is, a sincere feeling of love or hatred of what the artist depicts. Of these three, Maupassant possessed only the two last and was quite lacking in the first. He had not a correct, that is a moral, relation to the subjects depicted.
Judging by what I read I was convinced that Maupassant possessed talent, that is to say, the gift of attention revealing in the objects and facts of life with which he deals qualities others have not perceived. He was also master of a beautiful style, expressing what he wanted to say clearly, simply, and with charm. He was also master of that condition of true artistic production without which a work of art does not produce its effect, namely, sincerity; that is, he did not pretend that he loved or hated, but really loved or hated what he described. But unfortunately lacking the first and perhaps the chief condition of worthy artistic production, a correct moral relation to what he described — that is to say, a knowledge of the difference between good and evil — he loved and described things that should not have been loved and described. Thus, in this little volume, the author described with great detail and fondness how women seduce men, and men women; and in La femme de Paul he even describes certain obscenities
