“I was introduced to him as a person greatly struck by his talent, which indeed was true, for although at that time he had not yet produced his ‘chefs-d’œuvre,’ I had admired his original manner of looking at things, and felt that he had a great future before him. Every one knows how satisfied he was with himself, a satisfaction which was so well justified that one forgave him for it. He loved to talk of his works, to describe them beforehand, and to read little bits of them aloud. Naïve and good-hearted, he asked advice of children, and then only made use of it as an argument to prove how right he was himself. “One evening when we had dined with him in some eccentric manner on boiled beef, melon and iced champagne, he went and put on a beautiful new dressing-gown, which he showed off with the delight of a young girl. We could not dissuade him from going out in this costume to accompany us as far as the entrance to the Luxembourg. There was not a breath of wind, and he carried a lighted candle in his hand, talking continuously of four Arab horses, which he never owned, but which he firmly believed for some time were in his possession. He would have gone with us to the other end of Paris, had we permitted it. “My employer Delatouche was not nearly so pleasant. He also talked continuously about himself, and read aloud his novels with more discretion than Balzac, but with still more complacency. Woe betide you if you moved the furniture, stirred the fire, or even sneezed while he was thus occupied. He would stop immediately to ask you, with polite solicitude, if you had a cold, or an attack of nerves, and pretending to forget the book he had been reading, he obliged you to beg and pray before he would open it again. He never could accept the idea of growing old with resignation, and always said: ‘I am not fifty, but twice twenty-five years of age.’ He had plenty of critical discernment, and his observations often kept me from affectations and peculiarities of style—the great stumbling-block of all young authors. Although he gave me good advice, he put what seemed to me insurmountable difficulties in my way. ‘Beware of imitation,’ he said, ‘make use of your own powers, read in your own heart, and in the life you see around you, and then record your impressions.... You are too absolute in your sentiments. Your character is too strong. You neither know the world, nor individuals, your brain is empty! Your works may be charming, but they are quite wanting in common sense. You must write them all over again.’ I perfectly agreed with him and went away, making up my mind to keep to the painting of tea-caddies and cigarette cases.” At last “Indiana” was begun, aimlessly, and with no hope of success.