Chronologically "Strong as Death/Fort comme la Mort" (first published in 1889) is the penultimate novel by Maupassant and the subject-matter of his late literary productions was much more narrow than that of his early ones. The plot in which a painter first falls in love with a countess, but later is tormented by his love for her daughter, because the daughter bears a physical resemblance of the mother (in her juvenile period the daughter looked absolutely identical to the mother, when the painter's love toward the latter started to grow) gives a lot of material for musing on the topic of love. The title is borrowed from the Bible, where the love is said to be as "strong as death". Nevertheless, the main idea here seems to be not that people of art tend to fall desperately in love and that their love may take eccentric forms, but that delving into something monotonous allows no room for novelty and, consequently, may destroy creative forces.
