Mountolive (1958) NOTE

All the characters and situations described in this book (a sibling to Justine and Balthazar and the third volume of a quartet) are purely imaginary. I have exercised a novelist’s right in taking a few necessary liberties with modern Middle Eastern history and the staff-structure of the Diplomatic Service.

The dream dissipated, were one to recover one’s commonsense mood, the thing would be of but mediocre import — ’tis the story of mental wrongdoing. Everyone knows very well and it offends no one. But alas! one sometimes carries the thing a little further. What, one dares wonder, what would not be the idea’s realization if its mere abstract shape thus exalted has just so profoundly moved one? The accursed reverie is vivified and its existence is a crime.

D. A. F. DE SADE: Justine
Il faut que le roman raconte.