“Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.”
― Guy de Maupassant

I love this Guy de Maupassant short story of a soul laid bare by means of elegant black words on three white pages, a story about a new type that had blossomed forth in the nineteenth century, in urban centers, most notably in Paris: the flâneur. And what exactly is a flâneur? Answer: a man or woman of literary and artistic sensibilities, one possessing highly polished and refined tastes, and, above all else, a person of leisure, that is, an aesthetically attuned soul detached from pressing concerns, set free to stroll the city and become a connoisseur of the street.

Our unnamed first-person narrator is not a man to waste words, he immediately informs us he is intoxicated by the love of his life: the night. And why not? After all, he becomes completely energized and bursts with exuberance and fullness once the sun goes down and darkness floods his senses and embraces him like a curvaceous, passionate mistress. We can picture him with top hat, cane, black suit and black cape, poised, ready to venture forth in the spirit of a true flâneur, venture forth to take a stroll for many delicious hours with his heart-throb, his soft, dark lover.

We sense strong affinities with many lines from Charles Baudelaire’s collection of prose poems, Paris Spleen, as when we read the poet’s description of the atmosphere at one o’clock in the morning: “Finally! Alone! No longer hearing anything but the rumble of a few hackneys delayed and exhausted. For several hours we’ll have silence, if not repose. Finally! The tyranny of the human face has disappeared and from now on my sufferings will be my own. Finally I’m allowed to relax, bathed in shadows.” Indeed, it is no accident that Baudelaire had a profound influence on many nineteenth century French authors, including Guy de Maupassant, and many of those authors came to be known as the Decadents with their love of art and artificiality, of artist’s studios and theaters, of drawing rooms and boudoirs.

But, alas, our flâneur makes it his practice to abandon the confines of such as theaters and cafés and wander out into the gleaming night where even shadows take on a glow. But then, like a row of ominous dark markings, we come upon a string of black words on the white paper (or white words on a black background if we read via the below link) that portends disaster: “Anything you love too violently always ends up killing you."

For this point onward, walking in the crisp air, under the planets, amid the city’s glass lights, nestled in the embrace of darkness, time compresses for our lover of the night, past and future merge into a uncanny, eerie present until he is seized by a chill and a flash of insight that “bordered on madness.” Bordered on madness? Now that does some ominous! Couldn't we very well ask, on such a night, in such a spine-chilling present, how far away is bordering on madness from complete madness?

Now that time itself has become something akin to hallucinogenic, now that he is in the clutches of a chill and has had his visionary spark, now that he is in a state bordering on madness, a kind of insanity or lunacy (ah, the moon!), is not all of this responsible when our narrator feels something weird is about to happen? And is it this same madness, this sense of impending weirdness that obliges our narrator to walk as if propelled by some unseen force? Oh, no! How can it be? A flâneur is a stroller ambling along a city street in complete detachment, nothing to do with being driven into a frenetic pace.

And if you are made to walk as if by an invisible presence or some inner diabolical power, how far will you go before you are completely disoriented, overcome by fear and screaming for help? And if you are all alone in the dead of night, in the grip of madness, what unseen doom awaits you?

Link to this story: Night: A Nightmare (1887) by Guy de Maupassant: http://chabrieres.pagesperso-orange.fr/texts/maupassant_night.html


Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) ( )

Le narrateur nous explique son amour pour la nuit et son dégout pour le jour. Ce n’est que quand le soleil baisse qu’il se sent revivre. Il se promène la nuit, s’anime et se sent heureux. Il nous dit ensuite que ce qu’on aime avec violence finit toujours par vous tuer. Il raconte alors une nuit particulière qu’il ne sait plus situer clairement dans le temps.
Le début de la nuit est lumineux, il se balade sur les champs Elysées, il passe sous l’arc triomphe et voit les lumières de la ville et des étoiles dans le ciel, il se promène dans le bois de Boulogne et va aux Halles. Puis la ville s’endort et il s’enfonce dans une nuit ou il ne rencontre plus personne et ca lui pèse sur le cœur, il a une impression de froid, il est angoissé. Il a beaucoup marché, il a faim. Il sonne à toutes portes pour rencontrer quelqu’un mais personne ne lui ouvre. Cette nuit, après l’avoir ravi, tourne au cauchemar, tout lui semble immobile, vide, abandonné et mort.Le lever du soleil, devient alors l’objet de sa quête de plus en plus angoissée. Il en vient à regretter que « le jour ne s’est plus levé, puisque le soleil n’a pas reparu ». Il veut s’assurer que la Seine coule encore et descend vers elle, trempe son bras dans l’eau qu’il trouve gelée presque tarie, presque morte et il se laisse mourir là de faim, de fatigue, de froid, de désespoir. Il est désespéré, il déteste le jour et croyait aimer la nuit mais finalement la nuit le désespère, tout y est mort et lui aussi. ( )