In writing La Princesse de Clèves Mme de Lafayette has reduced the novel to a series of scenes in juxtaposition. Each one of the scenes represents the state of mind of the heroine of the novel in its content as well as in its form. The essential trait of the central character is her refusal to accept an encounter with the man she loves, an encounter that would realize her greatest desire. Thus Mme de Lafayette makes each one of the encounters, forced upon the two persons in love by their life within a closed society, an “imperfect encounter”: she places her two characters face to face but withdraws from them an element—on each occasion a different one—of their social or psychological personality. After a series of such “unfinished” confrontations, presented in a dramatic sequence, she makes us understand that the final separation is the necessary conclusion: the perfect encounter could never be attained. (In French)