is very difficult to put
one's finger on the imponderable, but I may venture to say that it is
Flora de Barral who is really responsible for this novel which relates,
in fact, the story of her life.

At the crucial moment of my indecision Flora de Barral passed before me,
but so swiftly that I failed at first to get hold of her. Though loth to
give her up I didn't see the way of pursuit clearly and was on the point
of becoming discouraged when my natural liking for Captain Anthony came
to my assistance. I said to myself that if that man was so determined to
embrace a "wisp of mist" the best thing for me was to join him in that
eminently practical and praiseworthy adventure. I simply followed
Captain Anthony. Each of us was bent on capturing his own dream. The
reader will be able to judge of our success.

Captain Anthony's determination led him a long and roundabout course and
that is why this book is a long book. That the course was of my own
choosing I will not deny. A critic had remarked that if I had selected
another method of composition and taken a little more trouble the tale
could have been told in about two hundred pages. I confess I do not
perceive exactly the bearings of such criticism or even the use of such
a remark. No doubt that by selecting a certain method and taking great
pains the whole story might have been written out on a cigarette paper.
For that matter, the whole history of mankind could be written thus if
only approached with sufficient detachment. The history of men on this
earth since the beginning of ages may be resumed in one phrase of
infinite poignancy: They were born, they suffered, they died.... Yet it
is a great tale! But in the infinitely minute stories about men and
women it is my lot on earth to narrate I am not capable of such
detachment.

What makes this book memorable to me apart from the natural sentiment
one has for one's creation is the response it provoked. The general
public responded largely, more largely perhaps than to any other book of
mine, in the only way the general public can respond, that is by buying
a certain number of copies. This gave me a considerable amount of
pleasure, because what I always feared most was drifting unconsciously
into the position of a writer for a limited coterie; a position which
would have been odious to me as throwing a doubt on the soundness of my
belief in the solidarity of all mankind in simple ideas and in sincere
emotions. Regarded a