This book contains 26 tales of the macabre from French author Maurice Level (1875-1926), short tales, each 4 pages in length, written in the distinctively French ‘conte cruel’ tradition. Black Mask is the publisher, which is most appropriate since any of these stories could easily be included in one of those old Black Mask mystery magazines a reader could buy at the corner drug store years ago.

Similar to French fin-de-siècle decadent literature, the setting for the stories is usually Paris, and similar to 19th century romanticism, we are usually reading about the unfolding of a life-and-death issue. Level writes his stories with a particular flair – there is always a distinctive pop or twist at the end, the type of ironic twist made famous by O. Henry. With this in mind, I wouldn’t want to spoil the reader’s experience by saying too much about too many tales, so I will focus on one of the real gems in this collection, a story entitled ‘A Maniac’, which I’ve seen translated elsewhere as ‘A Madman’.

This tale opens with the lines, “He was neither malicious nor bloodthirsty. It was only that he had conceived a very special idea of the pleasures of existence. Perhaps it was that, having tried them all, he no longer found the thrill of the unexpected in any of them.” We read along as the tale fleshes-out what is meant by “a very special idea of the pleasure of existence” The unnamed main character attends the theater not to watch the play but in the hope a fire will break out; visits a fair in the hope beasts will attack their trainer; attends bullfights but is disappointed since the violence is too predictable. What he is after is the unexpected thrill. But when he experiences exactly what he is after, in the aftermath of these unexpected thrills, he becoming depressed, thinking there is no more reason to continue living.

Let’s pause here to ask: does this 19th century thrill-seeker anticipate an entire culture of thrill-seekers, people putting themselves or watching other people put themselves at risk on the edge for the sheer thrill of it? German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer judged our human life as an alternating between frustration and boredom. Is this seeking of thrills a radical attempt to transcend frustration and boredom? If so, this is hardly a flattering commentary on our natural capacity for joy and harmonious living.

The tale continues. Our thrill-seeker sees a poster displaying a daredevil event. We read, “It seemed that the cyclist dashed down the narrow path at full speed, went up round the loop, then down to the bottom. For a second during this fantastic performance, he was head downwards, his feet up in the air.” Inspired, our thrill-seeker buys an entire box of seats at the end of the track so he can watch the daredevil cyclist night after night without distraction. But then one night after the performance the cyclist approaches him and, in the course of conversation, explains how he can accomplish his extraordinary feat by focusing on a fixed point, the fixed point being the man sitting by himself in a box at the end of the track.

The next night monsieur thrill-seeker takes his usual seat. The cyclist pushes off, heading for his death-defying loop. We read, “Just at that moment, in the most natural way possible, the maniac rose, pushed back his seat, and went to one at the other side of the box. Then a terrible thing happened. The cyclist was thrown violently up in the air. His machine rushed forwards, flew up, and lurched out into the midst of the shrieks of terror that filled the hall, fell among the crowd. With a methodical gesture the maniac put on his overcoat, smoothed his hat on the cuff of his sleeve, and went out.”

Like the cyclist’s daredevil full circle, the end of the tale brings readers full circle to the tale’s opening line where the main character is described as “neither malicious nor bloodthirsty”. Really? How would we characterize someone who would intentionally act in a way causing the death of others merely to have a thrill? Wicked and cruel? Malicious and bloodthirsty? Any of these words seem to fit. So, we may ask if the tale’s narrator shares in the same madness as the man he is describing; or, to put it another way, is this tale-telling the product of a diseased mind, yet again another sick flower of decadent 19th century Baudelarean evil?

Max Nordau wrote an essay in 1894 where he used the term ‘decadent’ and judged many French writers and artists and a large sector of the French population as having diseased minds, that is, minds that are confused, discouraged and despairing. Perhaps, on some level, Maurice Level would agree with the confused, discouraged and despairing part, since his stories are filled with such people. Fortunately, reading his finely crafted tales is just the opposite experience: sheer enjoyment, like popping a box of expensive French chocolates in your mouth, one by one.