keenest personal interest, the life of the world we live in. It is herein
that he excels! His knowledge is wide, his sympathies are many-sided, his
power of exposition is unsurpassed. No one has set before us the mind of
our time, with its half-lights, its shadowy vistas, its indefiniteness,
its haze on the horizon, so vividly as he.

In Octave Mirbeau's notorious novel, a novel which it would be
complimentary to describe as naturalistic, the heroine is warned by her
director against the works of Anatole France, "Ne lisez jamais du
Voltaire. . . C'est un peche mortel . . . ni de Renan . . . ni de
l'Anatole France. Voila qui est dangereux." The names are appropriately
united; a real, if not precisely an apostolic, succession exists between
the three writers.

JULES LEMAITRE
de l'Academie Francais

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I

"I NEED LOVE"

She gave a glance at the armchairs placed before the chimney, at the
tea-table, which shone in the shade, and at the tall, pale stems of
flowers ascending above Chinese vases. She thrust her hand among the
flowery branches of the guelder roses to make their silvery balls quiver.
Then she looked at herself in a mirror with serious attention. She held
herself sidewise, her neck turned over her shoulder, to follow with her
eyes the spring of her fine form in its sheath-like black satin gown,
around which floated a light tunic studded with pearls wherein sombre
lights scintillated. She went nearer, curious to know her face of that
day. The mirror returned her look with tranquillity, as if this amiable
woman whom she examined, and who was not unpleasing to her, lived without
either acute joy or profound sadness.

On the walls of the large drawing-room, empty and silent, the figures of
the tapestries, vague as shadows, showed pallid among their antique games
and dying graces. Like them, the terra-cotta statuettes on slender
columns, the groups of old Saxony, and the paintings of Sevres, spoke of
past glories. On a pedestal ornamented with precious bronzes, the marble
bust of some princess royal disguised as Diana appeared about to fly out
of her turbulent drapery, while on the ceiling a figure of Night,
powdered like a marquise and surrounded by cupids, sowed flowers.
Everything was asleep, and only the crackling of the logs and the light
rattle of Therese's pearls could be heard.

Turning from the mirror, she lifted the corner of a curtain and saw
through