# 22 EXPRESSION

Henri finally came to the conclusion that the book owed its success simply to minsunderstandings. Lambert believed he had meant to exalt individualism through collective action, and Lechaume, on the other hand, believed it preached the sacrifice of the individual to collectivism. Everyone emphasized the book's moral character. And yet Henri…had thought of a man and of a situation, of a certain relationship between that man's past life and the crisis through which he was passing, and of a great many other things which none of the critics had mentioned. Was it his fault or the readers'? The public, Henri was forced to conclude, had liked a completely different book from the one he believed he was offering them. —Simone de Beauvior