o speak in this way of the man I
most admired among living writers. Since that not far-distant time when,
tired of being poor, I had made up my mind to cast my lot with the
multitude in Paris, I had tried to lay aside my old self, as lizards do
their skins, and I had almost succeeded. In a former time, a former time
that was but yesterday, I knew--for in a drawer full of poems, dramas and
half-finished tales I had proof of it--that there had once existed a
certain Jules Labarthe who had come to Paris with the hope of becoming a
great man. That person believed in Literature with a capital "L;" in the
Ideal, another capital; in Glory, a third capital. He was now dead and
buried. Would he some day, his position assured, begin to write once more
from pure love of his art? Possibly, but for the moment I knew only the
energetic, practical Labarthe, who had joined the procession with the idea
of getting into the front rank, and of obtaining as soon as possible an
income of thirty thousand francs a year. What would it matter to this
second individual if that vile Pascal should boast of having stolen a
march on the most delicate, the most powerful of the heirs of Balzac,
since I, the new Labarthe, was capable of looking forward to an operation
which required about as much delicacy as some of the performances of my
editor-in-chief? I had, as a matter of fact, a sure means of obtaining the
interview. It was this: When I was young and simple I had sent some verses
and stories to Pierre Fauchery, the same verses and stories the refusal of
which by four editors had finally made me decide to enter the field of
journalism. The great writer was traveling at this time, but he had
replied to me. I had responded by a letter to which he again replied, this
time with an invitation to call upon him. I went I did not find him. I
went again. I did not find him that time. Then a sort of timidity
prevented my returning to the charge. So I had never met him. He knew me
only as the young Elia of my two epistles. This is what I counted upon to
extort from him the favor of an interview which he certainly would refuse
to a mere newspaper man. My plan was simple; to present myself at his
house, to be received, to conceal my real occupation, to sketch vaguely a
subject for a novel in which there should occur a discussion upon the Age
for Love, to make him talk and then when he should discover his
conversation in print--here I began to feel some remorse. Bu