the youngster in love with the aging courtesan at one sitting,
breathlessly, he said. "Not one weakness, not one redundancy,
nothing commonplace!" Why in the world, he wondered, had
none of the critics compared her young hero or villain with
Benjamin Constant's "insupportable" Adolphe? "It's the same
subject in reverse, almost." On the whole this was higher praise
than Proust's, and deservedly higher; for in the three intervening
years Colette had extended and intensified her art. Gide quibbled
also, or rather, he suggested that with his natural uneasiness and
malicious humor, if he took a little more trouble, in all probability
he would find something quibble-worthy. "I'd like to re-read it but
I'm afraid to. What if it were to disappoint me, upon second read-
ing? Oh, quick, let me mail this letter before I consign it to the
waste-basket!"

It is pleasant and, I think, appropriate to begin with a glance at
these two little documents of literary history. For, now that the
inditers are both dead and gone, Colette is the greatest living French
fiction-writer.

I know that in critical prose, as a rule, the effect of the superlative,
greatest, is just emotional. It is not really susceptible of analysis, at
least not of proof. Even the comparative, greater, is unhandy in any
limited number of pages, as it calls for some examination of those
who may be thought comparable. Greater than Mauriac? Greater
than Martin du Gard, Jules Romains, Montherlant, Sartre? Yes,
of course. But I have not had the zeal to read or re-read that entire
bookshelf for the present purpose; nor do I imagine that the reader
wants any such thorough and fanatic work. Let me not pretend to
be able to prove anything. Let me peaceably point to those of
Colette's merits, here and there in her work, which I regard as
components of greatness; going upon the assumption that in the
essentials, as to general literary standards, the reader will agree
with me. Easy does it!

As it happens I can claim an uncommon familiarity with all of
Colette's work. This winter, just before the editor of the Permanent
Library offered me this opportunity to pay her my respects, I came

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