Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

Volume Xiii.

OLD JUDAS

THE LITTLE CASK

BOITELLE

A WIDOW

THE ENGLISHMAN OF ETRETAT

MAGNETISM

A FATHER'S 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

ABANDONED

THE ACCURSED BREAD

AFTER

ALEXANDRE

OLD AMABLE

THE APPARITION

AN ARTIFICE

HIS AVENGER [ B ]

THE BARONESS

THE BEGGAR

BELHOMME'S BEAST

BERTHA

BESIDE SCHOPENHAUER'S CORPSE

THE BLIND MAN

BOITELLE

BOULE DE SUIF [ C ]

THE CHILD

THE CHRISTENING

CLAIR DE LUNE

CLOCHETTE

COCO

THE CORSICAN BANDIT

THAT COSTLY RIDE

A COUNTRY EXCURSION

A COUP D'ETAT

COWARD

A CREMATION

THE CRIPPLE [ D ]

DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET

DENIS

THE DEVIL

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE

THE DIARY OF A MADMAN

DISCOVERY

THE DISPENSER OF HOLY WATER

THE DONKEY

THE DOOR

THE DOWRY

DREAMS

THE DRUNKARD

A DUEL [ E ]

THE EFFEMINATES

THE ENGLISHMAN OF ETRETAT

EPIPHANY [ F ]

THE FALSE GEMS

A FAMILY

A FAMILY AFFAIR

FAREWELL!

THE STORY OF A FARM GIRL

THE FARMER'S WIFE

FASCINATION

THE FATHER

FATHER MATTHEW

FATHER MILON

A FATHER'S CONFESSION

THE FISHING HOLE

FORGIVENESS

FOUND ON A DROWNED MAN

FRIEND PATIENCE

TWO FRIENDS [ G ]

THE GAMEKEEPER

THE GRAVE [ H ]

THE HAND

THE HORRIBLE

A HUMBLE DRAMA [ I ]

THE IMPOLITE SEX

INDISCRETION

THE INN

IN THE SPRING [ J ]

FRIEND JOSEPH

OLD JUDAS

JULIE ROMAIN [ K ]

THE KISS [ L ]

THE LANCER'S WIFE

LASTING LOVE

THE LEGION OF HONOR

OUR LETTERS

LIEUTENANT LARE'S MARRIAGE

THE LITTLE CASK

TWO LITTLE SOLDIERS

THE LOG

LITTLE LOUISE ROQUE

THE LOVE OF LONG AGO [ M ]

MADAME BAPTISTE

MADAME HERMET

MADAME HUSSON'S “ROSIER”

MADAME PARISSE

MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE

MADEMOISELLE FIFI

MADEMOISELLE PEARL

THE MAGIC COUCH

MAGNETISM

THE MAISON TELLIER

THE MARQUIS DE FUMEROL

MARTINE

THE MASK

A MEETING

MINUET

MISS HARRIET

MISTI

THE MODEL

MOIRON

OLD MONGILET

MONSIEUR PARENT

LEGEND OF MONT ST. MICHEL

MOONLIGHT

THE MORIBUND

MOTHER AND SON

A MOTHER OF MONSTERS

MOTHER SAUVAGE

THE MOUNTAIN POOL

MY WIFE [ N ]

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT

A NORMANDY JOKE [ O ]

THE ORPHAN

ALL OVER [ P ]

A PARRICIDE

THE PARROT

THE PATRON

THE PENGUINS' ROCK

THE PIECE OF STRING

PIERROT

THAT PIG OF A MORIN

A PORTRAIT

THE PRISONERS [ Q ]

QUEEN HORTENSE

A QUEER NIGHT IN PARIS

THE QUESTION OF LATIN [ R ]

THE RABBIT

A RECOLLECTION

REGRET

THE RELIC

ON THE RIVER

THE RONDOLI SISTERS

ROSALIE PRUDENT

ROSE [ S ]

SAINT ANTHONY

A SALE

AT SEA

SIMON'S PAPA

A SISTER'S CONFESSION

THE SNIPE

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

THE SON

THE SPASM

A STROLL

SUICIDES

SUNDAYS OF A BOURGEOIS [ T ]

“THE TERROR”

THE TEST

THE ADOPTED SON

THE COLONEL'S IDEAS

THE MUSTACHE

THEODULE SABOT'S CONFESSION

THE THIEF

TIMBUCTOO

TOINE

TOMBSTONES

A TRESS OF HAIR

THE TRIP OF LE HORLA

MY TWENTY-FIVE DAYS [ U ]

THE UMBRELLA

MY UNCLE JULES

MY UNCLE SOSTHENES

AN UNCOMFORTABLE BED

THE UNKNOWN

USELESS BEAUTY [ V ]

A VAGABOND

A VENDETTA [ W ]

WAITER, A “BOCK”

WALTER SCHNAFFS' ADVENTURE

THE WARDROBE

A WEDDING GIFT

A WIDOW

THE WILL

THE WOLF

IN THE WOOD

THE WRECK

THE WRONG HOUSE [ Y ]

YVETTE SAMORIS

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.

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