Possibly Second-Rank

A Certain Smile, by Françoise Sagan. Translated by Anne Green. 128 pp. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. $2.95

The essential love story, as Colette once observed, may be recorded in three lines: “He loved me; I loved Him; His presence overwhelmed all others. We were happy. Then He stopped loving me and I suffered….” No outside elements—no warring Capulets, or falling empires, or outraged cuckolds—are needed to shatter the perfect union. Only the imperfect nature of the human creatures involved, who are inconstant, frivolous, afraid, and only rarely able to impose a larger discipline than their own appetites on their aging lives.

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Roger Becket

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A Certain Smile, by Françoise Sagan. Translated by Anne Green. 128 pp. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. $2.95

The essential love story, as Colette once observed, may be recorded in three lines: “He loved me; I loved Him; His presence overwhelmed all others. We were happy. Then He stopped loving me and I suffered….” No outside elements—no warring Capulets, or falling empires, or outraged cuckolds—are needed to shatter the perfect union. Only the imperfect nature of the human creatures involved, who are inconstant, frivolous, afraid, and only rarely able to impose a larger discipline than their own appetites on their aging lives.