"And what are you doing?" enquired Des Hermies. "Working hard?"
"Why, yes. I am digging into the trial of the noble baron de Rais. It will be as tedious to read as to write!"
"And you don't know yet when you will finish your volume?"
"No," answered Durtal, stretching. "As a matter of fact I wish it might never be finished. What will become of me when it is? I'll have to look around for another subject, and, when I find one, do all the drudgery of planning and then getting the introductory chapter written—the mean part of any literary work is getting started. I shall pass mortal hours doing nothing. Really, when I think it over, literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the disgustingness of life."
"And, charitably, it lessens the distress of us few who still love art."
"Few indeed!"
"And the number keeps diminishing. The new generation no longer interests itself in anything except gambling and jockeys."
"Yes, you're quite right. The men can't spare from gambling the time to read, so it is only the society women who buy books and pass judgment on them. It is to The Lady, as Schopenhauer called her, to the little goose, as I should characterize her, that we are indebted for these shoals of lukewarm and mucilaginous novels which nowadays get puffed."
"You think, then, that we are in for a pretty literature. Naturally you can't please women by enunciating vigorous ideas in a crisp style."
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