Following the example of one of his comrades of Médan, 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.

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 and
literature depreciated, and seeing him preoccupied with boating, and
listening to his own accounts of love affairs which he did not always
carry on in the highest class, many ended by seeing in him one of
those terrible Normans who, all through his novels and stories,
carouse and commit social crimes with such commanding assurance and
such calm unmorality.

He was undoubtedly a Norman, and, according to those who knew him
best, many of his traits of character show that atavism is not always
an idle word....

To identify Maupassant with his characters is a gross error, but is
not without precedent. We always like to trace the author in the hero
of a romance, and to seek the actor beneath the disguise. No doubt, as
Taine has said, "the works of an intelligence have not the
intelligence alone for father and mother, but the whole personality of
the man helps to produce them...."

That is why Maupassant himself says to us, "No, I have not the soul of
a decadent, I cannot look within myself, and the effort I make to
understand unknown souls is incessant, involuntary and dominant. It is
not an effort; I experience a sort of overpowering sense of insight
into all that surrounds me. I am impregnated with it, I yield to it, I
submerge myself in these surrounding influences."

That is, properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists.
Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or
Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand,
is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his
vices and his virtues. He so incorporates himself in him that the
author disappears, and we ask ourselves in vain what his own opinion
is of what he has just told us.