I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote
which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had
either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the
line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent look and I earn
my thirty thousand francs a year, and more. I have never had the same
pleasure in the printing of the most profitable, the most brilliant
article that I had in consigning to oblivion the sheets relating my visit
to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I
wanted to, since, with all my laborious work I have never written a book.
And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented
me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but
infamous indiscretion, I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause
of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that
Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has
come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more
proud.

MATEO FALCONE

BY PROSPER MERIMEE

On leaving Porto-Vecchio from the northwest and directing his steps
towards the interior of the island, the traveller will notice that the
land rises rapidly, and after three hours' walking over tortuous paths
obstructed by great masses of rock and sometimes cut by ravines, he will
find himself on the border of a great maquis. The maquis is the domain of
the Corsican shepherds and of those who are at variance with justice. It
must be known that, in order to save himself the trouble of manuring his
field, the Corsican husbandman sets fire to a piece of woodland. If the
flame spread farther than is necessary, so much the worse! In any case he
is certain of a good crop from the land fertilized by the ashes of the
trees which grow upon it. He gathers only the heads of his grain, leaving
the straw, which it would be unnecessary labor to cut. In the following
spring the roots that have remained in the earth without being destroyed
send up their tufts of sprouts, which in a few years reach a height of
seven or eight feet. It is this kind of tangled thicket that is called a
maquis. They are made up of different kinds of trees and shrubs, so
crowded and mingled together at the caprice of nature that only with an
axe in hand can a man open a passage through them, and maquis are
frequently seen so thick and bushy that the wil