Men have in general never lived without an explanation of the meaning of the life they live. Everywhere and at all times there have appeared advanced, highly gifted men, prophets, as they are called, who have explained to men this meaning and significance of life, and at all times the men of the rank and file, who have no strength to make this meaning clear to themselves, have followed that explanation of life which their prophets revealed to them.
This meaning was eighteen hundred years ago simply, lucidly, indubitably, and joyously explained by Christianity, as is proved by the life of all those who have accepted this meaning and follow that guide of life which follows from this meaning.
But there appeared men who interpreted this meaning in such a way that it became nonsense. And people are in a dilemma,—whether to recognize Christianity, as it is interpreted by Catholicism, Lourdes, the Pope, the dogma of the seedless conception, and so forth, or to live on, being guided by the instructions of Renan and his like, that is, to live without any guidance and comprehension of life, surrendering themselves to their lusts, so long as they are strong, and to their habits, when the passions have subsided.
And the people, the people of the rank and file, choose one or the other, sometimes both, at first libertinism, and then Catholicism. And people continue to live thus for generations, shielding themselves with different theories, which are not invented in order to find out the truth, but in order to conceal it. And the people of the rank and file, especially the dull ones among them, feel at ease.
But there are also other people,—there are but a few of them and they are far between,—and such was Maupassant, who with their own eyes see things as they are, see their meaning, see the contradictions of life, which are hidden from others, and vividly present to themselves that to which these contradictions must inevitably lead them, and seek for their solutions in advance. They seek for them everywhere except where they are to be found, in Christianity, because Christianity seems to them to have outlived its usefulness, to be obsolete and foolish and repellent by its monstrosity. Trying in vain to arrive by themselves at these solutions, they come to the conclusion that there are no solutions, that the property of life consists in carrying within oneself these unsolved contradictions. Having arrived at such a solution, these people, if they are weak, unenergetic natures, make their peace with such a senseless life, are even proud of their condition, considering their lack of knowledge to be a desert, a sign of culture; but if they are energetic, truthful, and talented natures, such as was Maupassant, they cannot bear it and in one way or another go out of this insipid life.
It is as though thirsty people in the desert should be looking everywhere for water, except near those men who, standing near a spring, pollute it and offer ill-smelling mud instead of water, which still keeps on flowing farther down, below the mud. Maupassant was in that position; he could not believe,—it even never occurred to him that the truth which he was seeking had been discovered long ago and was near him; nor could he believe that it was possible for a man to live in a contradiction such as he felt himself to be living in.
Life, according to those theories in which he was brought up, which surrounded him, and which were verified by all the passions of his youthful and spiritually and physically strong being, consists in enjoyment, chief of which is woman and the love of her, and in the doubly reflected enjoyment,—in the representation of this love and the excitation of this love in others. All that would be very well, but, as we look closely at these enjoyments, we see amidst them appear phenomena which are quite alien and hostile to this love and this beauty: woman for some reason grows homely, looks horrid in her pregnancy, bears a child in nastiness, then more children, unwished-for children, then deceptions, cruelties, then moral sufferings, then simply old age, and finally death.
And then, is this beauty really beauty? And then, what is it all for? It would be nice, if it were possible to arrest life. But it goes on. What does it mean,—life goes on? Life goes on, means,—the hair falls out and grows gray, the teeth decay, there appear wrinkles, and there is an odour in the mouth. Even before everything ends, everything becomes terrible and disgusting: you perceive the pasty paint and powder, the sweat, the stench, the homeliness. Where is that which I served? Where is beauty? And it is all. If it is not,—there is nothing. There is no life.
Not only is there no life in what seemed to have life, but you, too, begin to get away from it, to grow feeble, to look homely, to decay, while others before your very eyes seize from you those pleasures in which was the whole good of life. More than that: there begins to glint the possibility of another life, something else, some other union of men with the whole world, such as excludes all those deceptions, something else, something that cannot be impaired by anything, that is true and always beautiful. But that cannot be,—it is only the provoking sight of an oasis, when we know that it is not there and that everything is sand.