A good-natured prostitute has the kindness she shows to a group of traveling companions repaid with scorn and connivance at her further degradation. A man is driven insane by an invisible demon that may or may not exist. No one ever accused Guy de Maupassant's stories of being excessively cheery. But a close reading of classics such as "Ball of Fat" and "The Horla" also reveals an insistent strain of humanity that Maupassant was never able to extinguish in himself. Despite his characters' provincial small-mindedness, bourgeois complacency, or urban jadedness, they are never merely types or specimens. That is why their stories echo in memory long after being read. Suffering and disenchantment may be their ultimate fate, but in their struggles, and even in their illusions, they retain some dignity.