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As these samples show, Stendhal the narrator is rarely absent for long. He is glad to tell us what he thinks and what we should think about many subjects: the weaknesses of the French, notably the bourgeoisie, provincials and Parisians alike; the desiccating oppressiveness of the Restoration; and, …

although disdainful of the meretricious vices he found in most novels, he was at the same time extremely diffident about the merits of his own.

At the moment he most regretted that adored woman's absence, he heard Mathilde's footstep. "The worst thing about being in prison," he thought, "is that you can't shut your door to anyone." No matter what Mathilde said, it . . . only irritated him.

her imprecations against his character

(Here the author wanted to insert a page of dots. "That would be in bad taste," said the editor, "and in a piece of writing as frivolous as this, bad taste is death."

"Politics," replied the author, "are a millstone around the neck of literature and will sink it in less than six months. Politic…