The Sacrificial Altar

“No. I shall write the novel. The dramatic form does not appeal to me.”

“Ah! Yes. I am not surprised. Your style is certainly more narrative—descriptive. But to be a novelist, my son, you must have seen a great deal of life. You must know the great world—unless—perhaps—you contemplate writing romance?”

Again the delicate lip opposite curled, and Louis almost choked over his morsel of duck. “Romance? No, Monsieur. I am a realist by temperament and mental habit. Nor do I need the great world. Only one thing interests me—crime.”

“Crime? Mon Dieu!” The amiable merchant almost choked in his turn, although he savored his duck more slowly than his Lycee guest. “Crime! But you are too young, my son, to be interested in anything so grim. Life is to enjoy. And how can you enjoy with your mind like a morgue?”

“We are not all made to enjoy in the same fashion. I enjoy intensely reading through old volumes of criminal records and trials—my master in psychology has kindly arranged that I shall have access to them. And I read with the greatest interest the details of current criminology. I shall never care for society, for I am too timid and dislike women. But I love the lonely grandeur of nature, and music, and great books and pictures. Have no fear, Monsieur, my mind is not polluted. It is purely scientific, this interest; the psychology of crime happens to appeal to my peculiar gifts.”

“But—that is it—your gifts are literary—but yes! I do not like the idea of wasting them on that lamentable subdivision of human society which one ignores save when held up by a footpad. With but few exceptions it has appealed only to the inferior order of writing talent. Even in France the masters do not condescend. With them crime is an incident, not a motif.”

“Has it occurred to you, Monsieur, that without the pioneers—”

“Oh yes, perhaps—but you—”

“I am young and unknown? Of what author has that not at least once been said? I purpose to write novels—not mere stories—in which character and life shall be revealed in the light of the boldest and the subtlest crimes—murder preferably—and executed in a form and style above cavil—I hope! Oh, I hope! Moreover, I shall write my books in two languages—I have taken special courses in English. In that, too, I shall be unique.”

“Be careful of that style of yours, my son. It is growing a little too academic, and I, a Frenchman, say that! It would do for the essay, and win the praise of the expiring generation of critics, and the younger but non-creative formalists, but I infer you wish to be read by the public. You would also make money as well as achieve fame. Is it not?”

“Quite so. My father wishes that I live until I am thirty in California and vote—I, mon Dieu! But I shall follow his wishes. Then I shall buy a chateau here in France, for our chateaux are incomparable in beauty. Fame, but yes. It would make my nostrils quiver. But all that is as nothing to the joy of writing. Then my soul almost sings. I am almost happy, but not quite.”