t I stifled it
with the terrible phrase, "the struggle for life," and also by the
recollection of numerous examples culled from the firm with which I now
had the honor of being connected.

The morning after I had had this very literary conversation with my
honorable director, I rang at the door of the small house in the Rue
Desbordes-Valmore where Pierre Fauchery lived, in a retired corner of
Passy. Having taken up my pen to tell a plain unvarnished tale I do not
see how I can conceal the wretched feeling of pleasure which, as I rang
the bell, warmed my heart at the thought of the good joke I was about to
play on the owner of this peaceful abode.

Even after making up one's mind to the sacrifices I had decided upon,
there is always left a trace of envy for those who have triumphed in the
melancholy struggle for literary supremacy. It was a real disappointment
to me when the servant replied, ill-humoredly, that M. Fauchery was not in
Paris. I asked when he would return. The servant did not know. I asked for
his address. The servant did not know that. Poor lion, who thought he had
secured anonymity for his holiday! A half-hour later I had discovered that
he was staying for the present at the Chateau de Proby, near Nemours. I
had merely had to make inquiries of his publisher. Two hours later I
bought my ticket at the Gare de Lyon for the little town chosen by Balzac
as the scene for his delicious story of Ursule Mirouet. I took a traveling
bag and was prepared to spend the night there. In case I failed to see the
master that afternoon I had decided to make sure of him the next morning.
Exactly seven hours after the servant, faithful to his trust, had declared
that he did not know where his master was staying, I was standing in the
hall of the chateau waiting for my card to be sent up. I had taken care to
write on it a reminder of our conversation of the year before, and this
time, after a ten-minute wait in the hall, during which I noticed with
singular curiosity and _malice_ two very elegant and very pretty young
women going out for a walk, I was admitted to his presence. "Aha," I said
to myself, "this then is the secret of his exile; the interview promises
well!"

The novelist received me in a cosy little room, with a window opening onto
the park, already beginning to turn yellow with the advancing autumn. A
wood fire burned in the fireplace and lighted up the walls which were hung
with flowered cretonne and on which c