Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/34

Rh Madame de Burne. The lady's character is drawn with amazing insight and consistency. She is a perfect egoist, who yet depends on affection for her joy of living; a creature incapable of passion, who yet submits to the tedium of encouraging passion in another sooner than lose him. Mariolle falls an easy victim, owing to his woeful inexperience from the Maupassant standpoint: "Son esprit inquiet . . . lavait préservé des passions. Quelques intrigues, deux courtes liaisons mortes dans l'ennui, et des amours payées rompues par degoût, rien de plus dans l'histoire de son âme." He is but a child in these matters. Later his partial disenchantment and efforts to escape are brilliantly told. He is like the Roman poet, "Juravi quoties rediturum ad limina nunquam; cum bene juravi, pes tamen ipse redit." The close of the story is very characteristic. Madame recovers her wanderer, apparently for good, but without knowing it shares him with a humble rival, a petite bonne. Thus, though Venus Victrix triumphs, the stupider sex avenges itself in its own way.

Maupassant has often been styled a pessimist, and many passages in this book and others could be cited in support of the contention. Perhaps, however, he is more strictly a fatalist, not so much disgusted with humanity, or disbelieving in its high