When I came to Mauriac, he accepted to see me. The problem was that he was in love with Jesus. He was the most decent person I ever met in that field — as a writer, as a Catholic writer. Honest, sense of integrity, and he was in love with Jesus. He spoke only of Jesus. Whatever I would ask — Jesus. Finally, I said, “What about Mendès-France?” He said that Mendès-France, like Jesus, was suffering. That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted, at one point, to speak about Mendès-France, and I would say to Mauriac, can you introduce me? When he said Jesus again I couldn’t take it, and for the only time in my life I was discourteous, which I regret to this day. I said, “Mr. Mauriac” — we called him Maître — “ten years or so ago, I have seen children, hundreds of Jewish children, who suffered more than Jesus did on his cross and we do not speak about it.” I felt all of a sudden so embarrassed. I closed my notebook and went to the elevator. He ran after me. He pulled me back; he sat down in his chair, and I in mine, and he began weeping. I have rarely seen an old man weep like that, and I felt like such an idiot. I felt like a criminal. This man didn’t deserve that. He was really a pure man, a member of the Resistance. I didn’t know what to do. We stayed there like that, he weeping and I closed in my own remorse. And then, at the end, without saying anything, he simply said, “You know, maybe you should talk about it.” He took me to the elevator and embraced me. And that year, the tenth year, I began writing my narrative. After it was translated from Yiddish into French, I sent it to him. We were very, very close friends until his death. That made me not publish, but write.