SOURCE: "Introduction," in The Pink and the Green, Followed by Mina de Vanghel, by Stendhal, New Directions, 1988, pp. vii-xi.

In the following essay, Déon examines the character of Mina as depicted in The Pink and the Green and "Mina de Vanghel."

The writer, too, knows the state of grace. At the start of his books, it governs his docile characters who readily believe that their author will lead them toward a "happy end." In this new world—entirely new—he creates at will certain faces, certain characters. But the state of grace cannot always persist. It is generally brief. Creatures born of the imagination rebel, difficulties accumulate, the author realizes he has followed paths that lead nowhere. At least . . . nowhere for the moment: often a little patience, a little time allow him to find the key to apparently insoluble situations.

Stendhal had no patience whatever, and his...