She is desire at grips with necessity; she is love dashing her blind head against all the obstacles of civilization. But the serpent wears out his teeth and breaks them when he tries to gnaw a file. The powers of the soul become exhausted when they try to struggle against the realities of life. That is the conclusion you may draw from this story, and that was its meaning when it was told to the writer who passes it on to you.

In spite of these protestations, the narrator expects reproaches. Some upright souls, some good men’s consciences, will perhaps be alarmed at seeing virtue so uncouth, reason so sad, and public opinion so unfair. For what a writer should fear most in the world is the alienation from his works of the trust of men of goodwill, the arousal of baneful sympathies in embittered souls, the poisoning of the already acutely painful wounds that the social yoke inflicts on the impatient and rebellious.

The success which is based on a despicable appeal to the passions of a period is the easiest to attain, the least honourable to strive for. The writer of Indiana denies ever having thought of it. If he believed that was his achievement, he would destroy his book, even if he had for it the naive paternal affection which swaddles the current rachitic productions of aborted literature.

But he hopes to justify himself by saying that he believed he served his principles better by real examples than by poetic inventions. He thinks that, with its quality of sad truthfulness, his tale will be able to make an impression on young, ardent minds. They will find it difficult to mistrust a historian who forces his way roughly through the midst of the facts, elbowing to right and left with no more consideration for one camp than for the other. To make a cause odious or ridiculous is to persecute it but not to fight against it. Perhaps the whole of the story-teller’s art consists of interesting in their own stories the guilty whom he wants to reclaim, the wretched whom he wants to cure.

It would give too much importance to a work, destined no doubt to receive little attention, to want to save it from every accusation. So the author gives himself up entirely into the hands of the critics. Only one complaint seems to him too serious to be accepted, that is the one of having intended to write a dangerous book. He would prefer to remain obscure for ever, rather than to build his reputation on a ruined conscience. So he will add yet another word to refute the blame he most dreads.

Raymon, you will say, is society; his egoism is morality, is reason. Raymon, the author will reply, is the false reason, the false morality by which society is governed. He is the honourable man as the world understands it, because the world does not examine closely enough to see everything. The good man is there beside Raymon, and you cannot say he is the enemy of order, for he sacrifices his happiness, he abnegates his own interests before all questions of social order.

Then you will say that you have not been shown virtue in a striking enough way. Alas! The reply will be that the triumph of virtue is only to be seen nowadays at the boulevard theatres. The author will tell you that he has not undertaken to show you society as virtuous but as necessary, and that honour has become as difficult as heroism in these days of moral decadence. Do you think that this truth gives great souls an aversion for honour? I think quite the opposite.

PREFACE TO THE 1842 EDITION

IF I have allowed the pages you have just read to be reprinted, it is not because they sum up in a clear, complete way the beliefs I have reached today about society’s rights over individuals. It is only because I look on opinions freely expressed in the past as something sacred which we ought neither to decry nor tone down, nor try to interpret as we please. But today, after travelling further in life and seeing the horizon widen around me, I believe I ought to tell the reader what I think of my work.

When I wrote Indiana, I was young; I was obeying very strong, sincere feelings which overflowed into a series of novels, almost all based on the same theme: the ill-organized relationship between the sexes due to the constitution of society. These novels were all more or less blamed by the critics for making unwise attacks on the institution of marriage. In spite of the limited scope and naïve hesitancy of its views, Indiana did not escape the indignation of several so-called serious minds whom, at that time, I was very much inclined to take at their word and listen to obediently. But although my reason was scarcely developed enough to write on such a serious subject, I was not so much of a child as to be unable to judge, in my turn, the thoughts of those who judged mine. However simple-minded an accused man might be, however capable a magistrate, the accused has quite enough understanding to know if the magistrate’s sentence is just or wrong-headed, wise or absurd.

Certain journalists, who set themselves up nowadays as representatives and keepers of public morality (I do not know by virtue of what mission, since I do not know in the name of what faith), made strict pronouncements against my poor tale and, by presenting it as an argument against social order, gave it an importance and a kind of celebrity which it would not have achieved otherwise. In so doing they gave a very serious and weighty role to a young author barely initiated into elementary social ideas, whose literary and philosophical baggage was only a little imagination, courage, and love of truth. Sensitive to these reproaches and almost grateful for the lessons these critics were happy to give him, he examined the accusations brought before public opinion against the morality of his ideas, and thanks to this examination, which he conducted without any pride, he gradually acquired convictions, which at the beginning of his career were still only feelings and which today are principles.

I have had ten years of researches, scruples, and indecision, often painful but always sincere; I have shunned the role of schoolmaster, which some attributed to me to make me ridiculous; I have loathed the imputation of pride and anger, with which others have pursued me to make me odious; I have proceeded, according to my artistic ability, by analysing life to search for its synthesis; and so I have related facts which have sometimes been recognized as plausible, and depicted characters whom, it has often been agreed, I knew how to study with care.