"Good! forget the lot."

"Really?"

"Read Homer as representative of antiquity; Virgil among the Latin poets; Dante in the Middle Ages. I am giving you giants' marrow to feed on."

"And among the moderns?"

"Ronsard, Mathurin, Régnier, Milton, Goethe, Uhland, Byron, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and especially a little volume which has just been published by Latouche."

"What is the name of it?"

"André Chénier."

"I have read it...."

"You have read Marie-Joseph.... Do not confuse Marie-Joseph with André."

"But how am I to read foreign authors when I do not know either Greek or English or German?"