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In October, while the Sorbonne was closed, I spent my days in the Bibliothèque Nationale. I had obtained permission to have my lunch out: I would buy bread and rillette and eat them in the gardens of the Palais Royal while watching the petals of the late roses fall; sitting on the benches, navvies …

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…