INTRODUCTION
GEORGE EEKHOUD, the author of this novel, is one of the best known classical writers of modern Belgium. This is saying a great deal; for Belgium was never able to point to such a splendid galaxy of nearly perfect scribesmen as at the present time. By "classical" I mean writers whose names are pretty sure to go down with honour and acclamation to posterity; writers like Maurice Maeterlinck, Camille Lemonnier, Emile Verhaeren, Edmond Picard and Albert Giraudy to say nothing of many others, more or less well known, victorious toilers in the arduous paths of chastened expression, tireless sowers in the fields of thought.
The intellectual peer of the famous men whose names we have just mentioned, George Eekhoud well deserves the celebrity he has won. He is the author of numerous worlds that are justly honoured by the cultivated and the discerning in all French-speaking lands, for the
