THE KISS TO THE
LEPER
BY
FRANÇOIS MAURIAC
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
JAMES WHITALL
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD.
First published 1923.
TO
LOUIS ARTUS
His Admirer and Friend
F. M.
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
FRANÇOIS MAURIAC published his first book in1909. It is a collection of poems, and bears the title, Les MainsJointes. Mauriac was then twenty-one years old, and the little volumedrew forth enthusiastic praise from Maurice Barrès in L'Echo deParis. The following year brought his second book of verse, L'Adieuà l'Adolescence; and in 1913 and 1914 his first two novels appeared,L'Enfant chargé de Chaînes and La Robe Prétexte. Soon afterthe war he had two more novels, La Chair et le Sang andPréséances, to his credit, and in 1922 M. Grasset published LeBaiser au Lépreux in his Cahiers Verts, that interesting seriesof little books which includes Hémon's Maria Chapdelaine and theFrench versions of Logan Pearsall Smith's Trivia and GeorgeMoore's Memoirs of My Dead Life.
Le Baiser au Lépreux achieved an immediate success, the French pressbeing almost unanimous in its declaration that a masterpiece had beenwritten; and Mauriac was at once accorded a place with Giraudoux,Larbaud, and Morand in the first rank of his generation.
In the wide sense, Le Baiser au Lépreux is not a masterpiece; itsappeal is to a restricted public, for the theme of the story is aproblem which the ordinary reader does not as a rule care to thinkabout. The situations are often unpleasant, sometimes even repellent,but Mauriac's searching and relentless analysis of the minds of hischaracters has resulted in a fine piece of writing. Simplicity oflanguage, depth of thought, and acuteness of observation are itsdistinguishing qualities; less skilful hands would have made little ofa theme which required to be treated with the greatest reticence, butMauriac's method is one of extreme economy and non-insistence; and,being himself a product of that bleak arid country of heather and pines,he has been able to give his tragic picture