He had the most perfect contempt for the usual fatuity of authors; he snuffed out his own as well as he could; but he was not unwilling to seek a reinforcement of his modesty in other people’s consideration; if this consideration failed him, modesty immediately went by the board. He attached extreme importance to Bernard’s esteem. Was it with a view to conquering this that, when Bernard was with him, he set his Pegasus prancing? It was the worst way possible. Edouard knew it; he said so to himself over and over again; but in spite of all his resolutions, as soon as he was in Bernard’s company, he behaved quite differently from what he wished, and spoke in a manner which immediately appeared absurd to him (and which indeed was so). This might almost make one suppose that he loved Bernard?... No; I think not. But a little vanity is quite as effectual in making us pose as a great deal of love. “Is it because the novel, of all literary _genres_, is the freest, the most _lawless_,” held forth Edouard, “... is it for that very reason, for fear of that very liberty (the artists who are always sighing after liberty are often the most bewildered when they get it), that the novel has always clung to reality with such timidity? And I am not speaking only of the French novel. It is the same with the English novel; and the Russian novel, for all its throwing off of constraints, is a slave to resemblance. The only progress it looks to is to get still nearer to nature. The novel has never known that ‘formidable erosion of contours,’ as Nietzsche calls it; that deliberate avoidance of life, which gave style to the works of the Greek dramatists, for instance, or to the tragedies of the French XVIIth century. Is there anything more perfectly and deeply human than these works? But that’s just it--they are human only in their depths; they don’t pride themselves on appearing so--or, at any rate, on appearing real. They remain works of art.” Edouard had got up, and, for fear of seeming to give a lecture, began to pour out the tea as he spoke; then he moved up and down, then squeezed a lemon into his cup, but, nevertheless, continued speaking: “Because Balzac was a genius, and because every genius seems to bring to his art a final and conclusive solution, it has been decreed that the proper function of the novel is to rival the _état-civil_.[4] Balzac constructed his work; he never claimed to codify the novel; his article on Stendhal proves it. Rival the _état-civil_! As if there weren’t enough fools and boors in the world as it is! What have I to do with the _état-civil_? _L’état c’est moi!_ I, the artist; civil or not, my work doesn’t pretend to rival anything.” Edouard, who was getting excited--a little factitiously, perhaps--sat down. He affected not to look at Bernard; but it was for him that he was speaking. If he had been alone with him, he would not have been able to say a word; he was grateful to the two women for setting him on.