I was reading Faguet, Brunetière, and Jules Lemaître; I would sniff the fragrance of the lawns and feel I was as emancipated as the university students who strolled through the gardens. I would pass through the gates and go and rummage round the arcades of the Odéon; I felt the same thrill of delight there as I had felt at the age of ten in my mother’s circulating library, the Bibliothèque Cardinale. Here there were displayed rows of leather-bound books, gilt-edged; their pages had been cut, and I would stand there reading for two or three hours without ever being asked to buy anything. I read
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