If Maupassant never became the slave of worldly ideas, the creature of
instinct that was part of his being acquired the refined tastes of the
salons, and the manners of the highest civilization.
The novelist lived for some time in these enchanted and artificial
surroundings, when, suddenly, his malady became aggravated. He was
tortured by neuralgia, and by new mysterious darting pains. His
suffering was so great that he longed to scream. At the same time, his
unhappy heart became softened and he became singularly emotional. His
early faculties were intensified and refined, and in the overtension
of his nerves through suffering his perceptions broadened, and he
gained new ideas of things. This nobler personality Maupassant owes to
those sufferings dear to great souls of whom Daudet speaks. This is
what he says:
"If I could ever tell all, I should utter all the unexplored,
repressed and sad thoughts that I feel in the depths of my being. I
feel them swelling and poisoning me as bile does some people. But if I
could one day give them utterance they would perhaps evaporate, and I
might no longer have anything but a light, joyful heart. Who can say?
Thinking becomes an abominable torture when the brain is an open
wound. I have so many wounds in my head that my ideas cannot stir
without making me long to cry out. Why is it? Why is it? Dumas would
say that my stomach is out of order. I believe, rather, that I have a
poor, proud, shameful heart, that old human heart that people laugh
at, but which is touched, and causes me suffering, and in my head as
well; I have the mind of the Latin race, which is very worn out. And,
again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just
the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I
do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think.
Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men
in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical
because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide
yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it hides itself."
This describes, in spite of reservation, the struggle between two
conflicting minds, that of yesterday, and that of to-day. But this
sensitiveness that Maupassant seeks to hide, is plain to all
clear-seeing people.
He soon begins to be filled with regrets and forebodings. He has a
desire to look into the unknown, and to search for the inexplicable.
He feels in himself that something is undergoing destruction; he is at
times haunted by the idea of a double. He divines that his malady is
on guard, ready to pounce on him. He seeks to escape it, but on the
mountains, as beside the sea, nature, formerly his refuge, now
terrifies him.
Then his heart expands. All the sentiments that he once reviled, he
now desires to experience. He now exalts in his books the passion of
love, the passion of sacrifice, the passion of suffering; he extols
self-sacrifice, devotion, the irresistible joy of ever giving oneself
up more and more. The hour is late, the night is at hand; weary of
suffering any longer, he hurriedly begs for tenderness and
remembrance.
Occasionally, the Maupassant of former days protests against the
bondage of his new personality; he complains that he no longer feels
absolutely as formerly that he has no contact with anything in the
world, that sweet, strong sensation that gives one strength. "How
sensible I was," he says, "to wall myself round with indifference! If
one did not feel, but only understand, without giving fragments of
oneself to other beings! ... It is strange to suffer from the
emptiness, the nothingness, of this life, when one is resigned, as I
am, to nothingness. But, there, I cannot live without recollections,
and recollections sadden me. I can have no hope, I know, but I feel
obscurely and unceasingly the harm of this statement, and the regret
that it should be so. And the attachments that I have in life act on
my sensibility, which is too human, and not literary enough."
Maupassant's pity now takes a pathetic turn. He no longer despises,
but holds out his hand to those unfortunates who, like himself, are
tormented on the pathway without hope. The tears that he sees flow
make him sad, and his heart bleeds at all the wounds he discovers. He
does not inquire into the quality or origin of the misfortune. He
sympathizes with all suffering; physical suffering, moral suffering,
the suffering caused by treachery, the bitter twilight of wasted
lives....
His mind has also become active. He desires to dabble in science. One
day he studies the Arab mystics, Oriental legends, and the next, he
studies the marine fauna, etc. His perceptions have never been so
clear. His brain is in continual activity. "It is strange," he
acknowledges, "what a different man I am becoming mentally from what I
was formerly. I can see it as I watch myself thinking, discovering,
and developing stories, weighing and analyzing the imaginary beings
that float through my imagination. I take the same enjoyment in
certain dreams, certain exaltations of mind, as I formerly took in
rowing like mad in the sunlight."
For the first time, his assurance as a writer wavers. As his last
volumes show, he is endeavoring to transform, to renew himself. He
acquires a desire to learn the secrets of obscure and precious hearts,
to visit unknown races. He has lost his magnificent serenity....