Diplomat, teacher, British press attaché and spy in Alexandria of Egypt, the elder brother of the animal writer Gerald Durrell, Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) became world famous after the publication of the Alexandria Quartet, which divided English-language criticism into two camps : the first predicted the glory of a new Proust for the author, the second saw in her a literary charlatan. The second novel in the quartet, Balthazar (1958), only added fuel to the fire, destroying the impression among readers and critics that they understood anything in Justine. The romantic love story described in Justine suddenly revealed its detective and political springs in Balthazar, highlighting a completely different meaning in the behavior of its heroes.