The Last Laugh in Maupassant's "Les Bijoux" and "La Parure"

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THE LAST LAUGH: MAUPASSANT'S "LES BIJOUX" AND "LA PARURE" Author(s): Mary Donaldson-Evans Source: French Forum, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May 1985), pp. 163-174Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41429504Accessed: 14-05-2015 18:02 UTC

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Mary Donaldson-Evans

THE LAST LAUGH: MAUPASSANT'S "LES BI JOUX" AND "LA PARURE"

Two pretty young women of means too modest to allow them to indulge their passion for the finer things of life. Two marriages to petits fonction- naires, one filled with laughter and joy, and characterized by abundance, the other bitterly unhappy from the start, reflecting emptiness. Two couples linked by extra- and intertextual referentiality: both live on the rue des Mar- tyrs. Two stories, published eleven months apart, in two different journals, and which rely for their meaning upon the well-worn dichotomy of appearance versus reality: "Les Bijoux" and "La Parure" of Guy de Maupassant. Both narratives are direct (unframed); both feature an impersonal narrator; both relate a discovery involving the true value of jewelry. Both, finally, betray an incurable cynicism regarding women.

Of "La Parure," much has been written. Few short- story anthologies fail to include it. Whether derided or praised, its famous whip-crack ending is the focus of most commentaries. "Les Bijoux" is another matter entirely. This earlier Maupassant tale has received scant critical attention and is virtually ignored by non-specialists. Yet it too features a "surprise " ending. It too deals with pride and shame, material deprivation, and the suffering caused by loss. Why then does it remain in the wings while its "sister" text (and the two are indeed siblings, born of the same mind, inspired by the same beliefs, sharing literally dozens of family traits, as we shall soon see) stands alone in the lime- light? With the help of insights provided by recent reader-response criticism, I should like to attempt an explanation of this disparity, while at the same time exposing the numerous threads which bind the two narratives together and make of them yet another example of ironic diptych, that constantly renewed doubling which is an integral part of Maupassant's fictional universe.

In comparing these two stories, I am not forging a new trail. Francis Steeg- muller had termed "La Parure" a "transposition" of "Les Bijoux" as early as 1949.1 However, his comment bore only upon the central event in both stories- the discovery, in "Les Bijoux" that jewels thought to be false were in fact genuine, while in "La Parure," a borrowed "diamond" necklace, lost and


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replaced at great sacrifice by the borrowers, is discovered to be nothing but costume jewelry. Indeed, the parallels and transpositions are far more numerous than this, and familiarity with the first story can scarcely fail to influence our reading of the second.

"Les Bijoux," with perfect fabliau irreverence, treats the classic theme of the cuckold. The status of the husband as a defenseless prey is affirmed in the opening sentence: "Monsieur Lantin ayant rencontr cette jeune fille, dans une soire, chez son sous-chef de bureau, l'amour l'enveloppa comme un filet"2 The theme of the trap is thus immediately pressed into service in one of its most widespread variations, the trap of love.3 But if such traps are generally associated with pain and suffering, even death, quite the reverse is true here. Monsieur Lantin marries the adorable young creature (she remains nameless throughout the story) whose exemplary modesty and docility earn for her universal adulation ("Tout le monde chantait ses louanges; tous ceux qui la connaissaient rptaient sans fin: 'Heureux celui qui la prendra. On ne pourrait trouver mieux' ") and give her a saintly air ("sa beaut modeste avait un charme de pudeur anglique," p. 764). The civil servant, "invraisemblable- ment heureux," finds only two causes for reproach: her taste for false gems and her love of the theater. So it is that when she dies suddenly, having caught pneumonia one winter's night, he is inconsolable. Furthermore, he soon discovers that whereas during her lifetime, he lacked none of the com- forts of life, he is now unable to make ends meet. After months of struggle, he finds himself without a centime a full week before payday and decides to sell a piece of his wife's costume jewelry. To his utter astonishment, the necklace he selects proves to be worth, not the six or eight francs he had anticipated, but 18,000 francs: "Le doute horrible l'effleura. Elle?" (p. 768). And a second period of mourning, this one for his wife's virtue, takes place. But it is notable for its brevity, lasting only the space of an evening. The following day, braving the jewelers' ridicule, he submits the rest of what he had believed to be her "pacotille" to an evaluation and his suspicions are confirmed: every piece is the genuine article. Monsieur Lantin is a rich man now, rich enough to quit the hated ministry (which he does). Maupassant, if he had had a penchant for writing fairy tales, could well have allowed his cuckold to live happily ever after. However, he was too much of a cynic to let his character off so lightly. The story's punch line delivers the message: "Six mois plus tard il se remariait. Sa seconde femme tait trs honnte, mais d'un caractre difficile. Elle le fit beaucoup souffrir" (p. 771). If there is, as Steegmuller puts it (p. 207), "a laugh in the last line," it is well-prepared. In the first place, the careful reader is alerted, from the beginning, to the possibility that the apparently angelic young woman is not what she seems to be. "La jeune fille semblait le type absolu de l'honnte femme"; "l'imperceptible sourire qui ne quittait pas ses lvres semblait un reflet de son


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cur"-such sentences follow each other quickly in the opening pages of Maupassant's narrative, so that when the jewelry itself is described in similar terms ("deux gros cailloux du Rhin qui simulaient des diamants/' "des colliers de perles fausses , des bracelets en simulor, des peignes agrments de verroteries varies jouant les pierres fines," p. 765), we are already drawing parallels, the textual redundancy being so obvious as to arouse suspicion. When finally the truth dawns on Monsieur Lantin, we are considerably less surprised than he. Furthermore, we have been gently nudged into accepting an apparent paradox, i.e., that a woman who cuckolds her husband can never- theless bring him intense happiness, not only during her lifetime but from beyond the grave, and not in spite of but because of her betrayal. In the second place, we have failed to identify with Monsieur Lantin and have in fact been laughing at him (if unconsciously) all the way through. His wife's sphinx-like smile (of which we now understand the full significance) becomes frank laughter when she begins to bring the jewels home, and the description of her evening ritual is marked by double-entendre:

Quelquefois, le soir, quand ils demeuraient en tte tte au coin du feu, elle apportait sur la table o ils prenaient le th la bote de maroquin o elle enfermait la "pacotille,' selon le mot de Monsieur Lantin; et elle se mettait examiner les bijoux imits avec une attention passionne , comme si elle eut savour quelque jouissance secrte et profond e ; et elle s'obstinait passer un collier au cou de son mari pour rire ensuite de tout son cur en s'criant: "Comme tu es drle!" Puis elle se jetait dans ses bras et l'embrassait perdument. (p. 765)

In addition to providing a subtle extension of the trap metaphor suggested by Madame Lantin's repeated gesture of "collaring" her naive husband, the passage defines a two-fold attitude on the part of the beloved wife: first, one of secrecy, but a secrecy maintained with pleasure; secondly, one of playful mockery vis--vis her husband. Both serve as signals to the wary reader. When, after his wife's death, Lantin's grief is seen, less from within than from without, the distance between reader and character becomes even wider:

Souvent pendant les heures du bureau, alors que les collgues s'en venaient causer un peu des choses du jour, on voyait soudain ses joues se gonfler, son nez se plisser, ses yeux s'emplir d'eau; il faisait une grimace affreuse et se mettait sangloter, (p. 766) Such distanciation prepares us to adopt the "proper" (i.e., amused, detached) perspective when, at the story's mid-point, the jewels are discovered to be real. Lantin's choice to divest himself first of his wife's necklace is hardly coincidental. However, he is incredulous in the face of the jeweler's appraisal. "En voil un bijoutier qui ne sait pas distinguer le faux du vrai!" he thinks to himself, and he thus preserves intact his illusions regarding his wife's supposed virtue while continuing to struggle under the yoke of love (and of the daily


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labors of ministerial work): "Monsieur Lantin, tout fait idiot, reprit son collier et s'en alla, obissant un confus besoin de se trouver seul et de rfl- chir" (p. 767). Later, when a second jeweler confirms the authenticity of the necklace and identifies himself as the seller, Monsieur Lantin is finally forced to put his reasoning powers to work. His interior monologue is rendered in style indirect libre : "Sa femme n'avait pu acheter un objet d'une pareille valeur. -Non, certes. -Mais alors, c'tait un cadeau! Un cadeau de qui? Pourquoi?" (p. 768). If, as with all fictional texts, the reader has been active from the beginning, filling in what Wolfgang Iser terms the "gaps" in the text,4 his activity is carefully controlled here. He has little difficulty in furnishing the responses to Lantin's silent questions, firstly because Mau- passant himself has led him to the right conclusion, secondly because, assuming at least minimal competence, he knows that precious gems given in secret to a married woman and passed off as costume jewelry by her must have a suspicious origin. The hints scattered through earlier parts of the text (eve- nings at the theater unaccompanied by her husband, the suddenly acquired taste for jewelry, a newfound seductive "glow" about her, an attitude of amusement and mystery with regard to her husband) strongly suggest that Madame Lantin has a lover (we are culturally conditioned to reject the possibility that a mere friend- male or female- could be the benefactor; moreover, if this were the case, Madame Lantin would have no need to keep the value of the jewels a secret from her husband, unless he were depicted as being a jealous man, which is not the case). We are further prevented from inter- preting the acquisition of the jewels in any way other than the intended one by the subsequent behavior of Monsieur Lantin and of the jewelers. Monsieur Lantin first faints (from the shock of the revelation), then, after regaining consciousness, weeps for several hours, an unlikely reaction indeed to the discovery that one is rich! However, greed prevails, and although a profound sense of personal shame delays his return to the jeweler's, he does return, and his shame diminishes in inverse proportion to his growing wealth (as each piece of jewelry is weighed, examined, and appraised, he becomes more aggressive and demanding). The jewelers, for their part, are literally doubled over with repressed laughter. When he enters the shop, the merchant offers him a seat "avec une politesse souriante" (p. 769). The assistants cannot resist stealing glances at Lantin "avec des gaiets dans les yeux et sur les lvres." One of them is even forced to leave the room "pour rire son aise," while another blows his nose loudly to camouflage his giggles. It is thus clear that Monsieur Lantin has served out the destiny outlined grammatically by the story's incipit : he is not a subject, but an object- of derision in this instance-and the story's true subject is the naivet of those who cling to out- moded and unrealistic values. The last paragraph, which describes events temporally separated from the rest of the narrative, functions as an epilogue,


MARY DONALDSON-EVANS 1 67

satisfying the reader's need for closure (Philippe Hamon would term it a clausule )5 while at the same time denying him the fairy-tale ending he may have been led to expect by the news of Lantin's remarriage. Furthermore, it provokes laughter from the reader who, having drawn the proper conclu- sions from the story's logic, feels superior to the idealistic Lantin. The last sentence, "Elle le fit beaucoup souffrir," calls into question the value of honesty. Just as the jewels became progressively more valuable in Lantin's imagination (for he insists on exaggerating the sum of his inheritance each time he recounts it), so also is fidelity revalued, but downward, by the story's conclusion. If an unfaithful wife can bring her husband happiness and wealth, a faithful one can make him miserable. With a final wink at his reader, Mau- passant thus offers us the corollary to his argument. Having exposed as myth the notion that happy marriages are necessarily built upon traditional notions of fidelity and monogamy, he now suggests, in an epigrammatic pointe, that the converse is also true, i.e., that marital fidelity does not ensure bliss- and further, may even be the cause of considerable suffering. It is left to the reader to imagine in what ways a faithful wife can be the source of her husband's misery.

From the beginning, the tone of "La Parure" is decidedly different, and the verbs rire and sourire , which had figured (in their various forms) in "Les Bijoux" no fewer than ten times are to be found only twice in the pages of "La Parure." As was the case with "Les Bijoux," the first sentence contains within it the key to the outcome: "C'tait une de ces jolies et charmantes filles, nes, comme par une erreur du destin , dans une famille d'employs" (p. 1198). However, unlike the narrator of "Les Bijoux," who leads the reader step by step towards a proper conclusion (and this from the title onward), the narrator of "La Parure" is infinitely more deceptive. We learn, long before her name is revealed,6 that this attractive young woman "[qui] se laissa marier avec un petit commis du ministre de l'instruction publique," is indignant at the vulgarity of her surroundings, that, feeling she was born for "toutes les dlicatesses et tous les luxes," she suffers unceasingly. Indeed, the two verbs which figure most prominently in this story are souffrir and songer. The contrast between her charm, her innate good taste, her beauty, on the one hand, and the mediocrity of her life as the wife of a government employee, on the other, are underlined repeatedly. Her indigna- tion leads to irritability and depression: "Et elle pleurait pendant des jours entiers, de chagrin, de regret, de dsespoir et de dtresse" (p. 1199). What is important here is that she is constantly seeking her identity in others, wishing she could awaken desire in men and provoke jealousy in other women. In her dreams of elegant surroundings and priceless art objects, she is always at the center, chatting quietly with "les hommes connus et recherchs dont toutes les femmes envient et dsirent l'attention" (pp. 1198-99), or savoring expen-


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sive delicacies as she listens to male galantries "avec un sourire de sphinx" (p. 1 199). In short, she has the soul of an adulteress, and if she remains faithful (her husband reproaches her for being a recluse) it is not for lack of imagination.

Assuming that Maupassans readers approached this text with the usual literary and cultural baggage, they could scarcely have failed to identify this unfortunate young woman with Madame Bovary, and there are numerous parallels between the ball scene evoked here and that of La Vaubyessard in Flaubert's novel.7 However, as has been noted frequently, Mathilde's situa- tion also recalls that of Cinderella and, indeed, appears to be its ironic coun- terpart. For, if the fairy-tale ball signals the end of the heroine's toil, because of an important loss (the glass slipper), it is just the reverse in "La Parure."

Similarly, the events which follow the ball in Maupassant's tale stand in stark opposition to those of Madame Bovary . Mathilde Loisel, it is true, realizes a cherished dream at the ball, where, being the prettiest and most elegant woman present, she is resplendent in her glory: "Tous les hommes la regardaient, demandaient son nom, cherchaient tre prsents. Tous les attachs du cabinet voulaient valser avec elle. Le ministre la remarqua" (p. 1201). However, whereas in both Cinderella and Madame Bovary , desires awakened at the ball are soon indulged (Cinderella marries the prince; Emma betrays Charles), in Maupassant's story the heroine apparently never even entertains the idea of taking advantage of the interest she has stirred among the gentlemen at the ball (including the minister himself), despite the obvious motivation provided by the need to repay the enormous debt incurred by the loss of the necklace.

And this brings us back, momentarily at least, to "Les Bijoux." According to Louis Forestier, the fait divers which provided Maupassant with the idea for this tale had identified the young woman's benefactor as the minister himself. Knowing this, the reader of "La Parure" cannot help but wonder why Mathilde Loisel, who disdains her husband, takes intense satisfaction in the company of other men, and has managed to attract the attention of the minister, does not seek the obvious solution to her financial predicament. At the core of both stories appears the thinly disguised suggestion that all women are possessed of adulterous desires. But whereas in the earlier one, the wife's infidelity contributes directly to the much touted "douceur du foyer," in the latter we appear almost to have an enactment of the femme honnte! caractre difficile scenario to which the first story had only alluded. Even before the disaster of the lost jewelry, the hapless husband of "La Parure" is forever bending over backwards to please his ill-tempered wife, whereas Lantin is pampered and coddled by his affectionate spouse ("[l]l n'tait point d'atten- tions, de dlicatesses, de chatteries qu'elle n'et pour son mari," p. 764). Furthermore, whereas Madame Lantin's moral deception ultimately made it



possible for her husband to leave his work and live as a rentier from the income generated by the jewels, Madame Loisel's social pretense, which had caused her to borrow the necklace and perhaps even to lose it (for had she not been ashamed of her modest outer garments she would have waited at the ball while her husband went in search of a fiacre instead of leaving with him so that she would not be seen), is at the root of the tragedy which necessitates ten years of penury. Not only does Monsieur Loisel continue to work days at the Ministry, but he takes on additional work "le soir, mettre au net les comptes d'un commerant, et la nuit, souvent, il faisait de la copie cinq sous la page" (p. 1205). But here, we are not allowed to dwell upon the husband's misery, for the central focus, the character through whom our view of the events is filtered, is Madame Loisel and not her long-suffering husband. Moreover, unlike the narration of "Les Bijoux," which forces us to adopt an ironic attitude with regard to the main character, in "La Parure" we are led to greater and greater emotional investment in the heroine's plight.

It is perhaps not surprising, given our pervasive fear of loss, that we identify strongly with Madame Loisel at the moment of her horrible discovery. Her decision to replace the necklace rather than confess the truth of the loss to her wealthy friend, does not appear incongruous, for she lives in fear of what others will think of her and cannot risk this blow to her fragile identity. When she had fled on foot with her husband after the ball, it was "pour ne pas tre remarque par / es autres femmes qui s'enveloppaient de riches four- rures" (p. 1202). And when she does return the replacement necklace to Madame Forestier, she is relieved that the latter does not open the jeweler's box and so does not discover the substitution ("qu'aurait-elle pens? qu'aurait-elle dit? Ne l'aurait-elle pas prise pour une voleuse?"). In fact, as we learn later, she has substituted something real for something false. In the same way, her life reflects the displacement of illusion by reality, and her heroic acceptance of a fate far worse than the one against which she had struggled in the first half of the story changes her from an object of pity to one of admiration. From a refined and beautiful young woman, she is transformed by her labors into "la femme forte, et dure, et rude, des mnages pauvres" (p. 1205).

And yet, curiously, we do not pity her, for she has exchanged a crippling timidity for a newfound asserti veness: she bargains with merchants, speaks loudly- stereotypical attributes of the vulgar mnagre , no doubt, but also suggestive of her own changed self-image. Likewise, material comfort has been replaced by heroic self-denial, a life of despair and aimless dreaming by a purposeful life of activity: "Il fallait payer cette dette effroyable. Elle payerait" (p. 1204). In short, she has found her raison d'tre . Thus, her reflection regarding the events of that night which changed her destiny ("Comme il faut peu de chose pour vous perdre ou vous sauver!") is subject to a double- and contradictory- interpretation: "Que serait-il arriv si elle n'avait point perdu


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cette parure?" The text is, as Michael Riffaterre would put it, un code limi- tatif* and the reader must respect certain constraints in his interpretation. In this case, Madame LoisePs actions subsequent to the ball do not allow usto suppose that she would have been happier had the loss not occurred. Unlike Cinderella, she was not free to marry one of the gentlemen met at the ball. Hence, the only justifiable (and likely) answer to Madame LoisePs rhetorical question is "Rien." Her depression would doubtless have been intensified, as had Emma Bovary's; perhaps, in the end, she would have followed in the footsteps of her fictional elder. With these possibilities in mind, the reader may well interpret the loss of the necklace as a fortuitous event in Madame LoisePs life. Until, that is, the coup de grce of the story's last sentence.

Let us consider for a moment the setting of Madame LoisePs final encoun- ter with Madame Forestier. Not only had the former decided to take a stroll along one of the most elegant streets of Paris, she who, in defense of her need for precious jewels to adorn her dress, had once claimed that "il n'y a rien de plus humiliant que d'avoir l'air pauvre au milieu de femmes riches" (p. 1201), but she had also had the courage to accost her affluent and youthful-looking friend. Her ten years of menial labor having transformed her so that she is no longer even recognizable, she must identify herself explicitly, and yet she does so without a shadow of embarrassment. Even more striking are the pride and satisfaction that push her to tell a truth she had once feared revealing. She is proud that the debt has been paid, proud that she had succeeded in deceiving her friend (Maupassant gives his reader a poke in the ribs as he makes his crude mnagre describe herself as Urudement contente," p. 1206). And for the first time in the story, she smiles "d'une joie orgueilleuse et nave" (p. 1206). It is the word nave which leads us to Madame Forestieri reply, totally unforeseen until now: "Oh! ma pauvre Mathilde! Mais la mienne tait fausse! Elle valait au plus cinq cents francs!"

As numerous critics have pointed out, it is this last line, the revelation that the jewels were not real, which changes the entire thrust of the story and induces the reader to reinterpret it. If conventional morality had led us to read into the events of the story a confirmation of the work ethic, Madame Forestieri statement strikes down that facile reading with one swift blow, and the reader, who is informed at the same instant as Madame Loisel, is as stunned as she is. The fact that the conclusion to this story is given in dialogue form, with minimal narrative intervention, increases its immediacy and adds to the shock of the final revelation. But it is above all the absence of details describing Mathilde's reaction that opens up the story and pulls the reader in. It is not merely that we are forced to imagine how she must have reacted; because we have been misled just as surely as she has (like her, we have been culturally conditioned to believe that wealthy women possess only real gems, an illusion which the text had done nothing to dispel until this very last



moment), we are shocked simultaneously with her, and the simultaneity of this emotion draws us even closer to the heroine. Unlike the coup de fouet of "Les Bijoux," for which the reader had been carefully prepared throughout the story, the clausule of "La Parure" is not redundant. Rather than confirm expectations aroused by the narrative, it calls into question "l'ensemble du contexte prcdent" (Hamon, p. 509).

This opposition between the two stories, together with the reversal and the dislocation of the central event, suggests an antithetical construction as the basis for their comparison. Indeed, there are other such oppositions: male point of view in "Les Bijoux" versus female point of view in "La Parure"; plurality, from the title- and hence the jewels themselves- to the sorties , to the sexual partners, of the first story versus the singularity which marks the more famous tale. In fact, in some ways the stories appear to illustrate respec- tively the two sides of the well-known Sadian formula, "prosprits du vice" ("Les Bijoux") and "infortunes de la vertu" ("La Parure").

But there are equally important parallels between the two stories. It is worthy of note, for example, that in both the realization regarding the true nature of the jewels takes place on the Champs-Elyses, that famed parade ground where appearance alone is important. It is also noteworthy, although perhaps predictable given the nature of the subject matter, that vertical images abound in both stones, from the Colonne Vendme which in his exuberance the newly rich Lantier yearns to climb, to the tenement stairs up and down which the newly poor Mathilde Loisel trudges as she accomplishes her daily chores, "s'arrtant chaque tage pour souffler" (p. 1204). However, the most important parallel involves the losses themselves. Each story recounts not one but two losses. In "Les Bijoux," Lantin's first loss is the death of his wife. This loss is followed by a seemingly endless period of unbearable grief. The second loss coincides with his discovery that the jewels are real: it is the loss of his illusion that his wife had been the embodiment of virtue and domesticity. Ironically, perhaps, his second loss, by deflating the value of the wife, "cures" Lantin's misery, puts an abrupt end to his mourning. Neverthe- less, it does not cause him to change his personal value system by dispelling his more general illusion that marital fidelity is a guarantee of happiness, a value system which will lead him to the suffering of his second marriage, thereby making a mockery of his simplistic exclamation, "Comme on est heureux quand on a de la fortune!" In "La Parure," the first loss is that of the jewels, and this loss is followed by a period of intense activity intended to restore the loss. As was the case in "Les Bijoux," the second discovery (that the necklace gems were false) reveals the futility of the events which had followed the first, and one can reasonably assume that the revelation which deflated the value of the item lost in the first place (the necklace) also entailed the loss of the protagonist's pride, as had been the case in "Les Bijoux."


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However, beyond this we are not permitted to proceed, and it is for this reason that "La Parure" furnishes greater pleasure than "Les Bijoux."

If, as Michel Picard has suggested, reading is jeu in the double sense o play (distraction) and game (a more intellectual sense-making activity in which scholars engage when confronted with literary texts),9 and if the multiplica- tion of "gaps" which the reader must fill in adds to what Roland Barthes terms the plaisir du texte ,10 then "La Parure" is an infinitely more satisfying text than "Les Bijoux." Reader-oriented criticism has placed heavy emphasis upon the communicative aspect of literature and upon the reader's active role in creating meaning. As Iser puts it, "meaning is no longer an object to be defined, but ... an effect to be experienced."11 This effect, for Iser and others, depends frequently upon the unexpected twists and turns of a text which force the reader into the active role of modifying the meanings which he himself had produced from the language of the text. The significance of the events is thus constantly altered by the reader as the narrative unfolds. But, in addition, surprise is an important element in esthetic enjoyment:

Surprise . . . causes a temporary cessation of the exploratory phase of the experience, and a recourse to intense contemplation and scrutiny. In the latter phase the surprising elements are seen in their connection with what has gone before, with the whole drift of the experience, and the enjoyment of these values is then extremely intense.12

Now, while the "surprise" of "Les Bijoux" (namely, the discovery that the jewels are authentic) is unveiled slowly for the attentive reader, the conclusion of "La Parure" hits him with all the force of a slap in the face. Further- more, unlike "Les Bijoux," which makes explicit the character's reaction, then describes, step by step, the stages of his "recovery" from the shock (while denying him the wisdom to be gained from it), "La Parure" leaves the reader to ponder the revelation, guess at the character's reaction, in a word, to recreate the story and its conclusion in the wake of the devastating news. Nowhere in Maupassant's fiction is the reader called upon to play a more active role than in this story. One is now in a position to respond to Steeg- muller's judgment regarding the two tales:

This pair of Maupassant tales ... is ... an interesting example of something more than merely transposition: an interesting example of the success of a story ["La Parure"] which, although inherently inferior, and flawed by improbabilities, happens to be done with particular brilliance; and the failure of an inherently superior tale due to lethargic execution. In "La Parure," Maupassant the superb technician working at the top of his powers carries all before him; in "Les Bijoux" he misses an opportunity." (p. 208) For Steegmuller, esthetics were directly related to the work of art, and not to the reader's reception of it. Based upon traditional notions of symmetry in construction, he judged "Les Bijoux" to be the superior tale because it "cli- maxed" somewhere in the middle, then offered a classic dnouement. Only


MARY DONALDSON-EVANS 1 73

the inadequately developed character of Lantin prevented "Les Bijoux" from being a success, in his opinion. For Iser, on the other hand, the literary work has two poles, the artistic , which belongs to the author, and the esthetic , or the reader's pole [The Act of Reading, p. 21). By his standards, "La Parure" has indeed merited its fame.

An examination of "La Parure" from an Iserian esthetic perspective has revealed that, despite what critics such as Steegmuller have seen as its artistic faults, its tremendous success can be explained on esthetic grounds, for it provides the reader with an active and creative narrative experience. Much has been written of late about the relationship between narrativity and desire,13 and many of the insights provided by this type of criticism can help illuminate the similarities and differences between "La Parure" and "Les Bijoux." Just as total possession of the object of one's desire snuffs out the desire itself, so also does the narrative which surrenders all its meanings in one facile reading satiate the reader and extinguish his desire to reopen the narrative. Like the faithless little wife described in its pages, "Les Bijoux" gives pleasure, makes us laugh; however, it is in the end totally consumed, leaving not the slightest scrap of ambiguity on our plates when we have finished our reading. "La Parure," on the other hand, never does abandon all its meaning, raises far more questions than it answers, and in the fullest and best sense of the expression, leaves something to be desired. Maupassant, working with the same basic donnes , has transformed a clever but somewhat banal tale of female perfidy (of which there are dozens of variations in his work) into a much more complex, but no less pleasurable, story for which the reader must supply the variations. Although the characters of "La Parure" may be mate- rially impoverished by their loss, the narrative, paradoxically, has been enriched by what we might call the loss of determinacy, a loss which increases, by refusing to satisfy, the reader's own desire. A comparison of these two tales enables us to appreciate the rapidly developing artistic and esthetic talents of the master storyteller. Maupassant, that notoriously successful seducer of women, clearly understood the mechanisms at work in awakening and sustaining desire, not only on the physical, but also on the narrative plane. And if he gives the reader the satisfaction of having the last laugh in "Les Bijoux," he keeps it all for himself in "La Parure," whose surprising, yet open-ended conclusion postpones the reader's gratification and thus prolongs his desire.

University of Delaware


174 FRENCH FORUM

1. Francis Steegmuller, Maupassant: A Lion in the Path (New York: Random House, 1949), p. 207. I owe a debt of thanks to one of my literature survey students, Thomas Brokaw, for having provided me with the idea for a rapprochement between the two texts. Only after researching the subject did I discover that he was not the first to perceive it.

2. "Les Bijoux," Maupassant: Contes et Nouvelles , Bibliothque de la Pliade (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), I, 764. All succeeding references to the two stories, given in the text, will be to this edition. Here and throughout, italics are my own.

3. The presence of the theme of the trap in Maupassant's work has been thorough- ly discussed and analyzed by Micheline Besnard-Coursodon in Etude thmatique et struc- turale de l'uvre de Maupassant: le pige (Paris: Nizet, 1973).

4. The Implied Reader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974), p. 280. 5. "Clausules," Potique, No. 21 (1 975), 495-526. 6. This name and its implications for the heroine's destiny is the subject of a

fascinating article by Gerald Prince, "Nom et destin dans 'La Parure,'" FR, 56 (1982), 267-71.

7. See Edward D. Sullivan, Maupassant: The Short Stories (Great Neck: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1962), p. 20, and Lucio Lugnani and Gianluigi Goggi, "La Parure" di Guy de Maupassant (Pisa: Giardini, 1979).

8. La Production du texte (Paris: Seuil, 1979), p. 1 1 : "le texte littraire est con- struit de manire contrler son propre dcodage."

9. "La Lecture comme jeu," Potique , No. 58 (1984), pp. 253-63. 10. Le Plaisir du texte (Paris: Seuil, 1973). 11. The Act of Reading (A Theory of Aesthetic Response) (Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978), p. 10. 12. Benbow Ritchie, "The Formal Structure of the Aesthetic Object," in The

Problems of Aesthetics, ed. Eliseo Vivas and Murray Krieger (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), pp. 230 ff.

13. See, for example, Angela Moger's perceptive article, "That Obscure Object of Narrative," YFS, 63 (1982), 129-38, and Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot (New York: Knopf, 1984).


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Issue Table of ContentsFrench Forum, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May 1985) pp. 132-249Front MatterNARRATIVE VOICE AND COGNITIVE PRIVILEGE IN DIDEROT'S "LA RELIGIEUSE" [pp. 133-144]"BOUVARD ET PCUCHET" AND THE FABLE OF STABLE IRONY [pp. 145-162]THE LAST LAUGH: MAUPASSANT'S "LES BIJOUX" AND "LA PARURE" [pp. 163-174]PROUST AND SAINTE-BEUVE: THE NARRATOR AS JOURNALIST [pp. 175-187]L'EMBONPOINT DU BARON DE CHARLUS [pp. 189-200]THEATRE ET UNIVERS CARCERAL: JEAN GENET ET MICHEL FOUCAULT [pp. 201-213]"Peau pour mon alphabet": langage et lecteur dans Ou-dire [pp. 215-223]BACHELARD'S LOGOSPHERE AND DERRIDA'S LOGOCENTRISM: IS THERE A "DIFFERANCE?" [pp. 225-234]REVIEWSReview: untitled [pp. 235-235]Review: untitled [pp. 236-237]Review: untitled [pp. 237-238]Review: untitled [pp. 238-240]Review: untitled [pp. 240-241]Review: untitled [pp. 241-242]Review: untitled [pp. 242-243]Review: untitled [pp. 243-244]Review: untitled [pp. 244-245]Review: untitled [pp. 245-246]Review: untitled [pp. 246-248]Review: untitled [pp. 248-249]

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The Last Laugh in Maupassant's "Les Bijoux" and "La Parure"