The art of Maupassant consisted almost entirely in plumping out
his plots with observation and "touches of common nature " ; and one can see in him, better than in any other writer, the workshop of the short-story writer. Though often he can manoeuvre tears and laughter from us, he was, in the end, of too coarse a fibre to rank high in the world's literature. But Boucle de Suif, his first notable story, was one of his best : it shows Maupassant with a more genuine tenderness than we usually expect from him. The tale is of a prostitute who, during the Prussian occupation of France, sacrifices her last atom of self-respect to help her fellow- travellers, and is thereafter treated as a contamination by those who have urged her into the sacrifice. The other stories in the volume are quite ordinary in quality, but, of course, extremely efficient in technique.
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