Tuesday, 15 July 1884

The new volume of Maupassant comes with his portrait. He looks like a bull. And since he is very proud of his... his... physical faculties, it is a streak of stupidity in his nature. A bruiser’s head, gone heavy for a man of thirty-three.

Naturally he must have thought it was a woman attracted by that... particular side, who wanted a few letters... Imbecile. Though since he has never written anything that provokes pure letters... quite the contrary... he could well imagine it — and remain logical. But he is quite good-looking. One cannot judge entirely from an etching; I only trust cheap unretouched photographs.

The nose is absolutely that of a bull.

There was a moment of fairly keen curiosity when I had the book in my hands — what will this gentleman be like, this man I have sometimes thought about for four or five months? Well, he is better than I imagined, only he is a fundamentally stupid man, despite everything he writes. I do not know if I make myself understood... There are people of talent, wit, even genius, who have a streak of stupidity, and others... I ask myself whether Bastien-Lepage is free of it. Until now I have not noticed any... and it seems to me he is a nature exquisite in every way, further refined by some indefinable quality, something bitter and sardonic. But he is not a handsome man. Oh no — and Maupassant would look at him with considerable contempt.

The wrestlers no longer hold up. I had seen some jugglers outdoors on the boulevard and told myself that with that crowd and some wrestlers, it would be very fine.

Then I went to see wrestlers in the evening at Neuilly, where the only audience is kept women and dandies; the working people have no interest in these bouts — it is only fashionable Parisians who go there as a lark. There is no wrestling in the street. And in the daytime in the booth, the lighting does not please me and the seated audience... In short, it is no longer the thing.

So I return to an old project that takes hold of me entirely each time I see the good people on the public benches.

It could be a grandiose study. It is always better to paint scenes where the figures are not moving. Let me be clear: I am not opposed to movement, but in violent scenes there can be no illusion or aesthetic pleasure for a refined audience. One is painfully and without even realising it disconcerted by that arm raised to strike and which does not strike, by those legs running and remaining in the same place. There are very animated situations where one can nevertheless imagine an immobility of a few instants — and that is enough.

It is always better to seize the instant following a great movement or some violence, rather than the moment preceding it. Bastien’s Joan of Arc¹ has heard voices; she walked forward precipitately, overturning her spinning wheel, and suddenly stopped dead, her back against a tree. But look at scenes with raised arms where people are acting — they may be very powerful, but there is never a sense of complete aesthetic satisfaction.

The distribution of flags by the Emperor, which is at Versailles.

Everyone rushes forward, arms are raised and yet it is very fine, for these arms were waiting, and one is seized, moved, swept along by the emotion of these men — one shares their impatience. The surge and the movement are prodigious, precisely because one can imagine an instant of arrest during which one can peacefully regard the scene as a real thing and not a painting.

But nothing can equal the grandeur of subjects at rest. Whether in sculpture or in painting. A mediocre man can execute a turbulent canvas well enough, but he will never make anything of a subject at rest — whereas that is where the truly great artist triumphs.

Compare Michelangelo’s Thinker to all the most agitated groups.

See Millet’s canvases and compare them with all the violence imaginable.

See Michelangelo’s Moses. He is motionless, but he is alive. His Thinker² does not stir, does not speak — but it is because he chooses not to; he is a living man absorbed in his thoughts.

Bastien’s Pas mèche³ looks at you and listens to you — but he is about to speak, for he is alive.

In Haymaking⁴, the man lying on his back with his face covered by his hat is asleep. But he lives. The woman seated and dreaming does not stir, but one feels she could rise — for she is alive.

My subject at rest can alone give complete aesthetic pleasure; it leaves time to be absorbed in it, to penetrate it, to see it live.

The imbeciles and the ignorant think that it is easier to do. Ah! Misery.

If I ever die it will be of indignation at human stupidity, which is infinite, as Flaubert said — the late patron of that cow — no, that bull — Maupassant.

The thing is that truly in everything he has written, it is only about... that. It is like a monomania. One is embarrassed and disgusted.

Besides, oh French naturalists — you are merely adopting a current that has its source in Russia. They have been writing admirable things in Russia for thirty years?

Reading War and Peace by Count Tolstoy some years ago, I was struck to the point of exclaiming: but this is like Zola! And it is true — a study in the Revue des Deux Mondes is devoted today to our Tolstoy, and my Russian heart leaps for joy.

This study is by Monsieur de Vogüé, who was secretary of the embassy in Russia, who has studied its literature and customs, and who has already published several articles that are remarkably accurate and profound concerning my great and admirable country.

And you, wretch! You live in France, you prefer to be a foreigner rather than stay at home! The great difference that exists between Zola and Tolstoy is that Tolstoy does not often speak of rut, desires, sex, and so on. He speaks of everything and avoids nothing, yet these things do not dominate... It is also that they are not so frequent in real life that one cannot write two pages without dwelling lovingly on... the conjunction of the sexes. And Zola is nothing compared to that pornographer Maupassant, who has only that in his repertoire.

Zola is great and Count Tolstoy is great.

Ah! You shall see how we shall fall upon you, decomposed Latins! Let my Russia only be free. What forces! What sap! — as Maupassant would say.

But you will say, in your capacity as a virgin, this must preoccupy you... But I do not say no — only in Maupassant’s case it is spoken of so much that I am weary and disgusted by it, and if I had bad thoughts, that animal’s books would make me virtuous.

Well then, since you love your great, your beautiful, your sublime Russia — go and work for her!

If I went there I would involve myself in politics and be clapped in prison. An obscure martyr! And even admitting they talked about it for two months — then it is all over. So I would win neither freedom for Russia nor artistic glory. If everyone reasoned as I do, you will say, nothing would ever get done. You are right — and indeed not everyone reasons this way and I preach to no one; I am an isolated case.

When thousands have sacrificed themselves, I would go to enjoy the success won by these obscure and often futile heroes...

I too am working for the glory of my country... if I ever have a great talent like Tolstoy — is that not more glorious than dynamite bombs? And besides, it is more agreeable for me.

Yet who knows what can happen... And... If I did not have my painting, I would go! Upon my honour I would go! But my work absorbs my faculties and everything else becomes an interlude, an amusement.

And then truly I would only swell the mass of unknowns imprisoned or killed. If I could tip the scales I would go at the risk of my life — you do not doubt it. But as things stand, there is nothing to be done for the... isolated cases like me.