most ardent admirers, who had played an important role in promoting the Frenchman's work in his native Russia. Maupassant's extraordinary productivity during this time, he was contributing one to two stories weekly to newspapers, in addition to chronicles on various topics, is all the more remarkable when one considers that he was suffering from debilitating migraines that prevented him from working for hours, sometimes days, at a time. “The progressive phases of his illness have been decried by the Belgian Francois Tassart, among others, whom he hired as his valet de chambre in November 1883 and who were to remain with him until he was interned in Dr. Emile Blanche's sanitarium in 1892.” (Wallace 265)There is some irony; perhaps poignancy would be a better word, in the fact that Maupassant was also a consummate cynic with regard to the possibility of finding "true love." Despite his legendary sexual prowess and countless mistresses, despite his fathering three children by the same woman, a spa employee named Josephine Litzelmann, Maupassant never married and, with the exception of his mother, to whom he was deeply attached, never knew lasting love for women. “A story often interpreted autobiographically, in which a downtrodden alcoholic explains that his despair originated when, as a child, he witnessed a fight between his parents.” (Lindquist 95-97)In earlier years Maupassant turned out stories as quickly as he could relying on his earnings to meet day-to-day expenses of Parisian life, haggling with his editors for every last franc. At this juncture, however, he began to show a preference for longer narratives Maupassant's health continued to deteriorate, and some disturbing new mental symptoms, a strange sensation of having a double, a nebulous sense of his own identity, together with continued physical suffering, led him to seek a cure at one of the popular thermal stations, Chatelguyon, in the Massif Cen...
