The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
1881
Sylvestre Bonnard is seventy-three years old, a revered scholar whose life has been spent among manuscripts rather than people. He lives alone in his Paris apartment with his cat Hamilcar, content in his solitary devotion to ancient texts, until a rare medieval manuscript, the Golden Legend, enters his life and upends everything. His search for the volume takes him from the dim libraries of Paris to the sun-drenched shores of Sicily, where he encounters a young woman whose fate becomes inextricably bound to his own. What follows is a peculiar, tender tale: an elderly man committing acts of dubious legality in service of love and justice. France crafted a bittersweet meditation on loneliness, the redemptive power of affection, and the quiet madnesses that drive collectors of precious things. Beneath its surface charm lies a sharp, ironic intelligence that skewers academic pretension while celebrating the strange salvation found in books and in human connection, however late it arrives.
Editions
X-Ray
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.””
— Anatole France
“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.””
— Anatole France
“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. ””
— Anatole France
“I have always preferred the folly of the passions to the wisdom of indifference. But just because my own passions are not of that sort which burst out with violence to devastate and kill, the common mind is not aware of their existence. Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by them at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schöffer. And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are Me. I am just as old and thumb-worn as they are.””
— Anatole France
“Alas!' replied Maître Mouche, 'she must be trained to take her part in the struggle of life. One does not come into this world simply to amuse oneself, and to do just what one pleases.''One comes into this world,' I responded, rather warmly, 'to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do as one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent, and generous. An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind. It is a teacher's duty to teach the pupil how to will.””
— Anatole France
“The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious””
— Anatole France
“You see, Dimitri and I, we are both suffering from ennui! We have still the match-boxes. But at last one gets tired even of match-boxes. Besides, our collection will soon be complete. And then what are we going to do?"'Oh, Madame!' I exclaimed, touched by the moral unhappiness of this pretty person, 'if you only had a son, then you would know what to do. You would then learn the purpose of your life, and your thoughts would become at once more serious and yet more cheerful.''But I have a son,' she replied. 'He is a big boy; he is eleven years old, and he suffers from ennui like the rest of us. Yes, my George has ennui, too; he is tired of everything. It is very wretched.””
— Anatole France
“Within every one of us, there lives both a Don Quixote and a Sancho Panza to whom we hearken by turns; and though Sancho most persuades us, it is Don Quixote that we find ourselves obliged to admire.””
— Anatole France
“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. Nothing exists except that which is imagined.””
— Anatole France
