He
said it was a pity he did not know me when he was writing it, for I
could have told him her story more sympathetically than the women in
the Rat Mort, supplying him with many pretty details that they had
never noticed or had forgotten. It would have been easy for me to have
done this, for Marie Pellegrin is enshrined in my memory like a
miniature in a case. I press a spring, and I see the beautifully
shaped little head, the pale olive face, the dark eyes, and the
blue-black hair. Marie Pellegrin is really part of my own story, so
why should I have any scruple about telling it? Merely because my
friend had written it from hearsay? Whereas I knew her; I saw her on
her death-bed. Chance made me her natural historian. Now I think that
every one will accept my excuses, and will acquit me of plagiarism.
I see the Rougon-Macquart series, each volume presented to him by the
author, Goncourt, Huysmans, Duranty, Ceard, Maupassant, Hennique,
etc.; in a word, the works of those with whom I grew up, those who
tied my first literary pinafore round my neck. But here are "Les
Moralites Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by
Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I
suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their
authors do not visit here.
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