THE AGE FOR LOVE By Paul Bourget
When I submitted the plan of my Inquiry Upon the Age for Love to the editor-in-chief of the Boulevard, the highest type of French literary paper, he seemed astonished that an idea so journalistic—that was his word—should have been evolved from the brain of his most recent acquisition. I had been with him two weeks and it was my first contribution. “Give me some details, my dear Labarthe,” he said, in a somewhat less insolent manner than was his wont. After listening to me for a few moments he continued: “That is good. You will go and interview certain men and women, first upon the age at which one loves the most, next upon the age when one is most loved? Is that your idea? And now to whom will you go first?”
“I have prepared a list,” I replied, and took from my pocket a sheet of paper. I had jotted down the names of a number of celebrities whom I proposed to interview on this all-important question, and I began to read over my list. It contained two ex-government officials, a general, a Dominican father, four actresses, two café-concert singers, four actors, two financiers, two lawyers, a surgeon and a lot of literary celebrities. At some of the names my chief would nod his approval, at others he would say curtly, with an affectation of American manners, “Bad; strike it off,” until I came to the name I had kept for the last, that of Pierre Fauchery, the famous novelist.
“Strike that off,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “He is not on good terms with us.”
“And yet,” I suggested, “is there any one whose opinion would be of greater interest to reading men as well as to women? I had even thought of beginning with him.”
“The devil you had!” interrupted the editor-in-chief. “It is one of Fauchery’s principles not to see any reporters. I have sent him ten if I have one, and he has shown them all the door. The Boulevard does not relish such treatment, so we have given him some pretty hard hits.”
“Nevertheless, I will have an interview with Fauchery for the Boulevard,” was my reply. “I am sure of it.”
“If you succeed,” he replied, “I’ll raise your salary. That man makes me tired with his scorn of newspaper notoriety. He must take his share of it, like the rest. But you will not succeed. What makes you think you can?”
“Permit me to tell you my reason later. In forty-eight hours you will see whether I have succeeded or not.”
“Go and do not spare the fellow.”