Sir: One of the more attractive incidents in Rayner Heppenstall's
fictionalised chapter of autobiography
Saturnine was when the hero coughed up a worm. Mr Heppenstall has now done it again (Letters, 12 January) in response to my challenge (Letters. 5 January). A good try but it won't really do.
To take his criticisms one by one: (a) Sensible. 'I have now failed to rediscover the "Sensible",' he writes disingenuously. Not surpris- ing.
(h) Afondain. This word has three distinct meanings, given in the following order by the Concise 0Alord French Dictionary: 'Worldly; society (man or
woman); mundane.' Depending on the context, my collaborator (who is abroad) and I translated the word in each of these senses. In the passage to which Mr H takes exception M Jullian is writing of the conflict between Montesquiou's interest in this world (not merely society) and his interest in the next.
(c) Abash. The definition in the COFD runs in its entirety 'abusive; excessive.' But I grant Mr Hep- penstall that one: 'possessive' would have been better.
(d) Misinformation. There is no misinformation in the note referring the reader to Hugo's La Tristesse d'Olympio and Mr Hcppenstall's splendid refer- ences to the Pleiade and Gamier editions of Balzac —I can guess where they came from—seem de- signed merely to obscure the issue. But I suppose that those unaware that Vautrin and Swann, men- tioned in the text, were characters in Balzac and Proust respectively might complain that the note was insufficient. In his original review Mr Heppen- stall in fact wrote of 'misinformation in footnotes' (plural). Care for another try, Mr H?
Incidentally I was touched by Mr H's astonish- ment at learning that Paul Bourget had homosexual inclinations. What would we think of a French re- viewer of, say, a life of Oscar Wilde, who expressed similar astonishment at learning that A. E. Hous- man was an invert?
In the circumstances I am afraid that the BBC Benevolent Fund—how odd that Mr H should never have discovered its existence in his years with the Corporation—will have to wait for its donation.
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