He pulls a sheet of paper from his pocket and reads me the draft of his own presentation. The gift of sperm must be anonymous, free of charge, and (here he looks me in the eye) impelled by a threefold love: love for an unknown ovum that seeks to accomplish its mission; the donor's love for his own individuality, which is to be perpetuated by the donation; and, third, love for a couple that is suffering, unfulfilled. Then he looks me in the eye again: much as he admires my work, he does have one criticism: I did not manage to express powerfully enough the moral beauty of the gift of semen. I defend myself: this is a comic novel! My doctor is a crackpot! You shouldn't be taking it all so seriously! "So," he says, suspicious, "your novels aren't meant to be taken seriously?" I am baffled, and suddenly I realize: there is nothing harder to explain than humor.

In The Fourth Book, there is a storm at sea. Everyone is on deck struggling to save the ship. All except Panurge, paralyzed with fear, who just whimpers: his great lamentations go on for pages. When the storm abates, his courage returns and he bawls all of them out for their laziness. And this is what's odd: not only does this coward, this liar, this faker, provoke no indignation, but it is at the peak of his braggadocio that we love him most. These are the passages wherein Rabelais's book becomes fully and radically a novel: that is, a realm where moral judgment is suspended.

Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil. Not that the novelist utterly denies that moral judgment is legitimate, but that he refuses it a place in the novel. If you like, you can accuse Panurge of cowardice, accuse Emma Bovary, accuse Rasti-gnac-that's your business; the novelist has nothing to do with it.