Guy de Maupassant's short story “L'Aveu” is, on several counts, about being taken for a ride. Whereas Céleste is the only passenger in the literal sense, those being transported unwittingly and idiomatically include, in different ways and according to different points of view, not only Céleste, her mother, and Polyte, but the implied reader as well. The text itself has in common with Céleste that both carry an unseen baggage that cannot be checked. In this tale of transport and baggage, the introductory descriptive frame has a problematic relationship with the narrative proper. The borders collapse when one observes that the frame, like the narrative, tells a story just as the narrative, in addition to telling the story, also sets the ideological scene. In the end, telling a story and setting a scene are not so easily distinguished. What is more, the setting—the fixing—that would inhabit Realist telling is inhabited, at the same time, by an unsettling excess.

The myth of Realism and Naturalism, according to which Truth follows quite naturally and simply from careful, “scientific” observation to/through words on the page, has long been dispelled. The intertextual resonances of words prevent simple combination of elements; the sum of a syntagm's parts becomes unwieldy, more than we bargained for. Although devoid of narratorial intrusion, in the manner of Balzac or Stendhal, Maupassant's text nevertheless overdetermines a world view through its apparently benign description. The latter encodes a paradigm and a gendered hierarchy that, in Maupassant's determined universe, functions more as a self-fulfilling prophesy than as a detached, empirical view of the physical surroundings. The text's impersonal narrative stance, which one associates with late Realism or Naturalism, is male voice posing as no voice. An examination of the imagery and metalinguistic devices in the opening descriptive passage will show that once the narrative proper actually begins, it has in a sense already been told. The frame not only spells out metaphorically what will follow; this naturalizing frame in the service of a masculine voice also works as a kind of ideological grid through which the remainder of the text is read. This is not to imply that masculine voice need correspond to the gender of the author or even to a narrator whose gender might have been revealed. Instead, it has more to do with the nature of the ideological grid being established and with the narrator's voice in relation to it.

The title of Maupassant's tale signals an enigma and prepares us for a moral dilemma, a confession that comes soon enough in the form of Céleste's clumsy utterance as she divulges to her mother the news of her pregnancy and of her attempt to get a free ride. Céleste seems, for the moment, to have lost nothing (although apparently destined to have to settle her account before long); her problem appears to be less what she has lost than something she has gained that she hadn't “bargained” for. Polyte, Maupassant's playful rascal, was the coachman who drove Céleste twice a week to market where she would sell her cream, eggs, and fowl. However, as the cost of the transportation added up, Céleste finally decided to give in to Polyte and his offer to trade a free ride for a roll in the hay, or rather, Céleste and Polyte agreed to trade a roll in the coach (a ride) for a roll in the coach (“une rigolade”¹). Three months later she realized she was carrying more than cream, eggs, and fowl. Céleste explains to her mother that she has said nothing to Polyte about her condition for fear he might want to be paid again for the preceding months of rides. The mother agrees that they must keep this fertile return on his investment a secret so as to continue to benefit from the free rides for as long as possible. The story ends with Céleste, heavy-laden and crying, who shuffles along muttering, “Pour sûr que j'y dirai point” (195). The terms of trade are not as easily negotiated as Céleste might have hoped. As with language, one is faced with the threat of having more and/or less than one intended. Transport is less (and more) than a simple matter: less than a simple (easy) matter and more than a simple (single) matter.

The word l'aveu, in fact, signifies not only confession but also an act of agreement or consent—an act which bestows authorization. Maupassant's Realist texts present a storyteller who, via language, would be a vehicle for truth. The Realist conventions on which the implied reader's reception of the text depends presume this acknowledgment of a certain mastery of/through language, for the delivering up of truth requires an unproblematic means of transporting that truth, one unburdened by the “logic of the supplement.” The word that constitutes the title, moreover, delivers not only multiple meanings but a hierarchical scheme. An aveu, in feudal society, was the written acknowledgement of indebtedness from vassal to lord, in exchange for a fief—a kind of medieval bargaining chip. The word fief derives not, as one might suspect, from the word for land or property, but rather from the Latin word for bétail or bête, both of which it will be a question in this text. What is the nature of the (unspoken) confessions and consents in this story of voice, exchange, and bêtise?

“L'Aveu” begins, as do many nineteenth-century narratives, with a description of the surroundings. This introductory frame offers a panoramic view in which no one in particular speaks. It describes a pastoral setting, in what could be an eternal present.

Le soleil de midi tombe en large pluie sur les champs. Ils s'étendent, onduleux, entre les bouquets d'arbres des fermes, et les récoltes diverses, les seigles mûrs et les blés jaunissants, les avoines d'un vert clair, les trèfles d'un vert sombre, étalent un grand manteau rayé, remuant et doux sur le ventre nu de la terre.

Là-bas, au sommet d'une ondulation, en rangée comme des soldats, une interminable ligne de vaches, les unes couchées, les autres debout, clignant leurs gros yeux sous l'ardente lumière, ruminent et pâturent un trèfle aussi vaste qu'un lac.

Et deux femmes, la mère et la fille, vont, d'une allure balancée l'une devant l'autre, par un étroit sentier creusé dans les récoltes, vers ce régiment de bêtes.

(192)

The first sentence functions as a kind of overdetermined field, for the noun with which it begins has a long and well-established history in the discourses of mythology, philosophy, and metaphysics.²Sun sheds with difficulty its association with Logos, with the Father, and with self-present Truth. Where there is one, the others seem to go along for the ride. In addition, these archetypal engenderers have a well-established position in relation to the binary oppositional solidus: sun/moon, Logos/writing, father/mother, truth/error. They are in the proverbial driver's seat, the privileged position, whereas the second term is relegated to the back seat. The second term is seen as derivative or in some way inferior—incapable of achieving the wholeness, dominion, or presence of the first term.

As the initial stroke of the brush in this depiction of a “natural” scene, the opening sentence is, at the same time, much more. “Le soleil de midi tombe en large pluie sur les champs.” The already charged noun, “le soleil,” holds a position of prominence not only by virtue of its position as the first word of the first sentence; it also finds its associations reinforced in numerous other ways. The qualifier “de midi” gives us more than the time of day; it indicates full strength, the height of power or intensity. Whereas this qualifier points up to that inviolable signifier (the sun), a would-be absolute, its literal meaning derives from its temporary positionality in relation to what is below. In this text, however, the superior spacial position seems fixed and becomes, by extension, qualitative. The singularity of the sun is inscribed in the metaphorical description of the sun's activity, “tombe en large pluie”: the singular form is preserved in “pluie” even though one frequently speaks of the sun's rays; this grammatical singularity serves as well to inscribe indivisibility and thus to reinforce the previously mentioned associations of this metaphor of metaphor; the use of the modifier “large” to describe rain (light), doubly singular (first, “not plural,” but also “unusual,” as part of the metaphoric depiction of light as rain), contributes further to the hypercharging of “le soleil.” Finally, the prepositioned adjective “large” brings with it a sense of generosity (as opposed to the postpositioning of the same adjective whose sense would be merely technical and would not necessarily preclude a negative valorization).

The object (“les champs”) stands at the end, unmodified, the only plural in the sentence. Its grammatical and syntactic position, the effect of another's cause, echos and reinforces the presumed yet unspoken hierarchies to which I have already alluded. At the same time, “sur les champs” is only one phoneme removed from sur-le-champ which would add to those solar attributes already accumulated, that of immediacy. These two points shore up even further the “sun's” hold on “power,” but speak as well to what would be the ideal functioning of metaphor. Metaphor, from the Greek “transport,” seems the ideal vehicle for the perfect trip, the one from idea to thing, in which we would run the risk neither of missing baggage nor of excess baggage. Not only would the metaphor (or the word) hit its mark right on target, but it would seem to do so without temporal interval or gap (thus, sur-le-champ) between point of departure (idea) and destination (thing). This describes a notion of language as essentially unproblematic for the writer skillful enough to find le mot juste.

Ironically, Céleste's negotiations for transport have something in common with a confrontation between differing views of language: her desire is to secure a free ride; yet while holding on to what she doesn't want to lose (her car fare), she is unable to protect herself against an excess (a pregnancy). Whereas Céleste bears the weight of this complication, other “readers” remain, so to speak, in the dark, at least for the moment: as far as Polyte is concerned, there has been no loss that adds up to anything; his role as driver entitles him to what Céleste is reluctant to lose. Her car fare, which is, on the literal level, what she pays, struggles to renegotiate, and tries to avoid paying, points to the problematic inherent in language where there are no “free rides,” no simple, unfettered transfer of ideas from one mind to another. The mother, on the other hand, has been aware only of an expected loss, but not an unwanted and unwieldy gain.³

The first sentence of this descriptive frame tells several stories. In addition to merely setting the scene, and beyond establishing familiar yet unspoken hierarchies, it inscribes in metaphoric terms Polyte's insemination of Céleste. This inscription relies upon another long-established, arbitrary yet naturalized or institutionalized analogy drawn between the sun's rays and the sowing of seed. In his examination of the history of the sun as metaphor, Derrida reveals and questions Aristotle's matter-of-fact assumption that the relation between sun and rays is identical to that between sowing and seed:

Where has it ever been seen that there is the same relation between the sun and its rays as between sowing and seeds? If this analogy imposes itself—and it does—then it is that within language the analogy itself is due to a long and hardly visible chain whose first link is quite difficult to exhibit, and not only for Aristotle. Rather than a metaphor, do we not have here an “enigma,” a secret narrative, composed of several metaphors, a powerful asyndeton or dissimulated conjunction, whose essential characteristic is “to describe a fact in an impossible combination of words?”

(Margins, 243)

For all the succinctness of the first sentence as, among other things, an expression of the dominion of those unbreachable wholes that constitute, nonetheless, halves of familiar binary oppositions (sun/moon, male/female, understanding/misunderstanding, Logos/writing) the second sentence, as an elaboration of “les champs,” is remarkable for its length: more than four times that of its primary, “singular” counterpart.

Le soleil de midi tombe en large pluie sur les champs. Ils s'étendent, onduleux, entre les bouquets d'arbres des fermes, et les récoltes diverses, les seigles mûrs et les blés jaunissants, les avoines d'un vert clair, les trèfles d'un vert sombre, étalent un grand manteau rayé, remuant et doux sur le ventre nu de la terre.

The first sentence seems a statement of being for the sun-male-Father-subject-Logos-cause, whereas the second functions in a similar way for the female-object-plural (scattered and diversified)-Mother (earth)-effect. These being the only two sentences in the paragraph, they seem to fall in line, like the clearly opposed and hierarchized elements of a binary opposition. This literal and idiomatic falling in line is not unlike that of the cows (“… en rangée comme des soldats, une interminable ligne de vaches … “) and the women (“Et deux femmes, la mère et la fille, vont, d'une allure balancée l'une devant l'autre, par un étroit sentier creusé dans les récoltes, vers ce régiment de bêtes”) as the rank and file under an unseen yet commanding force. The first sentence's directness (no subordinate clauses, no punctuation before the end of the sentence, no syntactic deviations from subject-verb-object) stands as a kind of model of clarté in contrast to the second sentence's rambling portrait of detour, fragmentation (eight commas), diversity, and plurality.

In her book, Breaking the Chain, Naomi Schor postulates that “to tell the life of a woman and, through her, of Woman is tantamount to recounting the adventures of her body” (57). In “L'Aveu,” not only does this seem to be the case where Céleste's life is concerned, but the description of the countryside as well is a figuration of the archetypal vegetal, female body:⁴ Mother Earth, typically associated with production, harvest, abundance, but also with tenderness. Maupassant's text includes all of the above, presented in a particularly positive light. And yet, in the end, this abundance is seen to come up short, to fail to measure up next to its superior counterpart. To the image of tender Mother and prolific, fertile Mother, one could add that of a sensual (“onduleux,” “au sommet d'une ondulation,” “le ventre nu de la terre”), yielding female: the spreading out (“ils s'étendent”) of the fields joins the supine Mother earth to describe a position of particular vulnerability and trust—the ventral side exposed. Here again, one sees cause and effect sketched out without temporal interval: the countryside depicted as sensual, receptive female is, at the same time, pregnant mother-to-be, from an alternate reading of those rounded shapes (“onduleux,” “ondulation”) and from the description of the luxuriant coat of vegetation that lies on top of the “le ventre nu de la terre” (192). Finally, the same passage presents an already delivered mother whose abundant progeny/vegetation is described in all its plurality. Whereas the first sentence maintains singular parts of speech, even to describe rays of sun, the second sentence, as a kind of tautology of fertility, abundance, and diversity uses numerous nouns in the plural where the singular form would have been grammatically and semantically acceptable (le seigle mûr, le blé jaunissant, l'avoine). It is easy to see Céleste and her story figured here as well, but from another point of view, within a natural frame that Céleste cannot see. Thus, the introductory frame interacts with the subsequent story by way of the supposedly happy marriage of commonplace metaphors whose nonetheless tendentious use secures already fixed, naturalized, hierarchical relationships.

We are guided from the initial ethereal scene of insemination, Truth/God/Father as origin, source of all light, site of unfettered understanding, to other places in the text where this scene is repeated but with a difference. It becomes less overtly celestial, and more overtly Céleste-ial. The transformation of this “proper” name into an adjective points to that which is terre-à-terre. Céleste's links to heavenly origins do nothing to elevate her; her name reads more like an ironic commentary in a text that underscores her earthbound nature and her bestiality. Yet, despite the shift away from celestial scenes, the connection between heavenly cause (as innately masculine) and earthbound effect is never lost and is even strengthened by the transposed moments of insemination.

One of these moments occurs as the two women, each carrying two empty pails, make their way toward the cows. The reflection from the sun on the metal pails throws off a dazzling, white flame with every step they take; the sun as sower of seed strikes again: “Et le métal, à chaque pas qu'elles font, jette une flamme ébouissante et blanche sous le soleil qui le frappe”⁵ (192). The effect of this cause is already inscribed in what might otherwise be seen as a reality effect;⁶ the pails are transported by means of a “cerceau de barrique.” “Barrique” calls to mind slang expressions in which this word figures, where the object's distinguishing characteristic is excessive fullness and heaviness (gros comme une barrique/plein comme une barrique). These pairs of pails, metonymic (the carrying apparatus would suspend the pails at the level of the upper body) and metaphoric extensions of the female body, will soon fill with milk whose weight the women will have to bear. Later, when Céleste can no longer go on, it is due to the weight of these filled vessels added to that of her already burdened body, “Je n'peux pu porter mon lait!” Her body seems to become, rather than something unto itself, a carrier of imposing burdens. She is seen “écroulée par terre entre ses deux seaux” (193).

The eroticized scene of the milking itself once again unites cause and effect (rays, semen, and milk) in the same image. On the one hand, the ejaculation from the “swollen” organ into the waiting buckets recalls the sun's “rain” from the beginning of the text as well as reinscribing, still again, Céleste's sexual encounter with Polyte. Whereas the “insemination” of the fields required a “large pluie,” the trajectory here is much more focused—it becomes a “mince fil.” This link between the sun's rays (as rain falling) and milk is reinforced in the descriptions of the two elements, where a trace or characteristic of one is felt in the other: the sun's light reflecting off the metal pails is not golden, but white,⁷ whereas the milk is not white but rather “un peu jaune.” The “enormous udder” providing the milk is “blonde.” The two women set off after the milking, “alourdies par la charge du lait.” Just as in the opening paragraph where the ray's falling like rain onto the naked belly of the earth required no time lapse between “insemination” and “pregnancy,” the bucket/breasts' filling with milk marks the effect of insemination as well as the act of insemination itself. Once again the temporal gap between cause and effect has been eliminated; the effect of the cause is always already being felt. This secularized scene of hierarchization is a kind of rewriting of another one where the elimination of interval between cause and effect was just as crucial as an indication of supreme power: “And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’”

The mark of the sun as father and as supreme creator rather than co-creator is everywhere apparent. In addition to the examples already given, the fiery rain/reign of le roi soleil is inscribed in the physical description of the characters. The irony of the name Céleste, as daddy's little girl, is clear from the start; she has his coloring, but more in the form of wounds inflicted than as gifts bestowed:

Et la fille, Céleste, une grande rousse aux cheveux brûlés, aux joues brûlées, tachées de son comme si des gouttes de feu lui étaient tombées sur le visage, un jour qu'elle peinait au soleil, mumura en geignant doucement comme font les enfants battus. …

(193)

The image of “gouttes de feu” falling recalls, of course, the initial sun shower where the sun's rays fell as rain. The paternal mark is felt on Polyte as well. He is described as: “tellement cuit par le soleil, brûlé par le vent, trempé par les averses, et teinté par l'eau-de-vie qu'il avait la face et le cou couleur de brique. …” (195)

This “eau-de-vie” is more than a face-reddening shot of alcohol; referring back to the first sentence once again, where light was water (rain), and where this water produced luxuriant vegetation (life), it reads as another instance of the ubiquitous influence of the sun/father. Though the paternal legacy is described, in part, as a tortuous initiation, it finds Polyte, nonetheless, “réjoui” (195). This “cocher” who cracks his whip authoritatively holds the reins, literally and figuratively, in his dealings with Céleste.

Yet the existence of a larger picture, a wider view, is indicated from the beginning. The opening description of the countryside, of the proliferation of the vegetal species at the beginning of the text, is described as if seen from above, through a wide-angle lens. Whereas twentieth-century cinematographic terminology may be anachronistic, the visual perspective imposed on the reader appears crucial and anything but gratuitous. It leads us from “world Truth” to particular instance (from “large pluie,” for example, to “mince fil”), as part of a subtle manipulation. That opening view is generalized, literally far reaching. It is also the male view of the reclining, yielding female sketched out earlier—hence the visibility of the stripes of the vast coat seen from above (“un grand manteau rayé”). The eye of the camera moves in more closely, though still maintaining a certain distance (“Là-bas”). Where we first saw a stretch of hills and valleys, the focus shifts to the crest of one hill. One long sentence, comprising the whole second paragraph and punctuated by seven commas describes the “interminable,” horizontal line of cows, yet none of them escapes the “large pluie,” the vertical (hierarchical) rain/reign of the sun: “clignant leurs gros yeux sous l'ardente lumière.” Indeed, the cows are “en rangée comme des soldats.” The cows feed on clover, plant growth mentioned as well in the first paragraph as one of the luxurient products of the broad-ranged rain/insemination. In this second mention, the insemination is reinscribed as a legacy: the clover is “aussi vaste qu'un lac.”

The “Et” that introduces the third paragraph ties the two women to the previous description. In one sentence the women are mentioned three times: first as “deux femmes”; next as “la mère et la fille,” where the use of the definite article rather than “une mère et sa fille” points to Womenkind (the definite article in French can refer to the whole category of the substantive in question). This parallels the structure of the opening section: overall generalized view of the countryside seen from a distance followed by a close-up of individuals. Lastly, in “l'une devant l'autre,” we sense the continuity from one generation to the next. This is, in its way, another “interminable ligne” that further binds the females of the two species. The women are obliged to walk in single file because of the configuration of the land; their path, in contrast to all that preceded, is “étroit.” Yet, like the cow-soldiers, they are neither standing at attention nor walking in rigid military style; they have “une allure balancée,” a swaying sensual movement reminiscent of the undulations characterizing Mother Earth in the opening paragraphs. The countryside, the cows, and the women are described in terms of curvilinearity; there are no straight lines in (Mother) nature. The sun, however, master of finding the shortest distance between two points, overrides and dominates this indirectness.

In the deterministic universe described, analogies are drawn between the cows and the women. The former are referred to as “bêtes” rather than animaux, facilitating the analogy, and the latter are beastlike on several counts. As dearly shortchanged children of Logos, they move speechlessly and mindlessly through their paces, and interact with the cows with a certain bestiality (cruelty). The succession of sentences all beginning with the anonymous “Elles,” and the uniformity with which the women's activities are enumerated depict a robot-like, unthinking, instinctual behavior: “Elles portent chacune deux seaux … Elles ne parlent point. Elles vont traire les vaches. Elles arrivent, posent à terre un seau, et s'approchent des deux premieres bêtes, qu'elles font lever d'un coup de sabot dans les côtes” (192).

The eventual revelation of the family name coincides with a characterization or definition of the “beast” in question: “Et les deux Malivoire, mère et fille. …” (192). It is a question of not understanding/seeing: y voir mal (Mali-voire). They appear to be simultaneously and paradoxically blinded by light and left in the dark. These beasts of burden can, by definition, find no relief in this Maupassantian world of hierarchized essences. They are “alourdies par la charge du lait.” The polysemy of the word charge proves revelatory, for it means not only “weight” or “load being transported,” but also “burden (emotional or otherwise); accumulation of energy (i.e., from the sun); obligation, mandate; fee imposed; assault, attack.” The final sentence of the text, Céleste's exclamation to her mother (“Pour sur que j'y dirai point!”), is like another instance of naming/defining. Her statement is a vow not to speak the truth and is, at the same time, a confession (l'aveu), an inscription of her predicament, a “setting” of her secondary position in the binary opposition, as the one who will not speak, and who thus stands in contrast to Logos. Her words backfire. This final attempted gesture of self-assertion only reinscribes what, by definition, limits her.

The wide angle lens of the opening description is traded for a telescopic lens in the telling of Céleste's story. Likewise, the universal present gives way to the past tense, the general to the particular. Without the benefit of these two different lenses, on y voit mal; the larger picture cannot be seen. The Malivoire family embodies this predicament. The anecdotal section of the text must be read against the paradigmatically layered background of the opening frame. More than mere description, and more than foreshadowing of the events in the second part of the story, it provides a context from which the anecdote can be read, or rather, written. It is that panoramic view, that eternal present that informs our perceptions of the feeble machinations of Céleste and her mother. It is the familiar theme from medieval farce of the dupeur dupé but with a cosmic twist. In Maupassant's universe, there are no innocents; even the underdogs are greedy and bestial. At the same time, these plotters are innocent (ignorant). The dupe fancies herself a duper and is only aware of her entrapment on the most superficial level. The greater picture and the final irony lie outside the confines of the anecdote about Céleste, in the juxtaposition of the latter with the highly charged, heavily burdened descripive frame. The “innocently” used metaphors of the sun and mother earth are transporters whose rides have long been underway, whose time of departure can no longer be traced and whose itinerary, though arbitrary, has come to seem so familiar, so natural, that we feel—instinctively—at home with it, barely knowing, or knowing not at all, that we went along for the ride.

Notes

1. This is Polyte's term for a sexual adventure that is used at various points in the text when he playfully tries to persuade Céleste to give in to his demands.

2. On the functioning of overdetermination as well as description, see Michael Riffaterre's “Models of the Literary Sentence” (18-33) and also his Text Production. For a discussion of the relationship between metaphorical and philosophical discourse as well as an analysis of the “sun” as the “metaphor of metaphor,” see Jacques Derrida's Margins of Philosophy (207-71).

3. An alternate translation of the Greek root of metaphor as “to carry or bear” seems to join up with Céleste's pregnancy and the “dangerous” logic of the supplement where gain is also loss: of the illusion of immediacy; of single intention; of speech uncontaminated by writing; of the “free ride” that language was thought to provide. “On the level both of the signified and of the signifier … it is not possible to pin down the dividing lines between excess and lack, compensation and corruption.” Barbara Johnson in the introduction to Derrida's Dissemination, (xiii). trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1981) xiii.

4. In the first chapter of her book A Woman's Revenge, Mary Donaldson-Evans discusses the relationship between nature and women in Maupassant's texts. She deals especially with aquatic settings and shows chronological and negative progression in the portrayal of women.

5. This and subsequent emphases of the Maupassant text are mine.

6. In Roland Barthes's article of the same name, he examines the way descriptive details function in a text, for example, by Flaubert and identifies this as a particularly modernist gesture. The details in question “ne disent finalement rien d'autre que ceci: nous sommes le réel” (89).

7. “… le métal, à chaque pas qu'elles font, jette une flamme éblouissant et blanche sous le soleil qui le frappe” (192).

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “L'effet de réel.” Littérature et réalité. Paris: Seuil, 1982. 81-89.

Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1981.

———. Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982.

Donaldson-Evans, Mary. A Woman's Revenge. Lexington: French Forum, 1986.

Maupassant, Guy de. “L'Aveu.” Contes et nouvelles. Paris: Gallimard, 1979. 192-97.

Riffaterre, Michael. “Models of the Literary Sentence.” French Literary Theory Today. Ed. Tzvetan Todorov. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982.

———. Text Production. New York: Columbia UP, 1983.

Schor, Naomi. Breaking the Chain. New York: Columbia UP, 1985.