Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/309

Rh manhood, in whom it would have been difficult to predict a future etheromaniac, or a predestined victim of hereditary paralysis.

The other versions of him reproduced here from etchings are more fanciful and conventional. They show us Maupassant as he may have appeared in his official hours, his hair divided by a vulgar parting, a mustache destitute of character adorning the smug oval of a self-satisfied countenance, his frock-coat fitting closely over his broad chest, his black cravat with its stiff made-up bow—the general appearance of a functionary from the provinces.

The portrait of 1888, reproduced at the beginning of this note, is the one which bears most likeness to our lost friend. Here we recognise the author of Horla, the owner of the yacht Bel Ami, the writer of the melancholy pages called Sur l'Eau, the man of the world of his later phase, already restless, suffering, and overshadowed by the fatal crisis.