Guy de Maupassant

In the winter of 1916 I found _myself in St Petersburg with a

forged passport and without a copeck. I was given shelter by
a teacher of Russian philology,* Aleksey Kazantsev.

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He lived in Peski,-: in a frozen, yellow, foul-snielling street.

In order to eke out his meagre salary he did translations from
Spanish; Blasco Ibanez* was becoming famous at that time.
. Kazantsev had never been in Spain, even passing through,
but a love for that country filled his being - he knew every
castle, garden and river in Spain. In addition to myself there
pressed close to Kazantsev a large number of people who had
been kicked out of the regular pattern of life. We lived in
want. Now and .again the gutter newspapers printed, in small
type, our notes on current events.
In the mornings I lounged about the morgues and the
police stations. •
Happier than any of us, however, was Kazantsev. He had a
motherland - Spain._
In November I was offered the post of clerk at the Obukhov
steelworks, not a bad job, which carried with it exemption
from military service.
I declined to become a clerk.
Even at that time- twenty years old- I said to myself: better
to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an
office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this
vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of
my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of
work, fighting, love, we are born for that and for nothing else.
As he listened to my lectures, Kazantsev ruffied the short
yellow down on his head. The horror in his gaze was intermin-
gled with admiration.
At Christmas fortune smiled on us. The barrister Bendersky,
owner of the Halcyon publishing house, planned to bring out
a new edition of the works of Maupassa~t. Raisa, the barris-
ter's wife, underto"ok the translation. But nothing had yet
come of the grand venture.
Kazantsev, who translated from Spanish, was asked if he
knew anyone who could help Raisa Mikhaylovna. Kazantsev
suggested me.

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 GUY DE MAUPASSANT

The following day, wearing a jacket that belonged to

someone else, I set off for the Benderskys'. They lived on the
comer of Nevsky and the Moyka, in a house that had been
built from Finnish granite and decorated with pink columns,
embrasures and stone coats of arms. Bankers without family
or breeding, converts to the Christian faith who had got rich
in the supply business, they had built a large number of these
vulgar, pseudo-majestic castles in St Petersburg before the
war.
A red carpet ran up the staircase. On the landings, raised on
their hind legs, stood plush velvet bears.
In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps.
The Benderskys' lived on the third floor. A_chambermaid
with a head-dress and high breasts opened the door. She led
me into a drawing-room that was de~orated in ancient Sla-
vonic style. On the walls hung blue paintings by Roerich * -
prehistoric stones and n:ionsters. About the comers - on the
china cupboards - ancient icons were arranged. The chamber-
• maid with the high breasts moved majestically about the
room. She was shapely, myopic, haughty. "In her grey, wide-
open eyes there was a hardened licentiousness. The girl moved
slowly. I reflected that in love-making she must twist and
-tum with violent swiftness. The brocade curtain that hung
above the door began to sway. A black-haired woman with
pink eyes and a large bosom came into the drawing-room. It
did not take much time to recognize in Benderskaya the
ravishing type of Jewess that comes from Kiev and Poltava,
from the replete towns of the steppes, planted with chestnuts
and acacias. These women let their resourceful husbands'
money overflow into the rosy fat on their bellies, the backs of
• their necks, their round shoulders. Their sleepy, delicately
ironic smiles drive the garrison officers out of their minds. -
'Maupassant is the only passion of my life,' Raisa said to
me.
Trying to restrain the swaying of her large hips, she went

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out of the room and returned with a translation of 'Miss

Harriet'. In her translation there remained not even a vestige
of Maupassant's phrasing - free, flowing, with the long
breathing of passion. Benderskaya wrote with wearisome
correctness, lifelessly and casually - the way Jews used to
write the Russian language in earlier days.
I took the manuscript home with me, and there, in Kazant-
sev's attic - among the sleepers - cut clearings in someone
else's translation. This is not such unpleasant work as it might
seem. A phrase is born into the world good and bad at the
same time. The secret rests in a barely perceptible turn. The
lever must lie in one's hand and get warm. It must be turned
once, and no more.
In the morning I took back the ~orrected manuscript. Raisa
had not been lying when she had spoken of her passion for
Maupassant. She sat immobile during the reading, her hands ~
clasped: those satin hands flowed to the floor, her forehead
was pale, the lace between her downwards-crµshed breasts
moved aside and trembled.
'How did you do it?'
Then I began to speak of style, of the army _of words, an
army in which all kinds of weapons are on the move. No iron
can enter the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at
the right time. She listened, her head inclined, her painted lips
siightly open. A black gleam shone in her lacquered hair,
smoothly drawn back and divided by a parting. · Her legs,
with strong, soft calves, in shiny stockings, were placed apart
over the carpet.
The <;hambermaid, turning her hardened, licentious eyes
away to the side, brought in breakfast on a tray.
A glassy St Petersburg sun lay on the faded, uneven carpet.
Twenty-nine books by Maupassant stood above the table on a
little shelf. With melting fingers the sun touched the morocco
leather bindings of the books - the beautiful tomb of a
human heart.

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 GUY DE MAUPASSANT

We were served coffee in small blue cups and we began to ,

translate 'Idyll'. Everyone recalls the story of how the hungry \
young carpenter sucks the overflowing milk of. the fat wet-
nurse. It happens on a train going from Nice to Marseilles,
one intensely hot midday in the land of roses, the motherland
of roses, there, where plantations of flowers descend to the
shore of the sea ...
I left the Benderskys' with a twenty-five rouble advance.
That evening our commune at Peski was_as drunk as a flock
of intoxicated geese. We scooped up the unpressed caviar in
spoons and followed it •down with liver sausage. Tight, I
began to rail against Tolstoy.
'He got frightened, your count, he got cold feet .... His
religion is fear . . . Frightened by cold, old age, death, the
count made himself a woolly jumper out of faith ... '
'Go on,' Kazantsev kept saying, shaking his bird-like head. ,,.-
We fell as]eep beside our own beds. I dreamed about
Katya, _the forty-year-old washerwoman who lived below us.
In the mornings we got boiling water from her. I had never
even seen her face clearly, but in my dream Katya and I did
God only knows what. We exhausted each other with kisses.
I could not restrain myself from go_ing to ask her for boiling
water the following morning.
• I was met by a fad~d, shawl-crossed woman with loosened
ash-grey curls and damp hands.
From that day on I had breakfast at the Benderskys' every
morning. Our attic acquired a new stove, herring, chocolate.
Twice Raisa drove me out to the islands in her carriage. I lost
my inhibitions and told her about my childhood._The story ·
sounded dismal, to my own surprise. From under the moleskin
cap, shining, frightened eyes looked at me. The reddish fur of ·
their eyelashes quiverecl dolefully.
I made the acquaintance of Raisa's husband - a sallow-
faced Jew with a bald head and a flat, strong body that was
turned slantwise for the purpose of flight. Rumour had it that

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he was cl9se to Rasputin. The profits he made out of the

military supply business had given him the look of a man
possessed. His eyes wandered, the fabric of reality had broken
for him. Raisa was embarrassed when introducing new people
to her husband. Because of my youth I noticed this a week
later than I should have done.
After New Year Raisa had a visit from her two sisters in
Kiev. One day I brought the mansucript of 'The Confession'
and, not finding Raisa at home, came back again in the
evening. Dinner was in progress in the dining-room. From
there came the silvery neighing of mares and the boom of
men's voices, outrageously exultant. In wealthy houses that
have no traditions, dinner · is a noisy affair. It was a Jewish
noise, with thunderous peals and melodious endings. Raisa
came out to me wearing a ball gown .with a bare back. Her
feet, in unsteady little patent-leather shoes, stepped awk-
wardly. -
'I'm drunk, darling' - and she stretched out to me arms that
were covered with platinum chains and emerald stars. Her body
swayed like the body of a snake rising to~ards the ceiling to the
accompaniment of music. She shook her frizzled hair, jangled
her rings, and suddenly fell into an armchair- with ancient
Russian carving. On her powdered back smouldered scars.
. Through the wall -there was another explosion of female
laughter. From the dining-room emerged the sisters with
their little moustaches, just as strapping and full-busted as
Raisa. - Their busts were pushed · forward, their black hair
flowed loose. Both were married to Benderskys of their own.
Incoherent female gaiety -filled the room,' the gaiety of mature
women. The husbands wrapped the sisters in sealskin mantles,
in Orenburg •shawls, shod them in little black ove~shoes;
beneath the snowy visors of their shawls remained only
rouged and burning cheeks, marble noses and eyes with a
myopic, semitic sheen. After a bit of noise they left for the
theatre; wher~ Chaliapin was singing in]udith.*
 GUY DE MAUPASSANT

'I want to work,' Raisa babbled, stretching out her bare

arms, 'we have lost a whole week ... '
From the dining-room she brought a bottle and two wine-
glasses. Her breasts moved freely in the loose silk of her
gown, the nipples erect ~nder the silk.
'A sacred vintage,' said Raisa, as she poured out the wine,
'Muscadet '83, my husband. will murder me when he finds
out ... '
I had never had any dealings with Muscadet '83 before and
had no hesitation in drinking down three glasses, one after the
other. They at once carried _me off to side-lanes where orange
flame wafted and music was heard.
'I'm drunk, darling ... What are we working on today ... '
f'Today it's "L'aveu".'
'So, "The Confession", then. The sun is the hero _of this
story, le soleil de France. Melted drops of sun, falling ori the
red-haired Celeste, were turned into freckles. The sun polished
with its vertical rays, wine and apple cider, the phiz of the
coachman Polyte. Twice a week Celeste took cream, eggs
and chickens to sell in the town. For fare she paid Polyte ten
. sous for herself and four sous for the basket. And · on each
journey Polyte, winking, would •ask the red-haired Celeste:
'But when are we going to have a bit of fun, ma belle?'
'"What is your meaning, Monsieur Polyte?"
'As he bobbed up and down on the driver's seat, the
coachman explained: "To have a bit of fun means to have a
bit of fun, the devil take me . . . A lad and a girl - and no
music • nee ded .... "
'"I do not like such jokes~ Monsieur Polyte," replied Celeste,
moving away from the lad with her skirts that hung over her
mighty calves in their red stockings.
'But that devil Polyte kept . roaring with laughter, and
coughing - "One day we shall have a bit of fun, ma belle," -
and tears of merriment rolled down his face, which was the
colour of brick-blood and wine.'

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 'AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL' STORIES

I drank down another glass of the sacred M uscadet. Raisa

clinked glasses with me.
The chambermaid with the hard eyes walked through the
room and disappeared.
'Ce diable de Polyte ... In two years Celeste had paid him
forty-eight francs. That was two francs short of fifty. At the
end of the second year, when they were alone in the coach
and Polyte, who had had a few ciders before leaving, asked,
as was his wont, ." Aren't we going to have a bit of fun,
Mademoiselle Celeste?" - she replied, lowering her eyes, "I
am at your service, Monsieur Polyte ... "'
Raisa collapsed on to the table with a roar of laughter. Ce
diable de Polyte ~ . . .
'The coach was harnessed to a white nag. The white nag,
its mouth pink with age, went slowly. The merry sunlight
of France surrounded the large coach that was shut off from
the world by a rusty , hood. A lad and a girl need no
music • . -.. '
Raisa handed me a glass. This was my fifth.
'Mon vieux, to Maupassant ... ' •
'Aren't we going have a bit of fun today,-. ma belle ... : I
stretched over to Raisa and kissed her-on-the lips. They began
to tremble and swell.·
'You're a funny one,~ Raisa muttered through her teeth,
staggering backwards. She pressed herself against the wall,
spreading her exposed arms. On her -hands and shoulder spots
began to burn. Of all the gods ever crucified on a cross, ·this
was the most seductive. ' r •
'Please sit down, Monsieur P~lyte.'
She directed me to a sloping blue armchair made in Slavonic
style. Its back was of carved wood with a design of interlaced
tails. I niade my way to it, stumbling. . - •
The night had placed under my hungry youth a bottle of
Muscadet '83 ·and twenty-nine ·books, twenty-nine petards
filled with pity, genius, passion ... I leapt up, knocked over
 GUY DE MAUPASSANT

the chair, bumped into the shelf. The twenty-nine volumes

came crashing to the carpet, their pages flew asunder, they
stood on their sides . .. and the white nag of my fate moved
slowly on.
'You're a funny one,' Raisa growled.-
I left the granite house on the Moyka before midnight,
-
when the sisters and husband would return from the theatre. I
was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it
was much better to stagger, and I swayed from side to side,
singing loudly in a language I had .only just invented. Down
the tunnels of the streets, lined by a chain of street lamps, in
waves, passed the vapour_s of the fog. Monsters roared behind
seething walls. The wooden pavements cut off the legs of
those who walked on them.
At home, Kazantsev was asleep. He slept sitting up, his thin
legs stretched out in their felt boots. The canary fluff was
standing up on his head. He had fallen asleep by the stove,
leaning over Don Quixote in an edition of 1624. On the title
page of this book there was a dedication to the Due de
Broglio. I got into bed silently, so as not to wake Kazantsev,
moved the lamp towards me and began to read a book by
Edouard de Maynial - LA Vie et I' oeuvre de Guy de
Maupassant.•
Kazantsev's lips were moving, his head kept slumping
down.
And that night I discovered from Edouard de Maynial that
Maupassant was born in 1850 to a Normandy nobleman and
Laure Lepoitevin, Flaubert's cousin. At the age of twenty-five
he experienced his first attack of hereditary syphilis. With his
energy and high spirits he tried to put up a fight against the
disease. At first he suffered from headaches and fits of hypo-
chondria. Then the spectre of blindness arose before him. His
eyesight deteriorated. He became paranoic, unsociable, liti-
gious. He struggled fiercely, tossed about the Mediterranean
in a yacht, fled to Tunis, to Morocco, to central Africa - and

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wrote incessantly. Having achieved fame, in his fortieth year

he cut his throat and nearly bled to death. He was locked up
in a lunatic asylum. There he crawled about on all fours and
ate his own excrement. The last entry in his medical report
reads: 'Monsieur de Maupassant va s'animaliser'. He died at the
age of forty-two. His mother outlived him. .
I read the book to its end and got out of bed. The fog had
come up _to the window, obscuring the universe. My heart
was constricted. 1 was brushed by a foreboding of truth. •