From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Related words and phrases.
Intéresser can mean engaging someone’s concern on another person’s behalf, not simply entertaining them or supplying intellectually interesting material. Rochemaure wants to intéresser Gamelin à a suspect she knows: to enlist the juror’s interest, with a view to helping that person. The related adjective intéressante has a particularly consequential local sense in Gamelin’s later inward speech. He thinks the Père Duchesne’s filthy slanders made even Antoinette an object of sympathy. The supplied translation rightly makes that sympathetic response explicit rather than merely calling her ‘interesting’. The qualification elle-même, ‘even her’, marks the surprising object of concern within Gamelin’s hostile political categories. The judgment about the slanders is his, not an unqualified pronouncement by the narrator. These occurrences concern solicitude and sympathy; they do not make those senses interchangeable with every ordinary use of interest.
Places to read
- Chapter XI, paragraph 1Frenchqu’elle voulait intéresser à quelque suspect de sa connaissance: whose interest she wanted to enlist on behalf of a suspect she knew. The narrator explains Rochemaure’s purpose in approaching juror Gamelin. The concern sought is directed toward a particular person’s situation, not toward an entertaining subject.
- Chapter XX, paragraph 3Frenchrendirent Antoinette elle-même intéressante: made even Antoinette an object of sympathy. This is Gamelin’s inward denunciation of Père Duchesne. The French adjective is feminine singular, agreeing with Antoinette; the English expands its local emotional sense rather than translating it mechanically as ‘interesting’.