The innocent, wayward, positive, romantic little Pierre Noziere[4] is a
human being to a degree to which no other figures in the master's comedy
of unreason are. And it is evident that Anatole France himself finds him
by far the most attractive of them all. He can almost persuade himself,
at moments, that he still is the child he was, as in the exquisite story
of how, when he had been to a truly royal chocolate shop, he attempted
to reproduce its splendours in play. At one point his invention and his
memory failed him, and he turned to his mother to ask: 'Est-ce celui qui
vend ou celui qui achete qui donne de l'argent?'
'Je ne devais jamais connaitre le prix de l'argent. Tel j'etais a
trois ans ou trois ans et demi dans le cabinet tapisse de boutons de
roses, tel je restai jusqu'a la vieillesse, qui m'est legere, comme
elle l'est a toutes les ames exemptes d'avarice et d'orgueil. Non,
maman, je n'ai jamais connu le prix de l'argent. Je ne le connais
pas encore, ou plutot je le connais trop bien.
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