BY ANATOLE FRANCE
The gentle Anatole France, with "vast learning worn with an almost mocking air," conserver of pure, unaffected French, chief of the school inaugurating the sociological novel, the fiction of ideas, was born at Paris in 1844. Since his first attempt at verse, he has written only in prose, "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," in 1881, giving him at once his place in literature and winning a crown from the Academy. Besides "Thäis," a masterpiece of color and construction, he has written volumes of contemporary criticism and history—but in all he writes he figures forth the soul of Anatole France, a complex, subtle soul of varied moods, attached to no religion, with sympathy for all. His style, pure as spring water, is flavored with a delicate irony. Anatole France, or Anatole François Thibault, to use his real name, succeeded Jules Claretie on "Le Temps," and in 1896 was elected to the Academy.
Dedicated to
Georges Brandes
PUTOIS
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
Translated by William Patten.
Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.
I
This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of smiles and surprises.