From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire
press, set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from
all influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With
a quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which
he himself was not aware, but which was so universal, that no
contemporary author during his life ever experienced the same. The
"meteor" sent out its light and its rays were prolonged without limit,
in article after article, volume on volume.

He was now rich and famous.... He is esteemed all the more as they
believe him to be rich and happy. But they do not know that this young
fellow with the sunburnt face, thick neck and salient muscles whom
they invariably compare to a young bull at liberty, and whose love
affairs they whisper, is ill, very ill. At the very moment that
success came to him, the malady that never afterwards left him came
also, and, seated motionless at his side, gazed at him with its
threatening countenance. He suffered from terrible headaches, followed
by nights of insomnia. He had nervous attacks, which he soothed with
narcotics and anesthetics, which he used freely. His sight, which had
troubled him at intervals, became affected, and a celebrated oculist
spoke of abnormality, asymetry of the pupils. The famous young man
trembled in secret and was haunted by all kinds of terrors.

The reader is charmed at the saneness of this revived art and yet,
here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of
nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the
supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most
commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as
the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being