Victor Hugo. All the newspapers are full of his name and he is the great
topic of conversation in all drawing-rooms. Fifteen years ago I had
occasion several times to meet Algernon Charles Swinburne. I will attempt
to show him just as I saw him and to give an idea of the strange
impression he made on me, which will remain with me throughout time.

I believe it was in 1867 or in 1868 that an unknown young Englishman came
to Etretat and bought a little but hidden under great trees. It was said
that he lived there, always alone, in a strange manner; and he aroused
the inimical surprise of the natives, for the inhabitants were sullen and
foolishly malicious, as they always are in little towns.

They declared that this whimsical Englishman ate nothing but boiled.
roasted or stewed monkey; that he would see no one; that he talked to
himself hours at a time and many other surprising things that made people
think that he was different from other men. They were surprised that he
should live alone with a monkey. Had it been a cat or a dog they would
have said nothing. But a monkey! Was that not frightful? What savage
tastes the man must have!

I knew this young man only from seeing him in the streets. He was short,
plump, without being fat, mild-looking, and he wore a little blond
mustache, which was almost invisible.

Chance brought us together. This savage had amiable and pleasing manners,
but he was one of those strange Englishmen that one meets here and there
throughout the world.

Endowed with remarkable intelligence, he seemed to live in a fantastic
dream, as Edgar Poe must have lived. He had translated into English a