You were fortunate to meet Guy de Maupassant

You were fortunate to meet Guy de Maupassant — I’ve just read his first book, Des vers, poems dedicated to his master, Flaubert. There’s one, ‘Au bord de l’eau’, that’s already him. So you see, what Vermeer of Delft is beside Rembrandt among painters, he is among French novelists beside Zola.