SOURCE: "Preface to Armance," in Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality, Meridian Books, 1959, pp. 260-74.

In the following essay, Gide discusses the theme of impotence in Armance.

To speak properly of Stendhal, one would have to have something of his style. If we take his word for it, he almost always writes out of boredom; but so lively is his pleasure in doing so, that we never share his boredom, but only the pleasure that follows it. There is no struggle; he never says anything excepting when he wants to; that is, with the least effort. As others yield to idleness, he gives himself over to thought. When he is logical, he is naturally so because of a healthy mind; he does not claim to be logical, since he claims nothing; and he amuses us the most when he ceases to be logical, because then he is carried...