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.