The author had thought of qualifying this book: A Novel WithoutHypocrisy; but he reflected that these words might appear unseemly,since hypocrisy is becoming more and more fashionable.
He next thought of: A Physiological Novel; but that was still worsein this age of great converts, when grace from on high so opportunelypurifies the petty human passions.
These two sub-titles being barred, nothing was left; he has thereforeput nothing.
A novel is a novel. And it would be no more than that if the authorhad not attempted, by an analysis that knows no scruples, to reveal inthese pages what may be called the seamy side of a "virgin heart" toshow that innocence has its instincts, its needs, its physiologicaldues.
A young girl is not merely a young heart, but a young human body, allcomplete.
Such is the subject of this novel, which must, in spite of everything,be called "physiological."
R. G.
The terrace was in a ruinous state, over-grown with grass and bramblesand acacias. The girl was leaning on the Parapet, eating mulberries.She displayed her purple-stained hands and laughed. M. Hervartlooked-up.
"You've got a moustache as well," he said. "It looks very funny."
"But I don't want to look funny."
She walked to the little stream flowing close at hand, wetted herhandkerchief and began wiping her mouth.
M. Hervart's eyes returned to his magnifying glass; he went onexamining the daisy on which he had two scarlet bugs so closely joinedtogether that they seemed a single insect. They had gone to sleep inthe midst of their love-making, and but for the quivering of theirlong antennæ, you would have thought they were dead. M. Hervart wouldhave liked to watch the ending of this little scene of passion; but itmight go on for hours. He lost heart.
"What's more," he reflected, "I know that the male does not die on thespot; he goes running about in search of food as soon as he's free.Still, I would have liked to see the mechanism of separation. That willcome with luck. One must always count on luck, whether one is studyinganimals or men. To be sure, there is also patience, perseverance...."
He made a little movement with his head signifying, no doubt, thatpatience and perseverance were not in his line. Then, very gently helaid the flower with its sleeping burden on the parapet of the terrace.It was only then he noticed that Rose was no longer there.
"I must have annoyed her by what I said about the moustache. It wasn'ttrue, either. But there are moments when that child gets on my nerveswith that look of hers, as though she wanted to be kissed. And yet, ifI did so much as to lay my hand on her shoulder, I should get my facesmacked. A curious creature. But then all women are curious creatures,girls above all."
Carefully wiping his glass, M. Hervart stepped across the stream andentered the wood.
M. Hervart was about forty. He was tall and thin; sometimes, when hiscuriosity had kept him poring over something for too long at a stretchhe stooped a little. His eyes were bright and penetrating, despite thefact that one of them had, it would seem, been narrowed and shrunk bythe use of the microscope. His clear-complexioned face, with its lightpointed beard, was pleasant, without being striking.
He was the keeper of the department of Greek sculpture at the Louvre,but the cold beauty of the marbles interested him little, andarchæology even less. He was a lover of