Translator’s introduction: In this chapter the narrator—who claims to be a writer, but never writes—has once again postponed work on his novel, Morasses, this time to attend a salon for men of letters at the home of his good friend Angèle. Gide used the scene as an opportunity to mock the literary world of his day. Readers can look for a caricature of Gide’s correspondent and sometime traveling companion Oscar Wilde, here given the name Valentin Knox.

Morasses

On the days she receives guests,