There was no lack of sincerity in these divagations.
Solitude had long ago plunged me into pride. My head was completely turned. Baruzi handed me back my dissertation with copious praise; he gave me an interview after the lecture and, in his voice with the dying fall, sighed out the hope that it might be the basis for an important work. I got swelled…
I, too, would have liked to try that ‘hazardous and useless’ existence whose attractions Jacques and the younger novelists were praising all the time. But how could I introduce the unexpected into my daily life? Very occasionally my sister and I managed to spend an evening away from our mother’s vi…
In the Bois de Boulogne, I walked round the lake with Jean Pradelle; we watched the autumn, the swans, the people in rowing-boats; we took up our discussions where we had left off: with a diminished ardour. I thought a lot of Pradelle, but oh, how untormented he was! His tranquillity offended me. R…
The tensions between my parents and myself had on the whole slackened a little. I spent my days in peace and quiet. I was studying philosophy and thinking of writing something. I hesitated a long time before deciding what to do. Pradelle had convinced me that my first task was to search for the tru…
