Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/21

 ascent of M. Georges Duroy, scamp, coward, liar, and blackmailer, from ancien sous-off. of hussars to courted journalist and bridegroom of an heiress. Fort comme La Mort and Notre Cœur are concerned with a quieter society in the capital. The scene of Pierre et Jean, in some ways the most perfect of his writings, is laid at Havre; while Mont-Oriol, a very clever and observant story, which yet displays here and there a certain flagging in Maupassant's wonderful gift of amusement, dissects the heart of M. Andermatt's wife, and the financial operations of M. Andermatt himself in creating his new watering-place in Auvergne.

Remarkable as the novels are, both in style and construction, the popular estimate is probably not far wrong when it attaches even greater importance to the short stories. It would be untrue to say of Maupassant, as might be said of two very distinguished living writers, English and American, that his genius, so far as prose is concerned, found in the short story its only outlet for dramatic expression. But the fact remains that while some of his contemporaries produced novels of a class certainly equal, and some might say superior, to his, in the briefer form of composition he was unapproached. These stories were collected from time viii