| CONTENTS | |
| PAGE | |
| Introduction | [x] |
| Boule de Suif | [1] |
| Miss Harriet | [54] |
| Francesca and Carlotta Rondoli | [82] |
| Châli | [117] |
| The Umbrella | [131] |
| My Uncle Sosthenes | [143] |
| He? | [152] |
| A Philosopher | [162] |
| Always Lock the Door! | [171] |
| A Meeting | [179] |
| The Little Cask | [190] |
| How He Got the Legion of Honor | [198] |
| The Accursed Bread | [206] |
| What was Really the Matter with Andrew | [213] |
| My Landlady | [221] |
| The Horla, or Modern Ghosts | [228] |
| Love. Three Pages from a Sportsman's Book | [262] |
| The Hole | [270] |
| Saved | [279] |
| Bellflower | [286] |
| The Marquis de Fumerol | [293] |
| The Signal | [303] |
| The Devil | [311] |
| Epiphany | [321] |
| In the Wood | [336] |
| A Family | [343] |
| Joseph | [350] |
| The Inn | [358] |
| Ugly | [376] |
WORKS OF
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
[INTRODUCTION]
BY
ARTHUR SYMONS
The first aim of art, no doubt, is the representation of things as they are. But then things are as our eyes see them and as our minds make them; and it is thus of primary importance for the critic to distinguish the precise qualities of the eyes and minds which make the world into imaginative literature. Reality may be so definite and so false, just as it may be so fantastic and so true; and, among work which we can apprehend as dealing justly with reality, there may be quite as much difference in all that constitutes outward form and likeness as there is between a Dutch interior by Peter van der Hooch, the portrait of a king by Velasquez, and the image of a woman smiling by Leonardo da Vinci. The soul, for instance, is at heart as real as the body; but, as we can hear it only through the body speaking, and see it only through bodily eyes, and measure it, often enough, only in the insignificant moment of its action, it may come to seem to us, at all events less realizable; and thus it is that we speak of those who have vividly painted exterior things as realists. Properly speaking, Maupassant is no more a realist than Maeterlinck. He paints a kind of reality which it is easier for us to recognize; that is all.