"I hardly know. Perhaps in my inmost being I feel I never could be. I am too impulsive, too unrestrained, too shapeless in mind. If I wrote a book it might be interesting, human, heart-felt, true to life, I hope, not stupid, I believe; but it would be a chaos. You—how it would shock your critical mind! I could never select and prune and blend and graft. I should have to throw my mind and heart down on the paper and just leave them there."
"If you did that you might produce a human document that would live almost as long as literature, that even just criticism would be powerless to destroy."
"I shall never write that book, but I dare say I shall live it."
"Yes," he said. "You will live it, perhaps with Monsieur Delarey."
And he smiled.
"When is the wedding to be?"
"In January, I think."
"Ah! When you are in your garden of paradise I shall not be very far off—just across your blue sea on the African shore."
"Why, where are you going, Emile?"
"I shall spend the spring at the sacred city of Kairouan, among the pilgrims and the mosques, making some studies, taking some notes."