Bel-Ami (Oxford World's Classics)

by Guy de Maupassant

  The supreme irony of this modulation of our sympathies is that we therefore become as gullible as Mme Walter, as effectively stripped of her moral scruples as of her respectable clothes. She is seen prostrate and suspending her disbelief before the Marcowitch painting, unable to distinguish between reality and artistic representation, confusing the Son of God invoked in church (p. 289) and the Son of God located in the frame (p. 247) (the original French here, L’Homme-Dieu, better catches the convertibility of the human and the divine). As she is taken in by Duroy’s ‘banal music of love’ (p. 199), so, by analogy, we may justifiably ask to what extent this corresponds to the reader’s confrontation with Bel-Ami itself, so often considered an exemplary Naturalist text in its detailed and utterly prosaic recording of ‘la vie française’ epitomized by its fictional newspaper.

  Whether such a definition is adequate is open to debate. For by involving us in the overlaid paradox that this construction of the ‘Illusionist’ both demystifies and confirms the illusions of experience, Maupassant certainly seems to enlarge the critical questions posed by his novel. And its moments of self-questioning tell us much about the nature of his achievement. Of Duroy we are told, for example, that ‘as he found it extremely difficult to come up with ideas, he made it his speciality to rail against moral decline, a new weakness of character, the demise of patriotism, and the anaemia affecting the French sense of honour’ (p. 129). As well as caricaturing a certain kind of journalism, here Maupassant alerts us to the fact that his own writing is not just that sort of facile polemic, and yet runs the risk of being no more than that in its similar castigations. Duroy’s satirical pleasure is his own: ‘He found this a highly amusing game, revelling in the excitement of, and somehow consoled by, the sense of putting on record the eternal and deep-seated infamy of man underlying outwardly respectable appearances’ (p. 108). Alongside the recognition of hypocritical self-indulgence, however, there is Norbert de Varenne’s ‘behind everything you look at, what you see is death’ (p. 104). In the ‘mirror of my mind’, mentioned earlier, Maupassant is uneasily situated behind the authority of the eccentric poet and the partial self-portrait offered by Duroy. That unease will receive its fullest examination in L’Inutile Beauté (1890), in which art is conceived as both the free-play of the imagination momentarily transcending deterministic forces, and yet ultimately as insubstantial as other human activities. Such an ambivalence towards his own writing, alternately asserted as a raison d’être and cynically dismissed as a way of earning a living, is undoubtedly registered in Bel-Ami. Norbert’s lines are more instructive than they might seem:

  In the sombre void, to this dark mystery

  Where floats a pallid star, I seek the verbal key.

  (p. 107)

  As the last words translate his je cherche le mot, they suggest the extent to which Maupassant is himself looking for a form in which to express the poet’s intuitions: ‘Oh! “Death”. I know you don’t even understand the word!’ (le mot, p. 105). And Norbert’s presence in the text, inserted as authorial spokesman, may testify to the uncertainty of Maupassant’s achievement, to a fundamental lack of confidence, on his own part, that ‘the real meaning of the work’ will be understood by readers whose illusions will simply be confirmed in the mirror of Duroy’s triumphant progress.

  The distinctive quality of Maupassant’s vision lies in the way Bel-Ami’s mirrors simultaneously effect a process of estrangement. For, as his self-appraisal is not synonymous with an undifferentiated self-reflection, that vision is the measure of the originality of the novelist’s recognizably realist text which is not simply an identical copy of the particular reality it seems to transcribe. Duroy is himself disorientated by optical illusions: he mistakes his image for ‘a gentleman in full evening dress’ coming towards him (p. 17); entering another social world, ‘at first he set off in the wrong direction, for the mirror had deceived him’ (p. 91); and he misjudges heights: ‘a seat onto which … he dropped heavily, imagining it to be much higher than it was’ (pp. 91–2); but there is no mistaking the ‘slight moral disquiet’ occasioned by an optical re-adjustment (p. 99) and the significance of Mme Walter instinctively looking in the mirror ‘as if to see whether she herself looked any different’, given her impossibly altered situation (p. 275). In the same way, it can be argued, the reader finds in Bel-Ami an alienated version of himself, inviting him, as Norbert puts it, to ‘see life differently’ (p. 106).

  The Marcowitch painting, too, is deceptive. Beneath the ‘apparent simplicity’ of its traditional subject, however, its composition brings together many of the significant details which underlie the novel’s own. Thus, for example, the metaphorical infrastructure of Bel-Ami’s final chapter, with its ‘sound of the distant sea’ (p. 286) of the crowd and the waves of sound filling the church, is anticipated in the pictorial representation of Jesus Walking on the Water; what distinguishes it is the darkness surrounding the central figure and the vastness of the firmament, both integral to Norbert’s poetic formulations of the insignificance of human activities (in a godless world) and Maupassant’s pervasive relativization of fame and fortune. The fictional painting itself ‘looked like a black hole surrounded by a fantastic, stunning background’ (p. 247) thematically consistent with the recurrent focus, throughout the novel, on such emptiness; and the Folies-Bergère scene, with its performer ‘motionless … in the void’ (p. 13) is recalled in the ‘man standing, motionless, on the sea’ (p. 247). Above all, the impact of the painting derives from its theatrical lighting and the admiring gaze of the apostles, their faces ‘overcome with astonishment’ (p. 248). For Mme Walter, ‘by the flickering light of the single candle illuminating him dimly from below, he looked so very like Bel-Ami that it was no longer God, but her lover who was gazing at her’ (p. 278). And her illusions, as has been suggested, are potentially our own.

  Her unthinking involvement can be contrasted with Maupassant’s nostalgic evocation, in an essay exactly contemporary to the preparation of Bel-Ami, of an eighteenth-century reading-public appreciative of a writer’s secretive procedures: ‘It sought the underlying and inner meaning of words, delved into what the author was trying to say, read slowly so as not to miss a detail, and then, having understood a sentence, went back to discover whether there was more to it than might appear.’ The cautionary ‘you had to look closely, in order to understand’ (p. 247), as far as the Marcowitch painting is concerned, has to be read in this wider context. For as Maupassant repeatedly stresses, the novelist’s aim ‘is not to tell us a story, to entertain us, or to appeal to our emotions, but rather to force us to think, and to understand the hidden and profound meaning of events’. And this necessitates both involvement in, and abstraction from, a recognizable fictional reality, neither exclusively symbolic, nor simply as anecdotal as Duroy’s journalistic constructions which cater for the gullible. Mme Walter’s suspension of disbelief leaves her, literally, unconscious. But there are more perceptive responses to the great work of art she confuses with life. ‘How frightened these men are, and how they love him! Just look at his head, at his eyes, how he seems both simple and supernatural at the same time!’ (p. 256). As adoring identification and fearful estrangement may be elicited in the complicitous mirrors held up to its hero, so, applied to the novel as a whole, that ‘simple and supernatural at the same time’ encourages the reader to see illustrated in Bel-Ami what is considered the most succinct statement of Maupassant’s aesthetic: ‘a work of art is only distinguished if it is at the same time both symbolic and exactly representative of reality’ (La Vie errante, 1890).

  It is far from certain that this ideal is fulfilled, or that the novel ranks as ‘one of those works that turn your ideas upside down, and linger in the mind for years’ (p. 248). Maupassant will not be alone in the doubts about his own achievement. Alongside the self-deprecating irony directed at Duroy’s verbal facility and Norbert’s intrusive discourse aimed at those readers unable to discern its ‘hidden meaning’ as well as believe in its
‘events’, unequivocal assessment of that achievement is not entirely pre-empted by the caricaturally philistine reaction of those who fail to understand the painting at its centre, ‘and then had nothing to say except to comment on the value of the painting’ in monetary terms (p. 248). It could be argued, indeed, that Maupassant’s worst fears have been realized in the critical assimilation of Bel-Ami and the Balzacian tradition it is deemed to continue. André Vial writes that the novel ‘is directly linked to Balzac’,9 and another important critic, Gérard Delaisement, cites the author of Illusions perdues as ‘the uncontestable model’.10 Such remarks implicitly minimize the distinctive qualities of the work and overlook the fact that the model is contested, specifically in the denial of the Balzacian point of reference in the curious mention of Duroy that he ‘had never read any Balzac’ (p. 50) but also, and more generally, in the text’s demystification of the heroic ethos it seems to propose. Not the least intriguing aspect of Bel-Ami, and this is perhaps where its originality lies, is that in a composition as stylized as that of its invented paintings, Maupassant’s art of illusion generates a fiction not about the loss of illusions–that clichéd nineteenth-century theme–but about their construction and their reality.

  NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION

  This translation of Bel-Ami1 is based on the 1988 Classiques Gamier text edited by Daniel Leuwers, with a few minor inaccuracies corrected against the 1987 Pléïade edition.

  Translating Maupassant’s wonderfully readable novel has been, for me, a fascinating but frustrating experience; I have found it extremely difficult to achieve the right tone in English. I have come to the conclusion, somewhat reluctantly, that I might have found this easier had I been a man. Robert Lethbridge, in his Introduction, speaks of the male-oriented, not to say misogynist, character of the narrative, which in places resembles ‘a conversation between men’. Fortunately for me Professor Lethbridge supplied the necessary male point of view. His familiarity with the cultural and historical context of the novel, together with his experience as a translator, have been an invaluable resource. I am happy to have this opportunity to thank him for his substantial contributions to this English version of Bel-Ami.

  I am also deeply indebted to friends and family members who have helped me with criticism and advice and suggestions, and have encouraged me to persevere at this solitary occupation of translating. In particular my loving thanks go to my daughter Jane Mauldon and my friends Rondi Gilbert and Sabra Macleod, and most especially to my husband Jim, who makes it fun to go on working.

  MARGARET MAULDON

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Editions

  Bel-Ami, in Louis Forestier’s edition of Maupassant, Romans (Paris, Bibliothèque de la Pléïade, 1987); includes a synopsis of the novel’s background and composition, notes on the text, and successive amendments from the manuscript to the final version of Bel-Ami in volume form. These 100 pages of material appended to the text constitute the most scholarly introduction to the novel. Readers wishing to go back to the original French text should note that, by contrast with occasional transcription errors which have crept into paperback reprintings of Bel-Ami, this Pléïade edition of the novel remains the most accurate and authoritative. Complementary to this edition of Maupassant’s novels is his Contes et nouvelles, 2 vols., ed. Louis Forestier (Paris, Bibliothèque de la Pléïade, 1974–79).

  Bel-Ami, ed. Marie-Claire Bancquart (Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1979); this luxury illustrated edition is also impressively scholarly.

  Bel-Ami, ed. Daniel Leuwers (Paris, Gamier, 1988; repr. Garnier-Flammarion, 1993); as well as having very useful information about the novel, it is also generally reliable; it is the base text (with its occasional errors corrected against the Pléïade edition) for this Oxford World’s Classics translation.

  Bel-Ami, ed. Adeline Wrona (Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1999); this paperback edition contains some useful background information for readers of the novel.

  Bel-Ami, ed. Jean-Louis Bory (Paris, Collection Folio, 1973); this is another generally reliable version of the text, but the appended notes are often inaccurate.

  Bel-Ami, ed. Philippe Bonnefis (Paris, Livre de Poche, 1999); this is essentially the 1983 edition in Livre de Poche, with only the bibliography updated, but its introduction remains a highly stimulating one.

  Biography

  Ignotus, Paul, The Paradox of Maupassant (London, University of London Press, 1966).

  Lanoux, Armand, Maupassant le Bel-Ami (Paris, Fayard, 1967; repr. Livre de Poche, 1983).

  Lerner, Michael, Maupassant (London, Allen & Unwin, 1975).

  Steegmuller, Francis, Maupassant. A Lion in the Path (New York, Collins, 1949; repr. London, Macmillan, 1972).

  Troyat, Henri, Maupassant (Paris, Flammarion, 1989).

  Readers should note that, while all the above are variably colourful and intelligent versions of Maupassant’s life, none is wholly accurate and they tend to borrow inaccuracies from each other. His biographers lack a comprehensive edition of the writer’s correspondence; and they face major problems in distinguishing fact from Maupassant’s own autobiographical accounts (often somewhere between semi-fiction and fantasy). One exception to this is Roger Williams’ exploitation of scientific evidence to reconstruct Maupassant’s medical history, in his The Horror of Life (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1980), 217–72.

  Excellent collections of photos and images related to Maupassant’s life are to be found in:

  Album Maupassant, ed. Jacques Réda (Paris, Bibliothèque de la Pléïade, 1987)

  Maupassant (1850–1893); catalogue of the centenary exhibition (Fécamp, 1993)

  Maupassant inédit. Iconographie et documents, ed. Jacques Bienvenu (Aix-en-Provence, Édisud, 1993).

  The most useful biographical background to Bel-Ami is to be found in:

  Bancquart, Marie-Claire, ‘Maupassant journaliste’, in Joseph-Marc Bailbé and Jean Pierrot (eds.), Flaubert et Maupassant. Écrivains normands (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1981), 155–66.

  Critical Studies

  General

  Bury, Marianne, La Poétique de Maupassant (Paris, SEDES, 1994).

  Donaldson-Evans, Mary, A Woman’s Revenge: The Chronology of Dispossession in Maupassant’s Fiction (Lexington, Ky., French Forum, 1986).

  Sullivan, Edward D., Maupassant the Novelist (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1954).

  Vial, André, Guy de Maupassant et l’art du roman (Paris, Nizet, 1954); notwithstanding its date of publication, this remains the starting-point for any serious study of Maupassant the novelist.

  On Bel-Ami

  Bernardin, François, ‘Le Scandale de Bel-Ami’, La Nouvelle Critique, 7 (1955), 126–38.

  Bismut, Roger, ‘Quelque sproblèmes de la création littéraire dans Bel-Ami’, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, 67 (1967), 577–89; this essay traces textual moments in the novel back to the work of Maupassant’s literary predecessors.

  Chaikin, Milton, ‘Maupassant’s Bel-Ami and Balzac’, Romance Notes, I (1960), 109–12.

  Champagne, Roland, ‘Revealing the Ideological Mask of Culture: The French New Philosophers, Maupassant and Literary Criticism’, Language and Style, 18 (1985), 232–41; sees Duroy as the victim of ideological forces rather than heroic incarnation of masculine and capitalist values.

  Delaisement, Gérard, ‘L’Univers de Bel-Ami’, Revue des sciences humaines, 87 (1953) 77–87; outlines the corruption of the social, financial and political reality which the novel represents.

  —— ‘Bel-Ami et les écrits antérieurs de Maupassant’, Revue des sciences humaines, 82 (1956), 195–228; traces Maupassant’s reworking in the novel of earlier journalistic texts.

  Giachetti, Claudine, ‘Les Hauts et les bas: la conquête de l’espace dans Bel-Ami de Maupassant’, Revue romane, 26 (1991), 219–29.

  Grant, Richard B., ‘The Function of the First Chapter of Bel-Ami’, Modern Language Notes, 76 (1961), 748–52.

  Haig, Stirling, ‘T
he Mirror of Artifice: Maupassant’s Bel-Ami’, in his The Madame Bovary Blues: The Pursuit of Illusion in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction (Baton Rouge, La., Louisiana State University Press, 1987), pp. 152–62.

  Hamilton, James F, ‘The Impossible Return to Nature in Maupassant’s Bel-Ami, or the Intellectual Heroine as Deviant’, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 10 (1982), 326–39; studies the complex inner life of Madeleine Forestier.