The Reinvention of Love

its literary merit.
    I still have great stacks of the book in a cupboard in my bedroom. Sometimes, late at night, when I am feeling particularly melancholy, I unlock the cupboard and look at the neat rows, the spines so uniform, the yellow paper of the cover so crisp and clean. I run my hands over the volumes, feeling the small indentwhere one copy ends and another begins. My masterpiece, like the great love that inspired it, is not allowed out in public. It remains hidden. I visit it at night, clandestinely, with the same excitement that I used to rendezvous with Adèle.

I HAVE BEEN INVITED INTO the prestigious Académie française.
    Well, actually, it wasn’t really that simple.
    Let me explain.
    The Académie française was established by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 as an institutional body to oversee the use of the French language. There are forty seats. Members are elected for life, and when a seat falls vacant, one may apply to occupy it. There is an election and the successful candidate must deliver a speech eulogizing the dead man whose seat he will be taking. He is given a green jacket and ceremonial sword and is then welcomed with a reception speech given by another member of the Académie.
    Aside from the prestige, there are practical reasons for being a member of the Académie. First, I will be able to charge more for any articles I write. Second, my book sales will increase. I could also be appointed to the Commission that works on the dictionary of the French language. It would be so satisfying not only to use the words of my language, but to control the words themselves.
    So, when a seat becomes available, I put myself forward as a candidate.
    Unfortunately, Victor is already a fellow of the Académie and he tries to block my membership by nominating Vigny, Dumas and Balzac. I campaign as best I can, soliciting the other members for their votes, but I fail.
    It is deeply humiliating.
    But shortly after, another seat becomes available when Casimir Delavigne dies, and I am encouraged to put my name forward again.
    This time I am successful.
    I am to occupy seat number twenty-eight, which is thankfully nowhere near Victor, who is in seat number fourteen on the other side of the room. But he is seconded to deliver my reception speech, and although he postpones doing it for the better part of a year, he can’t put it off forever, and on February 27, 1845, we both arrive at the Académie with what, I’m sure, is a mutual feeling of dread.
    I wear the green uniform (which I rather like) and even strap on the ceremonial sword, although it bangs against my leg in a most annoying manner when I walk.
    The room is crowded, overcrowded in fact. I have difficulty in securing a seat for George.
    “There are so many spectators,” she says. “Because everyone in Paris knows that there is no love lost between you and Victor, and we can’t wait to hear what he will say about you.”
    I sit down in my seat. Victor stands up in his. The crowd murmurs and hushes. My sword presses against my leg, cutting off the circulation below my knee.
    Victor is older and fatter now, as am I. He has a beard and stands with his chest pushed out, clearing his throat before he begins to talk. It is not as I had feared, and I realize now that Victor cannot condemn me in this place. I have been elected a member, and it would be extremely bad form to insult me in front of the other members. He has his own image to think of. But he does not praise me highly either. While he says some nice things about my work, he lavishes his most passionate oration on the physicality of the books themselves.
    “The bindings of Sainte-Beuve’s books are exquisite,” he says. “The best Moroccan leather, and gilt-edged as well. Noexpense has been spared in bringing his words to the public.”
    He sits down. There is tepid applause. Afterwards, he finds me in the lobby outside the meeting room.
    “I hope you are happy,” he says. “Taking yet another thing from me.”
    “Victor, you don’t own the Académie. Only seat number fourteen.”
    In our green jackets, decorated with laurel leaves, we look like stout forest people about to scavenge for nuts.
    “You ape me,” he says. “You want to be me.”
    “No, I don’t. Have you forgotten it was my praise of your poems that made your name?”
    There is a flicker of something on Victor’s face. Sympathy perhaps. No, pity. No, disgust.
    “Can’t you see, Charles,” he says, “that I didn’t