"maupassa" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tolstoy Leo)

THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT

by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
April 2, 1894

Translated by Professor Leo Wiener, 1905

It was, I think, in the year 1881 that Turgenev, during a
visit at my house, took a French novel, under the name of *Maison
Tellier*, out of his satchel and gave it to me.
"Read it, if you have a chance," he said, apparently with
indifference, just as the year before he had handed me a number of
the *Russian Wealth*, in which there was an article by Garshin, who
was making his debut. Evidently, as in the case of Garshin, so
even now, he was afraid he might influence me in one way or
another, and wished to know my uninfluenced opinion.
"He is a young French author," he said; "look at it, -- it is
not bad; he knows you and esteems you very much," he added, as
though to encourage me. "As a man he reminds me of Druzhinin. He
is just as excellent a son and friend, *un homme d'un commerce
sur*, as was Druzhinin, and, besides, he has relations with the
labouring people, whom he guides and aids. Even in his relations
to women he reminds me of Druzhinin."
And Turgenev told me something remarkable and incredible in
regard to Maupassant's relations in this respect.
This time, the year 1881, was for me the most ardent time of
the inner reconstruction of my whole world-conception, and in this
reconstruction the activity which is called artistic, and to which
I formerly used to devote all my strength, not only lost for me the
significance formerly ascribed to it, but even became distinctly
distasteful to me on account of the improper place which it had
occupied in my life and which in general it occupies in the
concepts of the men of the wealthy classes.
For this reason I was at that time not in the least interested
in such productions as the one which Turgenev recommended to me.
But, to oblige him, I read the book which he gave me.
Judging from the first story, *Maison Tellier*, I could not
help but see, in spite of the indecent and insignificant subject of
the story, that the author possessed what is called talent.
The author was endowed with that particular gift, called
talent, which consists in the author's ability to direct, according
to his tastes, his intensified, strained attention to this or that
subject, in consequence of which the author who is endowed with
this ability sees in those subjects upon which he directs his
attention, something new, something which others did not see.
Maupassant evidently possessed that gift of seeing in subjects
something which others did not see. But, to judge from the small
volume which I had read, he was devoid of the chief condition
necessary, besides talent, for a truly artistic production. Of the
three conditions: (1) a correct, that is, a moral relation of the