Book account

He is far too preoccupied with the wrong
side of genius, and Camille Maupin's desire to put him back on the
right side is easily conceivable. The task was an attractive one.
Claude Vignon thinks himself a great politician as well as a great
writer; but this unpublished Machiavelli laughs within himself at all
ambitions; he knows what he can do; he has instinctively taken the
measure of his future on his faculties; he sees his greatness, but he
also sees obstacles, grows alarmed or disgusted, lets the time roll
by, and does not go to work. Like Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist,
like Nathan the dramatic author, like Blondet, another journalist, he
came from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, to which we owe the greater
number of our writers.
"Which way did you come?" asked Mademoiselle des Touches, coloring
with either pleasure or surprise.'
"By the door," replied Claude Vignon, dryly.
"Oh," she cried, shrugging her shoulders, "I am aware that you are not
a man to climb in by a window."
"Scaling a window is a badge of honor for a beloved woman.


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154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178