The Mustache

Guy de Maupassant

My Dear Lucy:

I have no news. We live in the drawing-room, looking out at the rain. We cannot go out in

this frightful weather, so we have theatricals. How stupid they are, my dear, these drawing

entertainments in the repertory of real life! All is forced, coarse, heavy. The jokes are like

cannon balls, smashing everything in their passage. No wit, nothing natural, no

sprightliness, no elegance. These literary men, in truth, know nothing of society. They are

perfectly ignorant of how people think and talk in our set. I do not mind if they despise our

customs, our conventionalities, but I do not forgive them for not knowing them. When they

dear Lucy, how it changes him! I no longer recognize him-by day or at night. If he did not

let it grow again I think I should no longer love him; he looks so horrid like this.

In fact, a man without a mustache is no longer a man. I do not care much for a beard; it

almost always makes a man look untidy. But a mustache, oh, a mustache is indispensable to

a manly face. No, you would never believe how these little hair bristles on the upper lip are

a relief to the eye and good in other ways. I have thought over the matter a great deal but

hardly dare to write my thoughts. Words look so different on paper and the subject is so

difficult, so delicate, so dangerous that it requires infinite skill to tackle it.

Well, when my husband appeared, shaven, I understood at once that I never could fall in

love with a strolling actor nor a preacher, even if it were Father Didon, the most charming

Whence comes this charm of the mustache, will you tell me? Do I know myself? It tickles

your face, you feel it approaching your mouth and it sends a little shiver through you down

to the tips of your toes.

And on your neck! Have you ever felt a mustache on your neck? It intoxicates you, makes

you feel creepy, goes to the tips of your fingers. You wriggle, shake your shoulders, toss

back your head. You wish to get away and at the same time to remain there; it is delightful,

but irritating. But how good it is!

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A lip without a mustache is like a body without clothing; and one must wear clothes, very

few, if you like, but still some clothing.

I recall a sentence (uttered by a politician) which has been running in my mind for three

months. My husband, who keeps up with the newspapers, read me one evening a very

singular speech by our Minister of Agriculture, who was called M. Meline. He may have

been superseded by this time. I do not know.

I was paying no attention, but the name Meline struck me. It recalled, I do not exactly know

There is no love without a mustache!

"There is no patriotism without agriculture," said M. Meline, and he was right, that

minister; I now understand why.

From a very different point of view the mustache is essential. It gives character to the face.

It makes a man look gentle, tender, violent, a monster, a rake, enterprising! The hairy man,

who does not shave off his whiskers, never has a refined look, for his features are

concealed; and the shape of the jaw and the chin betrays a great deal to those who

understand.

The man with a mustache retains his own peculiar expression and his refinement at the

same time.

timidity.

But what I adore above all in the mustache is that it is French, altogether French. It came

from our ancestors, the Gauls, and has remained the insignia of our national character.

It is boastful, gallant and brave. It sips wine gracefully and knows how to laugh with

refinement, while the broad-bearded jaws are clumsy in everything they do.

I recall something that made me weep all my tears and also--I see it now --made me love a

mustache on a man's face.

It was during the war, when I was living with my father. I was a young girl then. One day

there was a skirmish near the chateau. I had heard the firing of the cannon and of the

artillery all the morning, and that evening a German colonel came and took up his abode in

our house. He left the following day.

My father was informed that there were a number of dead bodies in the fields. He had them

brought to our place so that they might be buried together. They were laid all along the

great avenue of pines as fast as they brought them in, on both sides of the avenue, and as

The uniforms were concealed beneath the earth, and yet immediately, yes, immediately, my

Some of them had shaved on the very day of the battle, as though they wished to be elegant

little one; I am a brother."

And I cried, oh, I cried a great deal more than I should if I had not recognized them, the

poor dead fellows.

It was wrong of me to tell you this. Now I am sad and cannot chatter any longer. Well,

good-by, dear Lucy. I send you a hearty kiss. Long live the mustache!

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